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What's your favourite Kraftwerk album?

Started by kalowski, November 10, 2021, 09:49:25 PM

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kalowski

I pretty much like everything they did, but I recently got The Man Machine on vinyl and it is stunning isn't it. What a sound they create.
So - thread open für dienen replies

wrec

Recently Computer World is the one that particularly does it for me. The only one I had for years was The Man Machine so I got a bit overfamiliar with it. Then Trans Europe Express would have been my favourite but I gradually got more into their more electro-y stuff. Everything from Autobahn on is near flawless though.

I get irked when people argue that the pre-Autobahn records are superior. I think those albums are average at best, somewhat unfocused and not a patch on contemporaries in a similar ballpark like Cluster, Conrad Schnitzler or Klaus Schulze.

wosl

#2
.


imitationleather

When they did their Tate Modern gigs where they performed a different album each night I rang up over 500 times (not even joking, I checked my call log after) to get a ticket. Despite the extraordinary effort and time it'd taken to get through they still had every night on sale. With it all down to my personal choice, I went straight for my favourite album.

Electric Cafe, mate.

Nah, not really. I picked Computer World. (Although I do think Electric Cafe is good and probably sounds so much better than it did at the time of release, mind you. In fact, Musique Non-Stop is probably one of the Kraftwerk tunes I listen to most frequently these days. However Computer World's my absolute favourite album by them. Love them all really, though.)

kalowski

Quote from: wrec on November 10, 2021, 11:14:12 PM
I get irked when people argue that the pre-Autobahn records are superior. I think those albums are average at best, somewhat unfocused and not a patch on contemporaries in a similar ballpark like Cluster, Conrad Schnitzler or Klaus Schulze.
I like that early stuff, especially the track Ruckzuck off the first album, but you are right, it's not a patch on the stuff after 1973. I think there's a bit of novelty value in hearing a slightly more analogue Kraftwerk

sevendaughters

Trans-Europe Express is the synthesis of everything that was great about them. A perfect album, dare I say.

buttgammon

Quote from: sevendaughters on November 11, 2021, 07:37:31 AM
Trans-Europe Express is the synthesis of everything that was great about them. A perfect album, dare I say.

Totally agree, it's got everything. I can't name many better albums full stop.

DrGreggles

Quote from: imitationleather on November 11, 2021, 04:01:25 AM
When they did their Tate Modern gigs where they performed a different album each night I rang up over 500 times (not even joking, I checked my call log after) to get a ticket. Despite the extraordinary effort and time it'd taken to get through they still had every night on sale. With it all down to my personal choice, I went straight for my favourite album.

Electric Cafe, mate.

Nah, not really. I picked Computer World. (Although I do think Electric Cafe is good and probably sounds so much better than it did at the time of release, mind you. In fact, Musique Non-Stop is probably one of the Kraftwerk tunes I listen to most frequently these days. However Computer World's my absolute favourite album by them. Love them all really, though.)

I went to The Man Machine night of the Tate Modern run and I've just remembered the most I've paid for a single gig ticket. Where's that Adele thread...

It was fantastic though.

Norton Canes

Can I just shock you? I like Tour de France Soundtracks

It's got my favourite Kraftwerk track: Vitamin

kalowski

No shock there. It's great. I got the vinyl reissue for a recent birthday which was a lovely surprise.

Johnboy


SpiderChrist

Man Machine or Computer World for me, Clive.

sutin

Kometenmelodie 2 is one of the most beautiful pieces of music i've ever heard. Dare I say I prefer it to Neon Lights.

PaulTMA

No one's said Radio-Activity yet, so I will and cos it's the best 'un

imitationleather

I'm afraid Barry just PM'd and said if we can't reach a consensus on this issue he's going to shut the forum down.

kalowski

OK. I'd have to say "The Best of Kraftwerk".

M-CORP

It's a toss up between Ralf & Florian, Trans Europe Express, Computer World and Electric Cafe. The former two best captured that ghostly 'vintage electronic' sound, the latter two are the best examples of how their sound evolved into this clean crisp digital sound, bringing with it a sense of angst and dehumanisation.

Alright, I'll be honest, Electric Cafe was the first that sprung to mind.

buzby

The Man Machine. It was the first of their albums I had (I got given a cassette of it by one of my sister's friends) and had great songs with crossover potential like The Model, Neon Lights And The Robots (which became the distillation of the band's image). Having later picked up their previous albums, it also feels like it was the culmination of what they had been working towards.

