Sehnsucht

Sehnsucht (“longing”) turned Rammstein into a global phenomenon. “Du hast” and “Engel” became anthems, and the album achieved the unthinkable: a record sung entirely in German certified platinum in the United States, pushed in part by “Du hast” appearing on the Matrix soundtrack.

The album cemented the band’s visual and sonic identity: the tension between the tender and the violent, the wordplay (“du hast” / “du hasst”), the theatricality. It was the record that made the rest of the world learn to sing along in German without understanding a word.

One detail for anyone keeping count: “Engel” was released twice in 1997. First the standard single, on 1 April, then the Fan-Edition on 23 May, which counts as the band’s fourth single in their chronology. It appears above as a single entry.

Recording

Recording began in November 1996 at Temple Studios in Malta. Jacob Hellner produced again, together with the band, and Ronald Prent mixed again.

It reached number 1 in Germany. In 2023 it was certified five times gold there, for more than 1.25 million copies.

The photos are by Gottfried Helnwein, and there are six covers, one per member. The metal frames on their faces are original surgical instruments from the collection of the surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch.