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Metal umlaut

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The graphic designer added the umlaut to the cover of Motörhead's first album for æsthetic reasons.

A heavy metal umlaut (aka röck döts) is an umlaut over a letter in the name of a heavy metal band. The use of umlauts and other diacritics with a blackletter style typeface is a form of foreign branding intended to give a band's logo a Teutonic quality. It is a form of marketing that invokes stereotypes of boldness and strength commonly attributed to peoples such as the Vikings; author Reebee Garofalo has attributed its use to a desire for a "gothic horror" feel [1]. The heavy metal umlaut is never referred to by the term diaeresis in this usage, nor is it intended to affect the pronunciation of the band's name.

Heavy metal umlauts have been parodied in film and fiction. In the film This Is Spinal Tap (which is spelled with an umlaut over the "n" and a dotless i), David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) opined, "It's like a pair of eyes. You're looking at the umlaut, and it's looking at you." In 2002, Spin magazine referred to the heavy metal umlaut as "the diacritical mark of the beast".

Umlauts and diaereses

The German word Umlaut roughly means changed sound, as it is composed of um- (a prefix often used with verbs involving "change") and Laut, here meaning "sound". Adding an umlaut indeed changes the pronunciation of a vowel in standard (non-heavy metal) usage; the letters u and ü represent distinct sounds, as do o vs. ö and a vs. ä. Umlauts, or visually similar graphemes, are used in several languages, such as Icelandic, German, Swedish, Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Azeri and Turkish. The sounds represented by the umlauted letters in these languages are typically front vowels (front rounded vowels in the case of ü and ö). Ironically, these sounds tend to be perceived as "weaker" or "lighter" than the vowels represented by un-umlautted u, o, and a, thus failing to create the intended impression of strength and darkness.

The English word diaeresis refers to a diacritic graphically similar to the umlaut; the name comes from a Greek word meaning "divide or distinguish". This diacritic is used in languages such as Greek, French, Spanish, Catalan, Dutch, Portuguese, and occasionally English to indicate that two vowels are to be pronounced separately, as in the name "Chloë" or the word "naïve".

History

The progressive rock band Amon Düül II (aka Amon Duul II) released their first album in 1969. However, their name came from "Amon an Egyptian sun god and Düül a character from Turkish fiction" [2], so this use of diaereses was not gratuitous. The third part of Yes's progressive rock epic "Starship Trooper" is entitled "Würm" (on The Yes Album, released 1971). However, this again is probably not gratuitous, seemingly coming from the Würm glaciation.

The first gratuitous use appears to have been by the Blue Öyster Cult in 1970. The band's website states it was added by guitarist and keyboardist Allen Lanier [3], but rock critic Richard Meltzer claims to have suggested it to their producer and manager Sandy Pearlman just after Pearlman came up with the name: "I said, 'How about an umlaut over the O?' Metal had a Wagnerian aspect anyway." [4]

On their second album In Search of Space (1971), Hawkwind wrote on the backside of the cover: "TECHNICIÄNS ÖF SPÅCE SHIP EÅRTH THIS IS YÖÜR CÄPTÅIN SPEÄKING YÖÜR ØÅPTÅIN IS DEA̋D". To add to the variation, the diacritical mark on the last "A̋" is the "Hungarian umlaut" or double acute accent (˝)—two short lines slanting up and to the right rather like a right double-quote mark—instead of dots (Hungarian uses neither the (˝) nor the traditional German umlaut ("Ä") over the letter "A", though). This was before Lemmy Kilmister, later of Motörhead, had become a member of the group.

Motörhead and Mötley Crüe then followed. The umlaut in Motörhead was contributed by the graphic designer of the band's first album cover. In the words of Lemmy, Motörhead's front man: "I only put it in there to look mean." [5] (Interestingly, the standard German pronunciation of Motör is similar to the standard English pronunciation of "motor", the umlaut over the second "o" requiring, in German, the fronting of the vowel. The French equivalent, moteur, is genuinely pronounced that way.) At one Mötley Crüe performance in Germany, the entire audience started chanting "Mertley Crew-e"

File:Spinal Tap logo.jpg
Spinal Tap used the umlaut in an unexpected place — above a consonant.

