Top 15 Best German Bands of All Time

With their industrial guitars, thundering rhythms, seas of fire and dark themes, Rammstein became the biggest German-language live act on earth; Sonne is their ultimate monument.

Klaus Meine's whistled melody and Rudolf Schenker's guitars captured the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War; one of the best-selling singles of all time.

In Düsseldorf, Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider invented electronic pop. With homemade synthesizers and vocoders, they laid the foundation for hip-hop, techno and synth-pop.

The Düsseldorf punk-rock veterans wrote one of the biggest classics of German punk with this track inspired by Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange.

The self-proclaimed 'best band in the world', a trio from Berlin, delivered a hard-hitting and humorous indictment of neo-Nazism with this rousing punk anthem.

Twins Bill and Tom Kaulitz sparked unprecedented international teen hysteria around 2005 with their dramatic rock and glamorous image.

The absolute pioneers of krautrock: drummer Jaki Liebezeit and bassist Holger Czukay created intoxicating 'motorik' grooves that influenced generations of post-punk and indie rockers.

Edgar Froese's synthesizer pioneers defined ambient and electronic film music with hypnotic sequencer patterns that still sound futuristic.

The kings of power metal: when Hansi Kürsch starts this acoustic fantasy hymn, a crowd of tens of thousands sings every word.

With their Keeper of the Seven Keys albums, Michael Kiske and Kai Hansen invented fast, melodic European power metal; pure guitar euphoria.

Udo Dirkschneider's razor-sharp voice and Wolf Hoffmann's heavy guitar riffs made Accept one of the pillars of traditional heavy metal.

Frontwoman Sandra Nasić and her bandmates blew the alternative rock world away in the late '90s with hard-hitting crossover guitars and untamable rap-rock energy.

Marian Gold's sweeping synth-pop ballad about youth, fear of the bomb and hope; a timeless '80s classic that still resonates worldwide.

From Kassel, Clemens Rehbein and Philipp Dausch conquered the world with their unique mix of acoustic folk guitars and relaxed electronic beats.

Dieter Bohlen and Thomas Anders created the ultimate Euro-disco sound: falsetto choruses, synthesizers and a melody that went to number one from Moscow to Madrid.