Essential Kraftwerk

Michael45’s take on three real classics.

PS Shame he doesn’t mention UK 1st pressings.

 

Mine was a library copy too! Can’t remember which library, but bought whilst I was at school so it would only have been a couple of years old. I’ve since replaced it, but I’m still looking for a better copy of this one. The weakest by far in my collection.

 

I’ve got the CD box and feel it is the least significant item in their whole catalogue. It’s not terrible, but I view it as pretty pointless. I’ve no idea what it is for other than a way to resell the same albums yet again. One can maybe argue they’ve improved Electric Cafe a bit, but it is a bit of a stretch to buy a whole box for that.

For Kraftwerk’s ‘revisionism of the core catalogue’ phase my favourite by far is Minimum Maximum. That really is a great live album and I often dig it out (I have both the vinyl and CD/DVD boxes). It has more than enough of the post-The Mix techno reworking without the need to meddle with everything. It has some real atmosphere too. Maybe surprisingly one of the great live albums.

 

I’m just not convinced by it. It was the point they stopped innovating and started following to my mind. There’s nothing there that hadn’t already been done way better years before by ZTT, The Art Of Noise, Thomas Dolby, Martin Rushant and a whole world of hip-hop etc. It actually sounded dated on release, which is amazing given their legacy and the knock the ball way out of the park perfection of Computer World. For me their later regrouping for Tour de France Soundtracks stands up a lot better and that one is a really nice album even though it fitted right in with the electronica of the time rather than breaking new ground.

I get the impression Kraftwerk themselves fully understood Electric Cafe was poor hence the hugely delayed release and endless attempts to knock it into shape. It is not entirely devoid of interest, but it is a huge shame that one is in print and the first three exponentially more interesting and significant Philips/Vertigo albums have been erased from history.

 

Not seeing it. They started out playing US rock ‘n’ roll and blues covers, wrote a lot of very good pop songs, they then became very influenced by the psychedelic thing happening in the USA and repackaged that with pip sensibilities. Later they went to a performance of Skockhausen’s Hymnen and wrote their finest work, Revolution No. 9.

Obviously I’m understating their considerable creativity and the sheer quality of song writing. There is no denying Lennon & McCartney a seriously good ear and could churn exceptionally high quality pop music out by the yard, but other than arguably breaking through a corporate barrier early on and moving pop music into the creative arena other forms (folk, jazz, blues etc) had enjoyed forever where artists write their own content rather than just being an X-Factor-grade puppet for a management company I’m struggling to see much lasting influence beyond say Oasis and the music-hall bits of Queen, both of which are best avoided IMHO.

I’d argue the first track on the first Neu! album actually had more lasting influence than the Beatles, let alone Kraftwerk who’s legacy is literally everywhere in current pop, dance, electronica, hip-hop, rap, film music, advertising etc etc. I can’t imagine what modern music would be without Kraftwerk.

PS Not knocking The Beatles. I just honestly feel their legacy is strangely rooted to their timeframe. It just didn’t translate forward the way say the first VU album, Neu!, Radio Activity, TEE, Man Machine, or Computer World have.

 

I’ll dig in even deeper and attempt to argue the exponentially less interesting Rolling Stones have had far more lasting influence than The Beatles as reheated white blues-rock is still all over the place in this century!

(ducks, covers)