Oomph's! greatest hits CD arrived in the mail yesterday, and Roomie and I listened to it in the car. I wanted to love Oomph! I really did. German is such a fascinating language, and music is one of the easiest ways for me to immerse myself in it and assimilate it into my thought processes. But after enduring some depressingly terrible remixes and execrable synth pop lounge music monstrosities, I have come to the conclusion that while I might like some of their earlier, more metal-oriented music, I will never claim the mantle of an Oomph! fan.
Some lowlights:
-Gekreuzigt '06: Why? The original track was unalloyed metal awesomeness, with great vocals and an infectious groove. Why would you dilute both by crossbreeding first-water metal with tepid techno beats and extraneous bleeps and bloops? Dero has an amazing voice no matter the style in which he chooses to sing, but he chose to Protool it into bland, lifeless oblivion. When you sound better singing the Bob the Builder theme song than you do singing your own work, then you haven't just Done It Wrong, but DONE IT WRONG.
-Brennende Liebe: More milky, vague, Protooled vocals. He croons listlessly over clunking, mid-tempo music best suited to the creamed-corn set. It wouldn't be so bad if he would sing like he meant it, but he sounds like he's too busy calculating his royalty checks to care. The music is alive, but the vocals are dead, as if sung by a zombie or someone so befogged by opiates that they're functioning purely by instinct and muscle memory.
-Der Neue Gott: Another synth-pop, over-produced disaster. When this came on, Roomie said, "Holy shit, what is this, Miami Vice?" and skipped the track.
It's not a total waste of money. "Gott ist ein Popstar", "Traeumst Du", "Sex", and "Ice-Coffin" are fun, eminently-listenable songs, but I can certainly ken why the older Oomph! fans have no use or affection for the newer material. Bands evolve, and they should, but the new sound isn't just divergent from the old; it's so different as to make the band unrecognizable save for its name, and if it were a natural evolution, I would shrug and say that's how it goes, but I rather suspect that the seismic shift in image and sound is an unapologetic attempt to broaden their appeal in the international markets. Why else would Dero go for the wholly unflattering Billy Joe Armstrong look in the 2005-6 photo shoots? Why butcher and bastardize your German catalogue into tortured English approximations that border on the grotesque and blasphemous? And no, I didn't like this gambit when Rammstein did it, either. The English version of "Engel" makes me break out in hives, and "You Hate Me" is what Barbie would scream at Ken just before she peeled out in the Corvette with a fifth between her improbable thighs.
It was such a disappointment. At least I won't have to waste money on the new album.
Some lowlights:
-Gekreuzigt '06: Why? The original track was unalloyed metal awesomeness, with great vocals and an infectious groove. Why would you dilute both by crossbreeding first-water metal with tepid techno beats and extraneous bleeps and bloops? Dero has an amazing voice no matter the style in which he chooses to sing, but he chose to Protool it into bland, lifeless oblivion. When you sound better singing the Bob the Builder theme song than you do singing your own work, then you haven't just Done It Wrong, but DONE IT WRONG.
-Brennende Liebe: More milky, vague, Protooled vocals. He croons listlessly over clunking, mid-tempo music best suited to the creamed-corn set. It wouldn't be so bad if he would sing like he meant it, but he sounds like he's too busy calculating his royalty checks to care. The music is alive, but the vocals are dead, as if sung by a zombie or someone so befogged by opiates that they're functioning purely by instinct and muscle memory.
-Der Neue Gott: Another synth-pop, over-produced disaster. When this came on, Roomie said, "Holy shit, what is this, Miami Vice?" and skipped the track.
It's not a total waste of money. "Gott ist ein Popstar", "Traeumst Du", "Sex", and "Ice-Coffin" are fun, eminently-listenable songs, but I can certainly ken why the older Oomph! fans have no use or affection for the newer material. Bands evolve, and they should, but the new sound isn't just divergent from the old; it's so different as to make the band unrecognizable save for its name, and if it were a natural evolution, I would shrug and say that's how it goes, but I rather suspect that the seismic shift in image and sound is an unapologetic attempt to broaden their appeal in the international markets. Why else would Dero go for the wholly unflattering Billy Joe Armstrong look in the 2005-6 photo shoots? Why butcher and bastardize your German catalogue into tortured English approximations that border on the grotesque and blasphemous? And no, I didn't like this gambit when Rammstein did it, either. The English version of "Engel" makes me break out in hives, and "You Hate Me" is what Barbie would scream at Ken just before she peeled out in the Corvette with a fifth between her improbable thighs.
It was such a disappointment. At least I won't have to waste money on the new album.