Top Ten Most Polarizing German Music Artists and Bands

Xavier Naidoo is a chart topping RnB singer whose music is such a huge part of German pop culture that most people don't even take notice who this man is.
For many, he is just a gifted singer with a soulful voice and inspirational, a bit spiritual lyrics, that makes music that simply sounds beautiful, and quite often he praises love and peace. He sang with popular and beloved artists such as Silbermond or Kool Savas, or with the most harmless schlager singer Andrea Berg. He was a soul singer similar to Ich+Ich's Adel Tawil for example, who stands for positive values and poetry. Adel Tawil is awesome and a nice person with a passion for music. He's exactly how the music sounds like. But what the occasional listener didn't know for a long time is that Xavier Naidoo on the other hand is a full blown conspiracy theorist on the level of B.O.B., and often stylizes himself as some kind of savior on a mission to spread his twisted "knowledge". Germany's politicians are puppets, satanists ...more

I want to add that despite my despise for his movement, I highly respect him as both a singer and a songwriter. "Dieser Weg" is a truly great, inspirational song about going the right way even though it may be hard and difficult and you will make some enemies by going it. In his case, the way was the one of the Reichsbürger movement, but it can be attributed to any decision you know is the best, even though others don't think so.

PS: Before anyone calls me out for praising Nina Hagen in the past despite her affinity with conspiracy theories while at the same time attacking Naidoo, conspiracy theories are not all the same. Hagen's beliefs are mostly harmless, such as her belief in UFOs that have been covered up. At one point, she stated that an earthquake in a country may not have been a natural cause.

Naidoo, on the other hand, goes so far as to want to start a revolt and get people to act. Especially in the last few years, he has become more open and spoken on marches of the Reichsbürger, who do not acknowledge Germany as a state and want the old borders back. He mixes all of this with dangerous religious fundamentalism. This kind of conspiracy theorism can become like a drug to those believing in it, and soon they are trapped in a cult-like movement (I know that, we have someone like that in our family).

Hagen was never part of that, and even though Hagen is a highly influential musician that ...more

Haftbefehl's hip hop music is based on a wild mix of languages interpolated into very basic and vulgar German with a prominent accent, but a sick flow. For that style he was praised as creative and unique, plus very authentic in his portrayal of migrant street life. But he was also widely made fun of for his direct and mixed language wording and was often thought to be unable to speak correct German. Infamously, the well known (but terrible) critic website laut.de gave two different of his albums one and five stars respectively, and for the exact same reason, simply because they had two different reviewers.

In the German hip hop scene, Bushido is something like the godfather, who brought the genre to where it is today, both stylistically and commercially. He established the typical German gangsta sound, and he was also one of the first non-pop rappers to have huge mainstream success, and he still is the most successful one.
But he is only that respected in the hip hop community. His violent attitude, aggressive curse language and mafia ties have made him pretty hated by the masses of pop listeners and he is often seen as spreading terrible values. Hip hop fans know how to interpret rap lyrics, but pop fans don't.

Tokio Hotel's hype in Germany between 2005 and 2009 has been repeatedly compared to Beatlemania by the German press. Screaming fans were everywhere they appeared and such a fanatic fanbase was completely unusual for a German group. The emo stamp was put on them later on, initially Bill Kaulitz was the "guy with the anime hair", because anime was a huge thing over here an entire generation was raised on, and emo was American, before it found its way over here.
Nevertheless the band had just as many haters as fans, especially because on their first album Bill Kaulitz didn't hit puberty vouce change yet. But also because they started writing their lyrics on their second, not first album. They had the "manifactured children star" image they wanted to get rid off on all their albums after their debut. It only worked after they took a 4 year break and changed to electro pop, which was very positively received in Germany.

Fler has one of the oddest careers in German hip hop. His career started with the Bushido collaboration album "Carlo Cokxxx Nutten", an aggressive gangsta rap album that would become legendary in the years to come. Then he only occasionally had a hit, and was widely regarded a very bad lyricist in German hip hop, while Bushido became a megastar. Then in the mid-2010s he discovered trap and completely changed. He gave lots of interviews showing a Kanye West-ish short temper in combination with maximum artful visions, ideals and ambitions. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he was praised and topped the charts, and now is often seen as the ultimate stylish trendsetter in recent hip hop. Some still hate him, and don't like his over-idealistic treatment of hip hop, but he's not considered wack now.

SpongeBozz's rapping talent is very well known to German hip hop fans. He is probably the fastest German double time rapper, his rhyming abilities are insane and in battle rap tournaments he has so far destroyed everybody that ever crossed his way. He's the "God of Battle", has a very big fanbase and if you take a look at the Amazon comments on his last album (on German hip hop releases Amazon is a good indicator of the public's opinion), it has over 1500 reviews (a recent successful hip hop album usually has around 300) and an average of full 5 stars. But critics and magazines refuse to give him good ratings. They criticize the lack of content and repetitive topics, even though aknowledging his techniques.
At the same time, they give full scores to Kollegah who has exactly the same pros and cons. Just that Kolle portrays a pimp and SpongeBozz a cartoon character on cocaine.
That doesn't change the level of lyrical quality.

Oh yeah, the schlager genre. Where to start? The genre is easy digestible, harmless and easy to remember, and has at least been around since the beginnings of post-war Germany, even though it changed throughout the decades.
In the 2000s, nobody liked the genre. It wad considered uncool and embarassing, something only elderly people listened to. It still sold multi-platinum.
Then Fischer came along and released a song called "Atemlos durch die Nacht" in 2013, and an album called "Farbenspiel". It immediately became one of the best selling albums and songs in German music history. Since Fischer is young, can sing and has the appeal of a regular pop star, she managed to bring schlager close to pop audiences while at the same time pleasing schlager fans, she made young teens listen to schlager, even performed in stadiums and with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Even with all that hype and the fact that she is everywhere... I know nobody who openly admits being her fan.

Rammstein polarized metal fans: are Rammstein metal or not?
I personally don't think they are metal but when I knew less about metal I thought they were metal.
According to the metal music experts from Encyclopaedia Metallum, Rammstein aren't metal.

One time I listened to a German metal radio station and 3 Rammstein songs were played in a row!

Yep, I know they are Neue Deutsche Härte. I also know they were labeled Industrial Metal. But it would be more correct to call them Industrial Rock and not Metal.

Right now, Rammstein are so big in Germany that they are universally seen as one of the absolute greatest bands of the country. But when they started, the band was polarizing very bad, mostly because of their image and Lindemann's odd pronunciation which many found to be imitating Hitler due to the emphasis on "r"s and "ch"s. They also had a very majestic way with words, played with aesthetics known from Leni Riefenstahl, and even use footage from "Olympia" in one of their videos - then you could read several things into their songs that aren't there (a song called "white flesh" has absolutely no racist content whatsoever). So for quite some time, they were associated with right wing politics and Naziism, which is absolute nonsense, because everyone who reads into their lyrics knows why they use all that imagery: to draw association that create an intense atmosphere that fit the dark topics of their poetry. The band has believably stated on ...more