I recently made two purchases in the music department.  The first is one of the newer albums by the band Rammstein.  The second is one of the Europe-only albums released by the Italian band Eiffel 65. 

You may remember Eiffel 65 from their big American single Blue.  A couple years back, I gave the whole album Europop a chance, and was surprised to find that I liked it quite a bit.  Blue isn't even the best song on the album, in my opinion.   Research showed that they'd done several other albums which never made it big over here, and I'm only now getting around to picking those up.  (They're a little bit tougher to get ahold of, since you can't Itunes them.)

Rammstein, I think, has an undeserved rep.  I mean, sure the lead singer SOUNDS like he's about three seconds away from ripping your heart out with his teeth.  And, true, the gunmen from the school shooting a few years back listed the band as one of their favorite influences.  However, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.  I don't really speak German, but I've decided what a few of the songs are about. 

Puppies.  The guys from Rammstein just really like puppies.  They can't help it if the only way they can express themselves is through heavy-metal-industrial-techno music sung by a guy with the most evil-sounding voice in all of existence.

I mean, look at that publicity photo they released.  That should be enough, right? 

Anyway, both albums are cool.  The Eiffel 65 one is better, I think.  Rammstein is great, but Mutter is still my favorite album of theirs, with Angel being their best single.