As much as I like Electric Cafe, that was the tipping point where they started chasing trends set by others who they had influenced rather than setting them themselves (for example, it was during that period when they came over to look at recording at Britannia Row, as that was where Blue Monday had been recorded), and is as much the work of Francois Kervorkian as the band. It was also the point where they became enamoured with the Synclavier Direct-To-Disk system, and spent the rest of the decade transferring their masters over to it rather than making anything new, resulting in the lacklustre The Mix album.

Video Game Fan 2000

Ralph und Florian, Radio-Activitat and Trans Europa Express are all equal on the top tier, but I go for Trans Europa Express the most because of the grooves. Schaufensterpuppen might be my favourite Kraftwerk song.

Inspector Norse

TEE or TMM are the ones that most readily spring to mind for me. I was just yesterday sitting and figuring out their BIG HIT 'The Model' on guitar and it was surprisingly fun to play on a real instrument and not one of those new-fangled electronic things the 75-year-old German kids have these days.

shagatha crustie

Computer World. That bit when the never-ending minimal crunch of 'Numbers' suddenly blossoms into the Computer World theme. Sublime chills. TEE a close second.

imitationleather

Quote from: Norton Canes on November 11, 2021, 08:55:04 AM
Can I just shock you? I like Tour de France Soundtracks

It's got my favourite Kraftwerk track: Vitamin


When the 24 hour news channels were giving blow-by-blow updates of the imminent death of Pope John Paul II I kept singing Elektro Kardiogramm from that album. I don't think any of my mates had heard Tour de France Soundtracks because that record was only for the true fans so they probably thought I'd come up with a lovely little ditty about his failing vital signs all by myself.

Norton Canes

I know the whole album is obviously about cycling but Vitamin is the perfect song to have going round in your head while on a climb - the tempo, the smooth mechanical calmness, and the steadily rising melody

mrClaypole

I love all of the albums but have a particular fondness for Radioactivity as it's so otherworldly.

studpuppet

My favourite is 'Kraftwerk', mainly because a schoolfriend once made me a C-60 with Ruckzuck and Can's Yoo Doo Right repeated on both sides, and for years afterwards I thought they were both Can songs.

Glebe

The Best of The Kraftwork.

(Sorry could not resist.)

buzby

Quote from: Norton Canes on November 11, 2021, 04:31:52 PM
I know the whole album is obviously about cycling but Vitamin is the perfect song to have going round in your head while on a climb - the tempo, the smooth mechanical calmness, and the steadily rising melody
I've always taken it as ironic given the album was meant to celebrate the TdF's centenary (which they inevitably missed) as in the old days, 'vitamin injections' are what the soigneurs used to call the PED mixtures they would give riders for 'recovery'. The lyrics even mention endorphin and adrenalin.

FThe tempo is more suited to the old way of 'grinding' up a climb. It's a bit too slow for the modern high cadence, aerobic threshold style of climbing.

DJ Bob Hoskins

Trans-Europe Express for me, Clive. There are tracks on other albums which I prefer to any individual number on it*, but there's something about it which makes it feel like the definitive Kraftwerk record. Or at least, it perfectly sums up how I feel about them. It's ahead of its time, experimental yet meticulously put-together, utterly serious yet tongue-in-cheek, simultaneously futuristic and nostalgic for a bygone age, and generally stylish, classy and well-engineered (like many other things which were built in their neck of Germany).

Basically this, in audio form:





*The full version of Autobahn is possibly their masterpiece. I love most of their output but have a particular soft-spot for the early stuff**. Growing up, I'd only ever heard their clinical electronic music from the Man Machine (and onwards) era, and I was very pleasantly surprised when I later discovered that they were once a bunch of long-haired freaks making stoner grooves with flutes and guitars. Which in turn, led me on to Neu!, Harmonia etc. It was at this point I finally realised where a few of my favourite bands (e.g. Spiritualized) stole got their crazy ideas from.

**This kind of thing is just blissful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txOxNK1nyyM

daf

Quote from: kalowski on November 11, 2021, 11:14:52 AM
OK. I'd have to say "The Best of Kraftwerk".

Quote from: Glebe on November 11, 2021, 05:09:11 PM
The Best of The Kraftwork.

(Sorry could not resist.)

This is actually the correct answer -

QuoteThe Mix is not a remix album in the proper sense, and the band itself never called it a remix album. They always listed it as their "Number 7" studio album since their turn to electro pop with Autobahn in 1974,

Ralf Hütter stated in interviews that he regarded The Mix as a type of "live" album, as it captured the results of the band's continual digital improvisations in their Kling Klang studio. The band had made a return to the stage in 1990, after a nine-year hiatus from touring, and since then the band's live setlist has used arrangements drawn from The Mix rather than the original recordings.