Heartbreak (Album)

Heartache
Studio album by
Publication (s)	September 24, 1995
Label (s)	Motor Music
Format (s)	CD , LP , cassette
Genre (s)	New German Hardness
Title (number)	11
running time	49:22
occupation	Singing : Till Lindemann Guitar : Richard Kruspe Guitar: Paul Landers Bass : Oliver Riedel Drums : Christoph Schneider Keyboard : Christian Lorenz
production	Jacob Hellner Carl-Michael Herlöffson Ronald Prent
Studio (s)	Polar Studios, Sweden Jacob Hellners Studio, Sweden
chronology - Heartache Longing (1997)
Single releases August 24, 1995 You smell so good January 8, 1996 sailor April 17, 1998 You smell so good '98 January 15, 2001 ashes to Ashes

Herzeleid is the debut album by the German metal band Rammstein . It was released on September 24, 1995. It entered the charts five times by October 1998 and stayed in the German album charts for a total of 102 weeks. The highest position was sixth.

The album was re-released in 1998 as the North America Edition . The only difference was the cover. This showed summarized photos of the band members, which can be found in the booklet of the Herzeleid album. In addition to the German lyrics, the booklet also contains the French translations of some of the songs.

production

Rammstein's first album was produced under difficult circumstances. The first problem was finding a suitable producer for the album. They wanted to get Greg Hunter on board as a producer, who had previously worked with musicians like Killing Joke and Paul McCartney . But when Rammstein rehearsed, Greg Hunter was hardly enthusiastic and, according to band members, even fell asleep. Then they asked Jacob Hellner , who had produced Clawfinger among other things . He was invited to a concert in December 1994 in Hamburg. When he saw the six live, he spontaneously agreed to produce them. They flew to Sweden to record the album there. The first rehearsals took place in the Polar Studios , which were built by ABBA , but they felt uncomfortable there and after a week moved to Jacob Hellner's private studio.

After three months the recordings were ready and it was time to mix. Mixing was left to Hellner and his mixer and assistant Carl-Michael Herlöffson. Richard Kruspe was the only one who was present at the mixing. Since he did not like the result, he decided to convene an emergency meeting in Berlin. The rest of the band members, producer Jacob Hellner, manager Emanuel Fialik and representatives of the record company Motor Music were present. They decided to swap the Carl-Michael Herlöffson mixer for Ronald Prent from the Netherlands. After this change things went better again, Rammstein were very satisfied and they released their first album in September 1995.

Artwork

Herzeleid has a flower on the front cover that is reminiscent of flames that Rammstein like to conjure up at their concerts. A similar flower is shown on the cover of the single Du riechst so gut '98 . In the foreground the group can be seen with naked, oiled torsos. In addition to the lyrics (partly in French), the booklet contains portraits of each of the six group members.

The cover was heavily criticized in the press. In a 1997 interview with the music broadcaster Viva, Rammstein keyboardist Christian “Flake” Lorenz reported that newspapers had written in response to the cover that the band would portray themselves as gentlemen . Rammstein were appalled by this claim, which they rejected as unjustified. In his book In the Beginning Was Fire - The Rammstein Story , author Ulf Lüdeke quotes a review of a record that, according to him, appeared in the magazine Musikexpress / Sounds in October 1995 as follows:

"Apart from the fact that German national, pounding proletarian rock with pronounced crossover potential has never sounded particularly inviting, one thing in particular makes the band unbearable: their lyrics peppered with rolling R, dull violent metaphors and shocking statements of violence."

Singer Till Lindemann later described the cover in an interview as "Broilerfoto" (" Broiler " east German roast chicken). Richard Kruspe added that the pictures were taken in a parking lot without thinking about the consequences.

success

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

Heartache   DE 6th 10/23/1995 (110 weeks)   AT 11 06/01/1997 (20 weeks)   CH 20th 07/20/1997 (13 weeks)

Singles

You smell so good '98   DE 16 06/08/1998 (10 weeks)

The album entered the German charts at number 99 in the 43rd calendar week of 1995. Only after the release of the second album Sehnsucht did it reach the highest position 6. Herzeleid stayed in the German Top 100 for 110 weeks. For more than 500,000 sales, the band received a platinum record in Germany. In Austria and Switzerland it was enough for places 11 and 20. In the Netherlands and France it also climbed to places 72 and 85.

The first two single releases Du smell so good and Seemann from 1995 and 1996 remained without chart success. The re-release of Du riechst so gut in 1998 reached number 16. In Australia in 2001 they also released the single Asche zu Asche .

Track list

#	title	length
1	Do you want to see the bed on fire?	5:17
2	The master	4:08
3	White meat	3:35
4th	ashes to Ashes	3:51
5	sailor	4:48
6th	You smell so good	4:49
7th	The old sorrow	5:44
8th	Marry me	4:44
9	Heartache	3:41
10	Spawning season	4:20
11	Rammstein	4:25

On the South Korean version, the song The old suffering is not in the track list, but is included on the CD itself. There are some early pressings on which the words "school yard" and "kill" were censored with beeps in the song Weisses Fleisch .

Information on individual songs

Do you want to see the bed on fire?

Occasional samples from the computer game Doom are incorporated into the piece , especially a scream from the character and the loading of a shotgun.

The song was featured by the Excrementory Grindfuckers in 2004 on their album Ready, Scene Cleaning! parodied under the title Neue Deutsche Soziale Höte.