Queensrÿche went further by putting the umlaut over the Y in their name. (The symbol ÿ is used in Dutch handwriting to display the letter IJ instead of IJ/ij, and, very rarely, in French, e.g., in the Belgian-French composer Eugène Ysaÿe, in the placename L'Haÿ-les-Roses [6], etc.) Queensrÿche frontman Geoff Tate stated, "The umlaut over the 'y' has haunted us for years. We spent eleven years trying to explain how to pronounce it."[7]

Hawkwind-influenced 1980s space-rock band Underground Zerø used a variation on the concept, using the Scandinavian vowel ø in their name. This may have been inspired by computer systems of the time, many of which used the slashed zero as a glyph for the digit 0 to distinguish it from the letter O and thus resembled ø. (This is echoed in the name of the Canadian software company ZerøKnowledge Systems.)

The spoof band Spın̈al Tap raised the stakes in 1984 by using an umlaut over the letter N, a consonant. This is a construction found only in the Jacaltec language of Guatemala and in some orthographies of Malagasy, although it is unlikely that the writers of This Is Spın̈al Tap knew this at the time.

The 1974 film Blazing Saddles included Madeline Kahn's German-accented Marlene Dietrich-style chanteuse character "Lili Von Shtupp" (according in the credits). She is announced on a poster outside the music hall as "Lili von Shtüpp"; the film's characters pronounce the name without any change to the vowel.

In the mid-1980s, cartoonist Berkeley Breathed parodied the heavy metal umlaut in the comic strip Bloom County with the fictional group Deathtöngue, fronted by the depraved and unwholesome singer/'lead tongue' "Wild" Bill Catt and infamous for the songs "Let's Run Over Lionel Richie With a Tank", "Clearasil Messiah" and "U Stink But I Love U". Breathed eventually had Deathtöngue change their name to the umlaut-free Billy and the Boingers following pressure from congressional hearings on "porn rock" led by one "Tippy Gorp", an obvious reference to heavy metal bête noire Tipper Gore and the PMRC. The Bloom County book "Billy and the Boingers Bootleg" included a floppy LP with two songs from "the band", "I'm a Boinger" and "U Stink But I Love U".

In 1988, Jim Henson and General Foods released a breakfast cereal, Cröonchy Stars, based on the popular Swedish Chef muppet. In addition to the gratuitous umlaut in Cröonchy, most of the cereal's labelling and promotional material used the idiosyncratic spelling Swed̈ish Chef. [8] As with Spin̈al Tap, this marks one of the rare instances of an umlaut being used over a consonant.

The novel Zodiac (1988) by Neal Stephenson features a fictional band called Pöyzen Böyzen, which one character describes as "not bad for a two-umlaut band".

In 1997, parody newspaper The Onion published an article called "Ünited Stätes Toughens Image With Umlauts", about a congressional attempt to add umlauts to the name of the United States of America to make it seem "bad-assed and scary in a quasi-heavy metal manner".

Journalist and author Steve Almond coined the term "spandex and umlaut circuit" in 2002 to describe the heavy metal touring scene.

Rock critic Chuck Klosterman subtitled his 2003 book Fargo Rock City with A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural Nörth Daköta.

Webcomic artist Scott Kurtz drew a series of cartoons about a fake band called Djörk in his PvP Online webcomic. Apart from possibly satirizing the heavy metal umlaut, this name also refers to the Icelandic singer/songwriter Björk Guðmundsdóttir, whose umlaut is genuine.

