Heavy metal umlaut
As metal umlaut (also English: Roeck Doets ) are umlauts in the name of bands that usually the genre Metal attributable designated. Umlauts and other diacritical marks give the (mostly English-language) band name a strange appearance, partly this is supposed to clarify "Germanic hardship". The umlaut is not included in the pronunciation of the name.
development
The arbitrary umlaut in rock music was introduced in 1970 by Blue Öyster Cult . It is unclear whether the guitarist Allen Lanier or the producer and manager Sandy Pearlman came up with the idea, but there is consensus that it was intended to draw attention to the Wagnerian aspects of the music.
Motörhead (1975), Hüsker Dü (1978), Mötley Crüe (1980) and Znöwhite (1981) were the next. The umlaut in “Motörhead” was a creation of the graphic artist who made the cover for their first album: “Because it just looks bad.” ( Lemmy Kilmister , singer and bassist). They kept to their usage - even more: Even the band members sometimes wrote their names with umlaut, e.g. B. "Wizzö" (Phil Campbell) and "Würzel" (Mick Burston) on the album "1916". The umlauts in “Mötley Crüe” are said to come from their favorite drink, Löwenbräu . The umlaut mania was continued by the US metallers Lääz Rockit . With this double variant, the two Trema dots are distributed individually to the double a as an additional highlight, so that the spelling “Lȧȧz Rockit” results. Because this new creation can hardly be represented in general writing, the band usually only uses the umlaut in their official logo. The same problem applies to Queensrÿche , which provided the letter y with two dots . The rare letter is historically derived from the ligature " ij " (cf. rijk for German "Reich"), which is still in use in Dutch today , whose spelling often looked the same as an ÿ. However, the band did not want to appear “harder” by using the symbol, but rather “weaken” the actual band name Queensreich and avoid feared neo-Nazi associations. Underground Zerø extended the language game to the Scandinavian languages , from the Spanish area Mägo de Oz should be mentioned. The synth-rock group The Crüxshadows from Florida also has an umlaut in the band name.
The joke band Spın̈al Tap put the umlaut characters over the N, a consonant (while simultaneously doing without the i-point). This unusual construction can only be found in the Jacalteco language in Guatemala and in Malagasy , one of the official languages in Madagascar.
Outside the metal genre, the French band Magma is also known for their song and album titles with numerous diacritical marks, such as Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh or Üdü Ẁüdü . Umlauts are a characteristic feature of the Kobaïan language used by the band .
Languages with umlauts
Languages such as German , Swedish , Finnish , Estonian , Hungarian or Turkish that use the diacritics describe clearly defined sounds. In contrast to the Anglo-American view of these signs, they do not want to give their vocabulary an emphatic or evil character. In German, umlauts are often used in the diminutive (belittling) (e.g. Blume → Blümchen), thus expressing the opposite of emphatic or evil.
In German, the umlauts of said band names often flow into the pronunciation. For example, visitors to Mötley Crüe's tour of Germany chanted “Möötley Crüü”.
The heavy metal umlaut in popular literature
English-speaking authors in particular like to use these strange characters in scene-related works. In the comic strips from Berkeley Breathed there is the band Deathtöngue , the songs like "Let's run over Lionel Richie with a tank" for the best.
In Jeff Kinney's multi-volume comic novel Greg's Diary , the name of a rock band is "Löded Diper". In addition to the umlaut, two deliberate spelling errors are also used as stylistic devices; the name “Loaded Diaper” should be spelled correctly. In the German translation the band is called "Folle Vindl", the heavy metal umlaut and the resulting pun are lost.
The novella Zodiac by Neal Stephenson also describes the fictional band Pöyzen Böyzen , which describes one person in the book as "not so bad for a band with two umlauts".
In 1997 the satirical magazine The Onion brought out an article entitled " Ünited Stätes Toughens Image With Umlauts ". The article is about an initiative in Congress that proposed that the umlauts in the name represent a quasi-metallic hardness.
The journalist and author Steve Almond called his book "Spandex and umlaut circuit", in which he described everyday touring in the metal business in 2002.
In 2003, rock critic Chuck Klosterman subtitled his book “Fargo Rock City” with “A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural Nörth Daköta”.
The heavy metal umlaut is also used in the title of the console game Brütal Legend , released in 2009 .
Product names and the heavy metal umlaut
In the context of naming , product names with umlauts are frequently brought into being, especially in the USA. The American ice cream brand Häagen-Dazs is the best-known example of foreign branding in marketing . The use of the umlauts together with the double vowel is intended to suggest a Scandinavian origin. Further examples are the British dessert manufacturer Gü or the navigation system nüvi from Garmin . Even with film titles like Brüno , the umlaut only serves to convey strangeness and thus attract attention.
Web links
- Hell Holes: Spın̈al Tap's main man explains the importance of the umlaut (Lisa Gidley, CMJ , 2000)
- The Döts (Dave Krinsky)
- Would you like umlauts with that? (PDF) by Bruce Campbell (79 kB)
- The Heavy Metal Umlaut in the Liff Dictionary ( Memento from July 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Eric Spitznagel: Motley Crue's Vince Neil is Finally Bored With Boobs. In: Vanity Fair. November 27, 2009, accessed December 30, 2015 .
- ↑ http://www.wimpykid.com/
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from February 19, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Katja Gelbrich, Stefan Müller: Foreign-language brand names between xenophilia and xenophobia . In: Thomas Báyón et al. (Ed.): "Diversity and Unity in Marketing Science". Gabler Verlag, 2007, ISBN 3834906441 , p. 59.
- ↑ Gü Desserts
