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Kraftwerk: Albums
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This single came as a surprise for Kraftwerk fans. A brand new song, although low key, sparked hopes of a new album. However, Kling-Klang remains silent. A video was released for this track, showing the band playing in wireframe suits, but no public appearances or interviews.
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Kraftwerk's next concept album, Radio-Activity (Capitol, 1975), concentrated on radio communication. Another lineup change saw Karl Bartos take the place of Roeder. During the next few years, the group continued to release albums — including Trans Europe Express (Capitol, 1977), The Man-Machine (Capitol, 1978) and Computer World (Warner, 1981) — that spawned many '80s new wave bands.
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All of Kraftwerk's seminal 1970s albums fall under the heading of "essential." Trans-Europe Express (1977) and The Man Machine (1978) are gems, as are such groundbreaking efforts as Kraftwerk 2 (1972), Autobahn (1974) and Radioactivity (1975). The impact of these classics was still being felt in the late 1990s. Unless electronic music goes away (which is most unlikely), Kraftwerk's direct or indirect influence probably won't be decreasing any time soon.
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The musics Kraftwerk helped launch — British post-rock industrial sounds and rhythm-is-everything dance grooves — come full circle on Side One of the long-awaited Electric Cafe. The virtually interchangeable "Technopop" and "Musique Non-Stop" take sparse, simple, unvarying percussion tracks and add bits of treated vocals, synthetic noises and quasi-instrumental effects. On the reverse are three straightforward (albeit numbingly repetitive) songs that use actual melodies, singing and lyrics. While the second side is certainly listenable, even Kraftwerk fans will find this brief album disappointingly short on ideas and content.
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Techno pioneers, Kraftwerk's entirely electronically generated sounds would help to define techno's early sounds. With spiraling, epic compositions (many Kraftwerk songs clock in over 10 minutes long) and conceptual attitudes (many of the band's albums center around a single theme) Kraftwerk's sound added legitimacy to the embryonic electronic sound. Also incorporating radom sounds sampled into their music and the anonymous, robotic image preferred by many modern electronic acts, Kraftwerk laid the foundations for modern electronic music.
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Not a Kraftwerk record by name, but by nature and personnel it is. The tracks are all live avant-garde jams using conventional instruments with many effects. The musicians are artists in the purest sense, creating landscapes of sound and quirky melody. People have said this is self-indulgent. See it as a work of art rather than an album.
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