Essential Kraftwerk

That is such a shame if true. Even then given the technology they have utilised with current reissues to bleach all the lovely analogue tape and VCS3 hiss out of Radio Activity etc I’d happily accept them releasing a digitally processed needle-drop. Those three albums deserve to be heard, they are genuinely historically significant.

 

Maybe I’m being harsh on it, mainly because I thought they’d already done it with The Mix and Minimum Maximum and by that time were just milking it. In some respects it’s quite interesting as it us a reimagining of a whole career decades later. I don’t know, it certainly isn’t one I pull out to play, though maybe I should.

PS The Human League and Propaganda remix albums were pretty decent and did fit in with the 12” club remix culture of the time. I’ve got both of those along with a fair few 12” singles, so I’m certainly not knocking that type of thing. I view the Kraftwerk as a different thing though, a whole reimagined career in a way.

 

I’m not being harsh on it! I’ve just played Computer World from the box, and I’m sorry, it is hopeless. It sounds like a cover version. With the tracks in the wrong order! Like some kid with a Roland JD800, a DR550 and a copy of Cubase has done their own version in their bedroom. All those totally unique sounds, textures and the game-changing aesthetic of the original is diminished. So many sounds Kraftwerk brought into the world that didn’t exist at all prior to that point have been made conventional and almost generic by the red box. I’ve just stuck the UK 1st press vinyl on and it is magical. It is indescribably better in every way. It is also orders of magnitude more dynamic, punchy and alive occupying a vast wide soundstage. This really is a stunningly good record.

 

Just stuck Electric Cafe on, another stunningly good sounding slab of vinyl. So dynamic and punchy with crazy bass kick! I started with side 2 as I seldom get that far. Sex Object really is channelling Yello to a crazy extent! Definitely not their best album, and by a long way, but a good copy on a good system distracts from that! A demo-grade record!

 

I’d love to make that comparison, I’ve never seen any in the wild. I do prefer the German language versions of the ones where there are two, but I only have them in the (rather over-processed and compressed) Der Katalog CD box.

Interesting you say Computer World comes across the worst in the red box. I think I’d have gone with Autobahn, but I’ve never liked The Mix and later versions of that one. I’d be interested to know what folk felt was the best? I guess I’d go with Techno Pop as that’s arguably the only one that could have done with some work.

PS FWIW I’ve been disappointed with the remastering in Der Katalog which I assume extends to the current vinyl. The dynamic processing is really destructive IMO. As an example the UK 1st press of TEE has an obvious dynamic swing through the title track building up to an almost scarily dynamic crescendo in Metal On Metal. It sounds amazing. They just flattened it all out on the remaster, the whole ‘journey’ of the song has been squashed almost flat. I noticed it instantly as that is maybe my favourite 10 minutes of Kraftwerk so was the very first thing I stuck on. I’ll play it again, but from memory the red box flattened it out even more with it now just being a few new noises appearing. This isn’t something one only notices on giant Tannoy monitors either, I remember loving that transition from TEE through Metal On Metal way back on my first Lenco/Quad/JR149 system. It is fundamental to the music IMHO.

 

So, what are people’s favourites in the red box?

One thing I find so odd about the red box is how it actually strips stuff out, everything is made shorter, more concise, nothing is extended or developed. Computer World clocked in at just 27 minutes on the CD display IIRC. I’m sure the LP is a good ten minutes or so longer. That is a heck of a lot to strip out of an album that is so perfect. As such I’d say they were the exact opposite of say the Human League and Propaganda remix albums mentioned above which stretch and extend ideas. In some ways it makes the red box interesting in that it can be viewed as a decades-later distillation and reduction of ideas almost down into soundbites. I’m not sure anyone has done that before. Or wanted to. It is a very strange thing.

 

Just listening to the red box Man Machine now, and yes it is better than CW. Some of the arrangements are nice, though there is something very flat about the production. It sounds really small, sterile, bleached and dead against similar versions on Minimum Maximum (I’ve just compared The Robots CD to CD). Minimum Maximum is great!

I know it sounds like I’m being hard on this box set, and I guess I am. I’m a Kraftwerk fan and I’d hate someone to discover the band via this collection. The box is fine as a curio for the likes of me who’s known the band for a lifetime, but it gives very little indication as to what was so amazing about these albums in the first place. It is a very clear step backwards from Minimum Maximum IMO (and I would recommend that as a starting point).

PS I’ll play Techno Pop later. I suspect it is the main justification for the box. I’m sure it will miss the simply astonishing sound quality of the original record, but that is the one work in their catalogue that had real room for development.

 

A couple of tracks into Techno Pop, and yes, this is rather good and in a lot of ways justifies the box. It’s interesting in that in their revisionism they moved it aesthetically closer to Computer World and away from the Fairlight/Synclavier & Linn Drum aesthetic of the original. Sex Object still sounds exactly like Yello though!

PS I wish it had some dynamic range!