Kraftwerk

I wonder if Ralf stopped touring if anyone would really care? Just send the costumes around the country with a tour manager like the Wombles used to do.

It's a nice little earner for him, as he approaches 70.

"I am bad with words, so it's hard to express this, but to me, it's like Fandom approach is: "Electric Cafe is quite different from other Kraftwerk records, that means it's my favourite / least favourite, here's why I love it / hate it, these are the bits that are like their other records, these are the bits that are like other artists maybe" and so on and so forth, discussing that record and its discontents or pleasures within the context of loving and wanting to know more about Kraftwerk. Music Critic / Record Store Dude / ILM Nerd approach is like: "Electric Cafe is canonically Bad, this means it's the New Jersey of Kraftwerk, let's start a thread called "Every Major Band Has An Electric Cafe" where we try to shoehorn Steely Dan or Third Eye Blind records into this mould, hey, if ILM had existed in 1986, where do you think Electric Cafe would have places on its EOY list" One is performing fandom and loving a thing a bit too much; the other is treating Music as a football league. ILM, as a whole, is very accepting of the latter mode of discourse, and very unforgiving towards the former. That's what I'm carping about, when I'm complaining that ILM isn't a very good place for Fandom."

hmmm. i don't think about it quite that way. the approach you talk about, which is obsessed with putting things into neat little categories and making absolute judgments of value, seems to me to be far more representative of, for instance, the rateyourmusic message boards, which are ultimately a fan project and not a critical project. because criticism as a field implies a certain level of professionalism. there are folks here who get paid for writing about music, and it's a lot harder to get paid these days for saying things like "Electric Cafe is an objectively bad record", though i'm sure dave marsh could manage it.

this tendency towards the comparative is an inevitable part of critically viewing work, sure. but another part of this whole, uh, recontextualization kick- that's what it is, recontextualization, trying to see old things in new ways, trying to group things together unexpectedly. which, if you're going to group things together, and people do this, all the time, the best way to do it is to find new ways of doing it. and if you're a fan, one of the problems is that it's a narrowing thing, that you say something like "the worst record by band x is better than 95% of all other records made". you emphasize the uniqueness of a thing, and uniqueness dies alone and unloved in the cold.

I don't care what label you put on it. But ultimately, I find it a dry and boring and utterly reductive way of approaching music. The Internet is absolutely fucking full of it, this has been utterly over-represented as the ~way to perform fanboy ism~ and it MAKES ME HATE MUSIC.

Many thanks to branwell for big multiline honestly felt and deeply thought posts of music criticism.

that was an xpost

Branwell, I think we have exact opposite tastes in Kraftwerk. I love the beat-driven stuff and have never cared much for the more synth-pop leaning stuff like "The Model" or "Computer Love" (or really synth-pop in general). The two tracks you point out, "Metal on Metal" and "Numbers, as being too beat-driven are literally my favorite Kraftwerk tracks. Radioactivity has never done a thing for me and is the one Kraftwerk album I really don't get at all. My interest in them is in the electronic beats lineage that leads to Bambaataa, Juan Atkins, et al, and I've never really cared about them or thought of them as a "pop" band.

~when I do it, it's fandom, when you do it, it's a a dry and boring and utterly reductive way of approaching music~

sssshhhhhhh

Rev, the Kraftwerk songs I like the least are Computer Love and The Model, so you're barking up the wrong tree? I like the long spacey pieces with endless motorik beats so that's how I'm hearing stuff like Metal On Metal.

The rest of you, don't you have some random 3.8 numbers or something to attach to records or some Pitchfork Reviews Reviews to grade because this thread was fun when it was just people talking about Kraftwerk.

the Kraftwerk songs I like the least are Computer Love...

O_o

Yeah, I don't know what it is with that song. My old band wanted to cover it years and years ago, and I could never get my head round it. It makes me, in an odd way, embarrassed when Ralf Hütter talks about his ~feelings~. I should totally ~relate to it~ because it is a song about a lonely, uncommunicative computer nerd who's unable to connect with other human beings. But perhaps that's why, it's too close to a wince, rather than a hug. I think he comes closer to expressing or touching my feelings when he puts his ~feels~ into metaphors like... I adore Antenna, as a love song. Computer Love is the song that is the least interesting to me on that album, when there's so much other amazing stuff going on. It's got a cute little haunting / sad melody, but the rhythm never quite comes together.

i quite liked the kraftwerk show i saw. as a fan, i was very excited to hear their music played loud. the computer graphics were eye-popping. and it was in a symphony hall, so i could sit properly.

The rest of you, don't you have some random 3.8 numbers or something to attach to records or some Pitchfork Reviews Reviews to grade because this thread was fun when it was just people talking about Kraftwerk.

― Dröhn Rock (Branwell with an N), Tuesday, 22 September 2015 06:53

Here's the picture version
http://i.imgur.com/9jWyR3M.jpg

Speaking as a fan, Computer Love is actually one of my favourite songs and I love Metal On Metal and the early Krautrock stuff too. I just wish I could own Ralf & Florian on vinyl (how do the bootleg cd's sound?)

