Best Kraftwerk Album

I regret saying Computer World way upthread. The only reason I said that was because "Computer Love" was my favourite song of theirs. But I think "Electric Cafe" is their best album. Maybe you just had to be there to hear what that sounded like when it came out, I dunno. But "The Telephone Call" is the second best Kraftwerk song I think.

I bought "Electric Cafe" on the day of release and I was disappointed with it then - it already sounded dated. As I've said elsewhere, it just sounded like they were paging through presets on their DX7. Side one was such a let down, but side two was far better. "The Telephone Call" is a superb song though.

"Telephone Call" would be more universally regarded as one of Kraftwerk's finest if it weren't for the drumbeat. The sounds used for the BD/SD combo just don't work. They sounds lazy, along with the rhythm itself. Everything floating above the beat is awesome though, I'll give you that.

Surprised Computer World ranked so highly here. Always found this album a bit...silly? Relatively speaking, of course.

Anyone heard the vinyl reissues? I saw them at the shop today and had to stop myself from buying them all. I'll almost definitely go back and buy TMM and TEE. They also had Autobahn and Radio-Activity, both of which I like / don't love. But the reissues look might fine so I still sorta want them all.

I know what you mean about CW. I didn't rate it as highly as TMM or TEE on first hearing and like you I thought stuff like "by pressing down a special key it plays a little melody" wasn't really worthy of them. But it's grown on me a lot b/c it's probably their shiniest and most melodic effort, not to mention how visionary it is. I still wouldn't rate it above TMM but when I saw the Catalogue run last year I pounced on tickets for the CW evening.

Computer Love has one of their best melodies though.

Radioactivity is by far my favourite of the Kraftwerk albums.

I thought stuff like "by pressing down a special key it plays a little melody" wasn't really worthy of them

"Turn the dial with your hand
Till you find the shortwave band"

"We now switch the radio on, out of the speaker it rings out..We're driving down the motorway!"

Also CW is the album where Karl Bartos really comes into his own as a tunesmith, most of the melodies on that album are his. There was some discussion of this matter on the "favourite member of Kraftwerk" thread, it seems to me that Bartos' departure had a lot to do w/the project stalling after Electric Café

stuff like "by pressing down a special key it plays a little melody" wasn't really worthy of them

Not worthy in what way?

Computer Love is probably their best but it feels quite unrelenting to me - there's something a bit creepy about the whole vibe (that really takes over on the last two tracks) that prevents me from playing it too often. I would probably have voted Man Machine

I see what you mean, CW was my first Kraftwerk album and I was astonished at how lightweight and dinky it was for a band that was spoken of in such reverential tones. That said I listened to it a lot because it was catchy and funny, nowadays I recognize it as the classic it really is, and can see exactly how it got #1 here, though TE-E and Man-Machine are of course also pretty legit

Not worthy in what way?

Just b/c it sounds a bit twee and childish. "Turn the dial with your hand..." doesn't have that same tone of tweeness.

Anyone cares to stand up for Electric Café/Technopop? Always felt that one was unjustly dismissed. "Telefone Call" is all time in my book.

Never liked it much until I heard that live version of "Musique Non Stop" on Minimum-Maximum which quite frankly rules. I just think that style of music was really outdated/unhip at some point in time, relistening to it now it's a pretty neat album, even if for once they sound slightly behind the curve.

Yeah experiencing "Musique Non Stop" live during the Min/Max tour was quite a revelation.

Like the album apart from "Sex Object", which I think has some sort of sampled slap bass on it, ugh. First side is great, haters begone.

Also CW is the album where Karl Bartos really comes into his own as a tunesmith, most of the melodies on that album are his.

Citation?

Citation?

David Buckley's Kraftwerk Publikation goes into this.

Interesting. I have Publikation but haven't read it yet.

Don't know if someone said this already but there's a new kraftwerk doc just starting on bbc4 right now

In the uk obv

Too much Paul Morley so far.

Digging all the footage of German kids losing their minds.

Repeated at 01:30 for you TiVo just.

Don't bother. Only half-watching etc. so

Morley: "The Beatles influence stuff like Elton John unlike our Kraftwerk guys"

Some other idiot: "They will be our Bach"

20 mins there is footage of Coldplay.

Bin.

My partner was watching it next door could hear Tago-Mago Damo through the open door, also heard the fucking Morlester:( so didn't investigate.

That was a useless programme dear the bbc

Not enough recent 'werk concert footage to be a docu focused on their recent live shows. Not enough interview footage with non-fuckwits (the only Holger Czukay was stuff seemingly filmed for something else, and they only got to speak to Derrick May for to like 10 mins in a warehouse?) to be a decent retrospective docu.

Also no Wolfgang or Karl, and the only archive interview footage is of Ralf.

Worth it for the old live performances of Pocket Calculator and The Robots

And Coldplay can do one

haha i came on ilm specifically to see what yers thought of this doc, i had a feeling it'd be judged to be lousy. weird though; the recent BBC Abba and Kate docs were great IMO.

No they weren't - its the usual 'isn't pop great' dreck filled with talking heads who would've hated the stuff at the time it was released.

Burn these museums.

Can't wait for UK Garage Britannia tho'.

the way it started with the tate gallery person listing a few random high profile artist pals who might be partial to a bit of the old kraftwerk and/or wanted to blag tickets off her was just ugh

mark s' review of the Tate show.

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/02/kraftwerk-tate-modern-turbine-hall-13-2-2013/

But yeah Nick these ppl disgust me.

Derrick May was beautiful, most of the rest of it was the usual supertrite cobblers, just stick up all the concert footage you've got and stfu imo

http://youtu.be/JHhBfx0ILkY?t=38m17s

this performance is fantastic too, hadn't seen it before and was worth ignoring the blathering heads for

lol yeah - blew the whole they are robots and don't interact.

I mean its mostly true but that was great. thx for posting it.

fucking Coldplay barely even deserve a mention in an hour long Kraftwerk documentary, let alone 2 minutes

Argh, now it's jumped back to them again! What the fuck

ah dammit, had been looking forward to watching the entire German documentary NV posted when I had an hour to spare, but it has been mercilessly yanked from youtube already

:(

it was just a dub of the one shown on BBC4 i think, don't know if there were different talking heads

ohh ok

I would hope there would be less Coldplay in the German version but probably no such luck

i only looked for that "rocking out" bit, don't know if there was a German Paul Morley or what

Klaus Mehrlig or something

That documentary would be quite a good intro for people who know nothing about Kraftwerk tbf

Also I just got Electric Cafe and it sucks :(