White meat

The song begins with the words:

You, in the schoolyard -
me, ready to kill
and nobody here knows
about my loneliness

This song can also be found on the demo tapes from 1994/95.

ashes to Ashes

→ Main article : Ashes to ashes (song)

( Audio sample ^{? / I} ) Synthesizer figure in Rammstein's song Asche zu Asche

At Asche zu Asche , Rammstein mixes metal with electronic music and sound effects. Hard guitar riffs play throughout the song, which alternate with a synthesizer pattern underlaid with long sustained basic notes (H - A - G).

The song was only released as a single in Australia in 2001. The accompanying video was the same live recording as on the VHS or DVD Live from Berlin .

sailor

→ Main article : Sailor (song)

Seemann is Rammstein's first ballad. The song divides into two parts. Quiet melodies can be heard in the stanzas, and finally Rammstein's typical electric guitar riffs can be heard in the refrains.

The video shows a prostitute and the band members pulling a stylized ship through a desert. The video was shot in Hamburg under the direction of Lazlo Kadar .

The song was from 2003 Nina Hagen and Apocalyptica gecovert .

Seemann can be heard under the name "Sailor" on the band's 1994 6-track demo.

You smell so good

→ Main article : You smell so good

You smell so good was also included on the demo tape that Rammstein submitted for the Berlin Senate competition , but at that time it still had English lyrics.

You smell so good was published twice: once on August 24, 1995, and again on April 17, 1998, because the single was not well received when the single was first released in 1995.

The old sorrow

This rather quiet song was on the demo tape along with three other songs, back then with English lyrics. The old suffering originally had the working title "Hello Hello". In the course of the song a child can be heard screaming.

Marry me

The song is about a necrophile whose wife died a year ago. During the night he digs up his wife's body in order to have sexual intercourse with her. The first syllable of the title is repeated three times in the refrain ("Hei-, Hei-, Hei!"), Which was interpreted by some critics as "Heil, Heil, Heil!", Whereupon Rammstein without further evidence and contrary to his own statement were often portrayed as right-wing extremists or National Socialists.

Heartache

This song, underpinned by instruments, repeats an old saying that is often found on wedding greeting cards. Almost every syllable is spoken individually:

Save each other from heartache,
because the time
you are together is short .

For even if you are united for many years,
one day they will seem like minutes to you.

Save each other from togetherness,

heartache!

Rammstein

→ Main article : Rammstein (song)

According to Christoph Schneider , the song marks the birth of the band. The text is the only one that was written by all members together. It was created in a village pub in Hohen Viecheln , the then home of Till Lindemann . The song itself is about the flight conference accident in Ramstein , which claimed 70 lives in 1988, and while writing together, the musicians were guided by their spontaneous associations with what was happening.

trip

Even before the album was released, Rammstein repeatedly had smaller concerts. They had their first tour after the Herzeleid release in October 1995 as the opening act for Project Pitchfork . Abroad, they played for the first time in the opening act for Clawfinger in Warsaw (Poland) and Prague (Czech Republic), and later in Austria and Switzerland. Back in Germany they had their first headlining tour.

In January 1996 it continued with 14 concerts. They played as the opening act for the Ramones on their farewell tour through Germany. Rammstein was invited to London on March 27th for the MTV show Hanging Out , where they played Do you want to see the bed in flames and you smell so good . In the summer they performed at the Bizarre Festival , among others . On September 27th of the same year they had their 100th concert, which was called 100 years of Rammstein . The almost 7000 concert-goers were given a jacket with a logo and later the video of the concert. The opening act consisted of Moby and Bobo & The Berlin Session Orchestra . During the song Heirate mich there was an accident when a burning Rammstein logo fell into the audience. Till Lindemann briefly helped the injured while the other band members continued to play. There were a few slightly injured.

Until the publication of Sehnsucht , Rammstein toured further through Germany, Austria and Switzerland. As in 1996, they also performed at the Bizarre Festival and other major music festivals such as the Pink Pop Festival .

Singles and Videos

You smell so good

• Single release: August 24, 1995
• Video premiere: 1995 (Emanuel Fialik director)

sailor

• Single release: January 8, 1996
• Video premiere: December 1995 (directed by László Kádár)

You smell so good '98

• Single release: April 17th, 1998
• Video premiere: 1998 (directed by Philipp Stölzl )

Rammstein

• Video premiere: 1997 (Pictures from Lost Highway / David Lynch and concert footage 100 Years Rammstein / Emanuel Fialik / Mathilde Bonnefoy; video direction / editing Alexander Herzog / Kai Kniepkamp)

ashes to Ashes

• Single release: January 15, 2001

Awards for music sales

Country / Region	Award	Sales
Awards for music sales (country / region, Award, Sales)
Germany (BVMI)	platinum	(500,000)
Europe (IFPI)	platinum	1,000,000
United States (RIAA)	-	400,000
All in all	2 × platinum	1,400,000

Main article: Rammstein / Awards for Music Sales

Web links

• Criticism from laut.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ alternative cover on amazon.de
2. ↑ teamrock.com: The Story behind their debut album , August 18, 2016, accessed October 4, 2017
3. ↑ Album cover on amazon.de
4. ↑ Viva Jam episode 176: Rammstein original sound from 27:00 min., 1997
5. ↑ Ulf Lüdeke: In the beginning there was fire - The Rammstein story . 1st edition. riva Verlag, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-86883-677-6 , p. 43.
6. ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH
7. ↑ DE: Platinum
8. ↑ DVD Rammstein Videos 1995-2012 , DVD 1, Making-of Rammstein , original sound from 0:20 min., Universal Music Domestic Division, 2012
9. ^ Wolfgang Spahr: Priority Acts. Billboard, December 6, 1997, accessed April 1, 2020 .