There's a Ralf & Florian on philips vinyl for £20 on amazon marketplace. *Yoink*

Scored a really nice copy of Ralf & Florian in Texas this spring. Nearly jumped outta my pants when I saw it. :D

That picture is the exact opposite of what I'm saying?

I don't think there's such a thing as "getting Kraftwerk wrong". There are many different Kraftwerks or aspects of Kraftwerk that people respond to, and many (maybe even all? maybe even the "RONG" ones?) are valid. It's interesting that Rev hears such a different aspect to them than I do. And fascinating that they can bear both interpretations, and both visions of what the band are about are both plausible to the person listening to, and inexplicable to another person. (Why would anyone fail to be mesmerised by Radioactivity? But clearly lots of people on this thread don't connect with that album.)

I mean, I've certainly been told that I'm ~liking Kraftwerk* wrong~ (or doing ILM wrong, more usually) and sometimes it makes me hesitant to post, and sometimes I get cranky and say "well, I don't like your way, either". Whatever.

I *get* that attaching numbers to records is a thing that some people enjoy doing it, but it's kind of a boring way, to me, to interact with music. Like, why numbers? It's such a common way of interacting with music I think people don't realise how absurd it is. "This is a 3 star record" or "this is a 7.6" or "this is number 22 of 77 records we have put in an arbitrary order". Why numbers? Why not attach... colours?

Trying to think what colours I would assign to Kraftwerk records. Like, Ralf und Florian is all yellow and orange. Autobahn is duh, very obviously grey with green all round. Radioactivity is pale glowing blue. TEE is purple. Man Machine is red, Computer World is silver and Electric Cafe is that matte black that signified "hi-tech" in the 80s. It's hard to think of Tour de France soundtracks as anything other than red and blue, but it sounds more silver to me.

There! I can do arbitrary assignments to records, too.

which posts exactly are you attacking here?

I'm not attacking anything!

I mean the idea that ILM is all about ranking and polling and assigning arbitrary numbers to things. It seems like such a small part of this message board, even the poll threads we do seem to be way more about discussing the bands/albums than they are the actual rankings (which I never thought anyone acutally cared much about)

It was cranky meta-sniping in response to a couple of long-term dumb personal beefs earlier, and now it is playful meta-sniping in response to CS, which I tried to turn back into a fun game of assigning colours to Kraftwerk albums. Don't worry about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfN2eOC1Xhs

Oh, and "Kraftwerk" is denim coloured, and "Kraftwerk 2" is sort of reel-to-reel-tape-brown.

And Organisation is a sort of orangey green.

for me, kraftwerk 1 and 2 both seem to alternate colors. the first orange/white, the second green/white, strangely
R&F retains the orange and white feeling, but adds a more human, fleshy element
autobahn is clear, sunny, like a very fast afternoon drive
TEE brings back the human fleshtones, almost with a sears-photolab sensibility
radioactivity is black and white
MM sounds strong, red and black
CW very yellow and silver
EC silver, blue and black

Kraftwerk I is red
Kraftwerk II is green

END OF :)

i don't know, kraftwerk 1 sounds more orangey to me. although on some versions of the cover, i mean sets of ears, more red, true

Just popping in to say Radioactivity is my favorite Kraftwerk album, TEE a close second.

I think at the start there was something more droney and psychedelic in their work that gots thrown off later on at times w the emphasis on computer beats and Radioactivity is maybe the best meeting in the middle between the two worlds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1rezswXJ2c

noooooooooooooo That video is basically just pr0n for Branwells. Radiotelescopes! Oscilloscopes! Attractive Germans in suits playing synths! It's almost awkward to watch at work.

hahaha, yeah that's an amazing clip!

hah, they truly were the Beatles of Germany

Clip is from around TEE period, wonder why it was filmed.

It's filmed at the same time as the Radioactivity video. In 1976, when that album was their most current.

Electric Cafe sounds like it could only have come out in 1986

"Dated" is not a pejorative term.

Agreed, especially from a distance of 3 decades. But I think the ones I just listed there off the top of my head are all much better records than Electric Cafe anyway.

It's not pejorative, but it is *uncharacteristic* to sound so far behind a curve (I said 1986, because that was when those sounds started to filter through into mainstream American pop) rather than sounding ahead of their time!

Wasn't EC done by '84 except for the final Kevorkian mix? Does anyone know the exact timeline?

From what I can gather, Kraftwerk were keeping up to date with advancements in technology just fine. Problem was, Kraftwerk also had a larger amount of "competition" than they did in the '70s, and the "competition" were both managing to keep up to date with advancements in technology and get records out far quicker and have fresh ideas with what to do with the technology they had. I'd say that the rate at which electronic music was progressing in the '80s that it was inevitable that at some point Kraftwerk would cease to sound innovative. In any case, it doesn't matter - by the time that Electric Cafe was released they'd already achieved more than enough and nobody can really take their status as pioneers away from them.

I guess Radioactivity feels a bit too much like side 2 of Autobahn to me but without something as mammoth and undeniable as an "Autobahn" to hold it together? Like a bunch of tossed-off experiments, really idk.

