Aside from a fascination with the idea of killing women, Rammstein has another thing in common with Manson: Both were linked, however dubiously, to the Columbine massacre because the shooters were believed to be fans of their music (although that turned out to not be the case with Manson). In the genre of puerile, unimaginative, attention-seeking rock music, the dead woman motif seems to be experiencing a revival, so to speak. It yanked Manson out of cultural irrelevancy for a fleeting moment of media attention, and last month it helped Rammstein’s album hit No. 2 in Europe and No. 13 in the U.S., a groundbreaking success for the band. Apparently dead women don’t hurt record sales.

– Tracy Clark-Flory

Uh, more precisely, over-the-top pictures of women pretending to be dead on the cover of an album by a band known (by those who have devoted more than two minutes to learning anything about them) for not taking anything seriously, least of all themselves, don’t hurt record sales. I suspect a few actual dead groupies discovered on the bus would put a serious dent in the band’s touring plans, to say the least.

But leaving that aside — the album cover “helped” them get to the top of the charts? How do we know this? Could it be that their fans, who pretty much know what to expect with each new record, just bought it anyway, and would have bought it even if they had pictures of rainbows and unicorns on the cover? And how does one picture constitute a “fascination” with the idea of killing women? Dear gawd, don’t anybody let her hear any Slayer lyrics.
Most of all, I like the gratuitous way she brings up Columbine apropos of nothing while grudgingly allowing that they don’t deserve to be tarred with that; it’s just, you know, she’s just saying. Okay, you might not share my disgust over this sort of thing, so, um, what about this, huh? A couple of psychotic teenagers liked their music too! Who cares if that’s utterly irrelevant? Misogyny and, um, other bad stuff, booga booga!