Other usages of diacritics in band or album naming

Umlaut

  • Frank Zappa used an umlaut in the title of the album Läther (the pronunciation approximates to "Leather," and the album cover features a cow)
  • The novelty rock band Green Jellÿ kept the umlaut after changing their name from "Green Jellö"
  • The Scottish NWOBHM band Holocaust spelled their name Hölöcäust on their first 7", "Heavy Metal Mania".
  • The Canadian thrash metal band Infernäl Mäjesty.
  • The Australian thrash/black metal band Deströyer 666.
  • The French black metal band Mütiilation, this umlaut cannot affect pronunciation, as u and ü have the same sounds in French as ü in German.
  • The Florida grindcore band Assück.
  • The Czech death metal band Hypnös formerly known as Hypnos
  • The Melbourne based avant-metal-jam-band Cünt Brigade.
  • The hardcore/ska-punk band Leftöver Crack.
  • Dürty Nelly's Pub, a rock bar in Charlottesville, Virginia.
  • Peoria, Illinois band Mudvayne listed their members on one release as Chüd, Güüg, R-üD and Spüg.
  • Minneapolis crust/hardcore punk band Stāte of Feär
  • The Spanish band Mägo de Oz.
  • The term "nü-metal", used to describe nu metal with added umlautness.
  • Gay heavy metal band/cabaret act Pink Stëël have two consecutive gratuitous umlauts, the first such instance in a band name.
  • The library/scifi metal band Blöödhag also have consecutive gratuitous umlauts.
  • Seattle Spaz-core band BLOÜD WÜLF.
  • The Devin Townsend punk parody project Punky Brüster.
  • The Canadian thrash band Voïvod's second album from 1986 was titled RRRÖÖÖAAARRR. This album title actually has three consecutive gratuitous umlauts. The band's name has an umlaut over the I, but this may be acting as a diæresis.
  • The Finnish hardcore punk band Ümlaut (this use is almost a self-reference).
  • The art metal band (also referred to as death metal) Ümlaut[9] parodies the form while producing a serious CD & DVD set (Ümlaut: ültimate über death metal)[10] with spoken word by the poet-vampyre Jiri Cech[11].
  • Zee, a short-lived band formed by Pink Floyd keyboard player Richard Wright and Dave Harris, made excessive use of gratuitous umlauts on their 1984 album Identity which included song titles such as "Cönfüsiön" and "Höw Dö Yöü Dö It".
  • The kibology inspired, Usenet-based quasi-band Interröbang Cartel, containing, in addition to its heavy metal umlaut, another exotic typographical reference, to the interrobang character.
  • The Spanish EBM duo Culture Kultür.
  • The album "Paradÿsso", recorded by Spanish rock band Sôber, who added a gratuitous circumflex after changing their name from Sober Stoned.
  • Chuck Dukowski of Black Flag was previously in Würm
  • Heavy Metal spoofers Insidiöus Törment revitalize the umlaut by placing it at strategically hard to pronounce vowels.
  • Experimental group Grotus spell their name with an umlaut over each consonant, leaving the vowels unembellished.
  • The dance music record label nocturnal groove has an umlaut on the n.
  • Hungarian black n' roll band Korog has a gratuitous umlaut over the letter r in their name, which actually means "it rumbles" and is a verb that is used exclusively to describe the sound of a hungry person's stomach.
  • Italian metal band Labyrinth used to call themselves Labÿrinth until 2003
  • Minneapolis punk pioneers of the 1980s, Hüsker Dü, whose name comes from a Dutch board game (the original game does not have umlauts).
  • English ceilidh band Stömp [12] have an umlaut on the o. According to the band’s website [13] this is to avoid confusion with the Stomp dance troupe [14].
  • The Spanish pop band Nosoträsh.
  • Demoscene group Ümlaüt Design has two self-referential gratuitous umlauts.

Other characters

  • The German punk band Die Ärzte used three dots (triaeresis?) over the "A" in Ärzte to distinguish from its normal spelling with "Ä" (double dot) umlaut. This can be represented in Unicode: Die A⃛rzte. The three dots may stand for the three band members.
  • A three-dot umlaut has also been seen in artwork for King Creosote, over the i, as Ki⃛ng Cresote.
  • The American thrash band Lååz Rockit actually used the letter "å" gratuitously in their logo, but the umlaut ("Lääz Rockit") in some press releases.
  • The French band Magma used a fictional language, the Kobaïan, for its lyrics. The umlaut appeared in several album titles, such as Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh and Köhntarkösz. However, this umlaut does affect pronunciation, and thus cannot be considered gratuitous. Kobaian also uses a three-dot diacritic over some letters in song titles, and an original letter that seems to be a cursive ligature of "ie", which never appears without an umlaut.
  • The English indie rock band Maxïmo Park also uses a double dotted "i" in its name.
  • The accents and cedilla in the name of the French electronica band Rinôçérôse are also gratuitous.
  • William Ørbit.
  • The dark folk / experimental / occult band Death In June used umlauts (and in the second case, even accented e's) in the original releases of their albums The Wörld Thät Sümmer (1985) and Thé Wäll Öf Säcrificé (1989) - and, on these releases, also in the band name, leading to Deäth In Jüne and Déäth In Jüné, respectively.
  • the Japanese rock group BOØWY.