As far as EC goes, I could care less if it sounded "dated" in 1986. I mean, I was born that year and didn't hear Kraftwerk until the 2000s when all of their catalog was dated by decades. I think the first thing I heard by them was "Trans-Europe Express" (circa 2002?) specifically in the context of "this is the track that inspired 'Planet Rock'". (nb: "Planet Rock" is prob in my top 5 songs ever)

(oh and Branwell, sorry if I got you misconstrued)

i love kraftwerk

i have never heard electric cafe, rev just sold me on listening to it right now.

i like CW, TEE, and radioactivity a bunch. TMM is aight. autobahn is classic, but as a standalone track, other album cuts dont do much for me.

the first time I heard Kraftwerk was during a lesson in my last year of primary school where we played various pieces of music and made to dance to them, Showroom Dummies was one of the pieces of music. (was this on the nation curriculum? this would have been around 1995/6. I don't think that my teacher just decided to play us Kraftwerk on their own initiative because I remember trying to look at their lesson notes because I wanted to know what the music was, and it looked like some outside thing + referred specifically to that track)

I guess if school kids up and down the country were being made to dance to Kraftwerk in the mid 90s there would be some evidence of other people reminiscing about this on the internet, but I can't find anything, so maybe it was just us?
I did find some youtubes of school children covering Kraftwerk songs though:

Radioactivity https://youtu.be/PyuUzsx38SM

Die Roboter https://youtu.be/ZYKl1-Rdj_k

Das Model https://youtu.be/3fa9ZUI1x1M

acoustic covers of Kraftwerk songs by 10 year old catalan kids is my new favourite genre of music, I think

Oh no, oh no, you do not diss side 2 of Autobahn around me! Those are FIGHTIN' WORDS! Love songs about comets! Florian making electric bird noises with an electronic flute! The gother than goth, scarier than a Dr Who incidental music interlude midnight klang!

But yeah, I know. Calling something "dated" slides into precarious territory, because making that a complaint requires being familiar enough with the fashions of a particular period to know what's on-trend, ahead-of-trend and behind-trend. I've got caught on the wrong side of that argument before. I was born literally the month that Kraftwerk officially formed (or at least, the month that Organisation officially broke up) - the same month that the Beatles broke up, so what a time to be alive! (even if just squalling and shitting myself in a Brutalist New Town in Essex). Ha. I wasn't a fan through most of the period they were active - I was a child during their classic era and discovered ~pop music~ as an obsession during their long 80s hiatus. (I wish I knew what it was that tipped me over into obsession! But I never seem to know what it is that trips that switch in my brain.)

(The first Kraftwerk song I ever *loved* was Ruckzuck, because of Newton's Apple. Electric Cafe permeated into pop culture as an avatar of self parody and of course:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHZR9SA5pOg

So it's partly an awareness of context... But also dependent on what particular context one is tuned into?

Like, I have a conceptual framework that I have already slotted Kraftwerk into; the "similar music" that I would Spotify Hipster Boyfriend someone for Kraftwerk would be, like: Can, NEU!, Cluster, Harmonia, La Düsseldorf. German music of the 70s. But, then, the Kraftwerk ~fandom~ on Tumblr, they seem to place them within a context of: New Order, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Depeche Mode, Japan, Gary Numan. Which, to them, makes musical sense, but to me seems totally ahistorical, like, these are British bands of the 80s, whose success came 5 to 10 years after Kraftwerk! I see why they're doing it, but it makes no sense! And it's clear that there's another contextual framework within which to arrange Kraftwerk, which is, as you say, Rev, Afrika Bambaataa, Juan Atkins, Chicago House, Detroit Techno, but it's not a cultural context I'm as familiar with, so *I* can't instinctually assess whether it's 'ahistorical' or accurate, the way I can when I say "why are you placing a Duran Duran record from 1983 alongside a Kraftwerk record from 1974?"

But it's also something that twitches a kind of... it really depends on the context of who is making that comparison, and why? That it is different when it's A) an African-American DJ or producer saying "wow, we heard these crazy Germans with their grid-like music and it was so funky, so we made our own version inspired by that!" and B) when it's a white person trying to claim that Kraftwerk invented Techno because they can't conceive of African-Americans inventing an entire massive genre of music, and want to assign the credit to white Europeans in a kind of genre land-grab? Even as I'm aware that I have probably fallen into this kind of thinking? And that goes double when it's Wolfgang Flür saying it, which evinces a kind of "Fuck off, Flür" response. But I guess "Fuck off, Flür" is a response I have often, especially when he's unfavourably comparing Ralf Hütter's sex appeal to his own. So.

I need to stop typing now.

Also I just find it kind of curious or nonsensical to call tracks "tossed-off experiments" or "failed experiments".

I mean, one of my favourite Kraftwerk interviews in 1977, they ask Ralf or Florian if their music was "experimental", and I'm not sure which of them replies, but their answer was: ALL MUSIC IS EXPERIMENTAL

So, y'know, Ralf or Florian OTM.