Metal Umlaut - History

History

The German Krautrock band Amon Düül II released their first album in 1969 (under the name Amon Düül II), where Düül came from a fictive mythology-related word, 'dyyl', created by another Canadian rock band on their album called Tanjet. (As Amon Düül was not a metal band—they created a highly eclectic world of music which is nowadays sorted into the genres of progressive rock/krautrock—this "unnecessary" umlaut cannot be considered as 'metal umlaut', if one insists on the literal meaning of the latter expression.) The third part of Yes's progressive rock epic "Starship Trooper" is entitled "Würm" (on The Yes Album, released 1971). However, this is probably not gratuitous, seemingly coming from the Würm glaciation. The same phonetic realisation, /wyrm/, however, is also an Old English word for 'dragon'.

The first (gratuitous) use in a metal band's name appears to have been either by Blue Öyster Cult or by Black Sabbath, both in 1970. Blue Öyster Cult's website states it was added by guitarist and keyboardist Allen Lanier, 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." In that same year, Black Sabbath's record label, on a rare picture-sleeve 7" single version of "Paranoid" (with the b-side "Rat Salad"), for no apparent reason, retitled the song "Paranoïd" with a diaeresis above the "i" (as is correct in French).

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, Danish, Norwegian, and Faroese letter Ø and Danish/Norwegian/Swedish letter Å are added. The diacritical mark on the last " A̋ " is the "Hungarian umlaut" or double acute accent ( ˝ )—two short lines slanting up and to the right—instead of dots (Hungarian uses neither the ( ˝ ) nor the traditional German umlaut ("Ä") over the letter "A", though, and ( ˝ ) is used only on the letters "Ő" and "Ű").

Motörhead followed in 1975. The idea for the umlaut came from Lemmy, the group's lead singer, who said, "I only put it in there to look mean." (The German pronunciation of Motör, a word that does not exist in German, would be similar to French equivalent, moteur. "Motor", the correct German spelling, is pronounced similarly to "motor" in English.) Similarly Lemmy advised Würzel to add an umlaut to his name for the same reason. The band Hüsker Dü debuted in January 1979, though they were based in punk and not heavy metal. Hüsker Dü's name is derived from the board game "Hūsker Dū?" which translates to "Do you remember?" (the slash above the u's are macrons, not umlauts), although these diacritics are not present in original Danish. Mötley Crüe formed in 1980; according to Vince Neil in the band's Behind the Music edition, the inspiration came from a Löwenbräu bottle. They subsequently decided to name their record label "Leathür Records". At one Mötley Crüe performance in Germany, the entire audience started chanting, with a similar pronunciation often used in Hungary as well.

Queensrÿche, who took on that name in 1981, went further by putting the umlaut over the Y in their name (ÿ corresponds to the digraph ij in the Dutch language). 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." In contrast to other examples, the spelling of Queensrÿche was chosen to soften the band's image, as it was feared that the original spelling, Queensreich, might be misconstrued as having neo-nazi connotations.

The spoof band Spın̈al Tap raised the stakes in 1984 by using an umlaut over the letter n; i.e., over a consonant. This construction is found in the Jakaltek language of Guatemala and in some orthographies of Malagasy, a language of Madagascar.