by Ashley Smith

Created on: October 21, 2009   Last Updated: October 23, 2009

The song that i would describe as the scariest is German band Rammstein covering Depeche modes "Stripped" The song works on many levels but it is the way it is sung/spoken in a very slow voice with a heavy German accent. The band are famous for singing almost exclusively in their native German and are famous for their incredible live shows. The shows involve numerous special effects, most of them involving fire and explosions. The singer and guitarist uses flame throwing gauntlets, pyrotechnics around the stage regularly belch flame and even the drumsticks catch fire. This is perhaps why this hyper slow song sounds so spooky.

They tend to only sing in English when performing cover versions except for one song "Amerika" which is a mix of English and German. The heavy accent seems to have an effect on the words, even though for a change you know what they mean. Though in reverse when they play to German fans they of course know most of the songs' words bar the Translated ones. It is common for many bands to not sing in their national language and only rarely revert to the tongue they were born with. Think of bands like Abba, Europe, Gloria Estefan and Shakira among many others. Its likely that they did this in order to make money and to become famous, their native languages being far rarer then English. Rammstein have become famous for their stage shows and their catchy music, therefore the singing in a more popular language is left to rare moments like "Stripped"

The song is made of short worded lines in basic choruses. Even so Rammstein change "let me see you stripped to the bone down" to the basic "let me see you stripped". The line is repeated throughout the song in Till's deepest Germanic tones. The music is very quiet and it can sound almost like it is voice only sometimes. The live performance has Till in near darkness with minimal lighting, quite a shock when you consider the rest of the shows content. This is one of the few times when a cover version of a reasonably well known song becomes better with the remake. Listen to it loud and in a darkened room, very spooky and surprisingly scarey. Also while you are there Rammstein is well worth a listen for some of their other songs, they can also be seen as the band playing in the nightclub at the beginning of the film.

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