Non-gratuitous umlauts

  • The US punk/alternative rock band Hüsker Dü took their name from a children's memory game, which added macrons over each u in the phrase, replacing these macrons with umlauts. Without the umlauts, "husker du" is a Danish and Norwegian phrase meaning "Do you remember".
  • The name of the Toronto, Ontario area folk-pop/geek-rock band Moxy Früvous is pronounced with long-u, "Fruuvous", so this is perhaps not gratuitous.
  • The Florida goth/darkwave band The Crüxshadows, is also pronounced with long-u, "Cruu-shadows", so this is also perhaps not gratuitous.
  • The heavy metal band Trojan used umlauts in their name on the 1985 release Chasing the Storm. For Swedes the tour T-shirts from this time are particularly amusing, as "Tröjan" in Swedish translates as "the shirt".
  • The Rhode Island "futurock" band Grüvis Malt have an umlaut in their name, but it may not be gratuitous, since it clarifies the pronunciation as "oo" rather than "uh".
  • The San Francisco band Children of Umlaut do not in fact have an umlaut in their name.
  • The Icelandic artist Björk Guðmundsdóttir is using her birth name.
  • The Ä in the Finnish heavily Manowar-influenced heavy metal band Teräsbetoni (reinforced concrete) is not gratuitous; while teräs means steel in Finnish, teras is not even a word.
  • The Japanese rock band Lä-ppisch derives its name from the German colloquialism läppisch, meaning "negligible".
  • The Danish spoof band Insidiöus Törment feature 2 umlauts in their name, though whether they are gratuitous or not is up for debate. The first functions as the umlaut in Motörhead, arguably indicating the use of the schwa (Ə) in pronunciation (in both names), whereas the second—contrary to common practice—influences the pronunciation of "torment" so that it becomes "tørment"—using the Danish, Norwegian or Faroese vowel of ø.
  • The Haïti Twoubadou current in Haitian music represents another legitimate use of umlauts in a musical title, because it indicates separate pronunciation of two adjacent vowels. (In Haitian Creole, Haïti is pronounced ah-ee-tee or ah-ee-tsee, with the former also being the standard French pronunciation.)
  • Norwegian electronica duo Röyksopp spell their name with a Swedish-influenced ö rather than the proper Norwegian ø; however, the umlaut is not gratuitous, as 'røyksopp' is Norwegian for 'smoke mushroom'.
  • Another German band, Einstürzende Neubauten (collapsing new buildings), features an umlaut where, in German, there ought to be one.
  • Two of the eight correct spellings of the discordian project Die Epheser include wrong umlauts.
  • The correctly umlauted name of the German folk band Bläck Fööss means bare feet in Kölsch, a German dialect.
  • Belgian experimental electronics act Köhn from the belgian post-rock band de portables uses the umlaut excessively in his song titles. All the words are (West-)Flemish wordgames and are made up. Their purpose is to mock the seriousness and intellectualism that is attached to "difficult" electronic music, e.g., Möhik Bin pronounced in West-Flemish dialect means "Can i come in". A selection: Zwöhn, Köhning, Kröhn, öhnöch, Köh-köh-köh-kök, Dröhn, Söng, Döhre, Mendelköhn, Niplöhn, Dedzu!, Plöhs, Nigewöhne,Vlaamse Röhs, Öhresong, Könöhn, Zwähftähf, Klöhrgöhr, Föhnen, Mendelssöhn, Köhnepijp, Köhtels, Nöhk, Köhnepoht, Köhnetand, Böhnhahs, Köhnflict, Swöhr L, Kallkühn, Akkönnkönk, Püberiosum and Möhik Bin?

See also

Sources

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Notes

  1. ^ Garofalo, pg. 292 Some groups, for example Blue Öyster Cult and Motörhead, added gratuitous umlauts to their names to conjure up a more generic gothic horror, a practice that continued into the 1980s with Mötley Crüe and others.
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