'Sadomasochistic' German album banned

German fans under 18 of homegrown hard rock group Rammstein had until midnight on Tuesday to buy their latest album after authorities took exception to a song with explicit sadomasochist lyrics.

The song in question, "Ich Tu Dir Weh" ("I Am Going To Hurt You"), includes lines in German like "Barbed wire in the urethral tract" and "Needle, pliers, blunt saw. Make a wish, I won't say no."

The chorus runs: "Ich tu' dir weh. Tut mir nicht Leid! Das tut dir gut. Hoer wie es schreit!" ("I Am Going To Hurt You", I'm not sorry! It does you good, Hear the screams!")

It features on the album "Liebe ist fuer alle da" ("Love is there for everyone"), which has sold more than 300,000 copies since its release in mid-October, a spokeswoman for Rammstein said in a statement.

Germany's media watchdog also disapproved of the artwork in the booklet accompanying the album, the spokeswoman said.

From midnight (2300 GMT), the album cannot be displayed in shops and can only be bought by people with ID proving they are over 18, she said. The offending song can no longer be played in public.

Rammstein takes its name from Ramstein, the site of a 1988 air crash in which 70 people died.

Film-maker David Lynch included two tracks by the group on the soundtrack to his dark cinema classic "Lost Highway". Fans included the teenage gunmen in the 1999 Columbine school massacre, and late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.

The band did a song about Armin Meiwes, a German man dubbed the "cannibal of Rotenburg" jailed in 2006 for killing and eating a willing victim. Both men tried to eat the dead man's dismembered penis before he expired.

"He loves me so much he could eat me. The soft and the hard parts are all on the menu, it's so good with seasoning and flambed," say the lyrics of the song, entitled "Mein Teil" ("My Part").