Neu! - Classic or Dud?

Thanks for your solid, rational reasoning.

Deud.

NEU! have burrowed themselves so deep into my listening that I can't even fathom a "dud" response anymore. Right about now, if a band doesn't have a little something of that relentlessness, I don't want to listen to them. (By that token, I'm totally fucking ape over that last Oneida album)

Neu! 86 has turned, unexpectedly, into an 'in-car' hit with the rest of the fam, along with their Cheryl, nDubz and crystalcastles' Cds

... just got it in FOPP for £5. I was a bit snooty about it upthread(before actually hearing it of course!) 'cuz I was worried that Rother might make it all tasteful and Rotherlike or (worse) update it in some way: thankfully he hasn't really done that much to the basic tracks: he's dropped some of the rubbish and sequenced it quite nicely (tho not perfectly, "Crazy" should obv. be the second track, as on Dinger's version, not "Dänzing"). I'm useless at spotting stuff like "improved sound quality" and "remastering", so the massive improvements mentioned above are largely lost on me. I don't know why Rother's decided to lose "Schöne Welle (Nice Wave)" and "Bush-Drum", both of which are quite nice tracks, the latter doesn't sound anything like Neu! but so what? "Paradise Walk" disconcerts me 'cuz it sounds like a rhythm preset on an old keyboard I used to have, it doesn't sound finished to me. Neither does "Drive (Grundfunken)", which everbody loves because it sounds like Neu! and proves that Rother could still whip out Neu! riffs at the drop of a (Tyrolean) hat, but is basically a jam that would never got anywhere near an album if they'd ever managed to put out the album anything other than retrospectively. Anyone up for another version with bonus tracks? <----- Joke

Yeah, I don't know why he lost those two tracks either. I guess he wanted to sort of mask the fact that most of the tracks they recorded were based on the same 4 chords and just dropped a few of them. "Bush Drum" was something different though. I dont know, no matter how you arrange the tracks, there's really not much of an album there. Dinger's version was nearly unlistenable. Rother's is better, but its much better taken track-by-track rather than listened to all at once. Definitely has a very distinct "unfinished" feel to it.

Leb Wohl <3 <3 <3

Dud. Totally boring.

Out.

dud

is it bad that all non-faust/can krautrock i listen to is for the express purpose of hypnotic background noise for reading? i find neu more droney than most drone out there

"Fur Immer" is one of the greatest songs ever, tho it is v drone-y!

Not all hypnotic background noise, in case anyone forgot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYeVvp8sdmg

i like la dusseldorf better

I can't believe I started this thread over a decade ago... Hypnotic background noise?! What about "Negativland"? Almost everything on Neu! 2? Yeah, Dan, "Hero"!!! They're immortally classic. I was visting one of my better restaurant customers yesterday, showing them a few new wines, and "Hallogallo" suddenly started burbling from the speakers... I freaked out mildly, stopping mid-sentence, being all "this is NEU!? you guys are playing NEU!"... The several-years-younger OWNER and his assistant were like, "yeah I guess... this is the internet radio we play sometimes" or something. It's so funny to think back about how giddy I was that this stuff I had only read about would finally be available, saving up some bucks (and probably selling some CDs) to get the Astralworks reissues, and just listening to them again and again. Now we can just cue it up on Spotify, cross our arms, and pass our judgments in a flash! [/grumpy old early-30s man]

Was drinking in this bar last night!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-zq0oZXv9dw0/TnM7MfpJ3BI/AAAAAAAAAE4/lpKx1HTyDVA/s512/IMG_0018.JPG

Pretty good interview with Michael Rother in the new Wax Poetics, of all places. Summary: Couldn't really handle being friends with Klaus because he was crazy, but we really connected over the music and I'm super proud of that.

Pretty good interview with Michael Rother in the new Wax Poetics, of all places. Summary: Couldn't really handle being friends with Klaus because he was crazy, but we really connected over the music and I'm super proud of that.

I don't ever remember any mention of Neu! in early Jesus & Mary Chain pieces (there was a lot of talk from journalists about the Velvets, Stooges, Suicide, Ramones etc), but Neu 2 is all over some of their early stuff. I guess the journalists just hadn't heard the records in '84, '85?

They were 'relating' them to the VU, at which point they decided "job done".

It wasn't until the J&MC covered "Mushroom" that the possibility of "other influences" were considered.

Probably more likely that journalists had heard Neu! than JAMC, it's possible JAMC had but they were 110% Velvets anyway

Anyway, I don't hear the influence!

When was Ciccone Youth? That was one of the first time I heard of Neu! being namechecked... in the 80s that is. And then Stereolab came along and it was obvious they'd been "rediscovered" big time.

Well, I saw SonicYouth supporting the J&MC at the Hammersmith Palais back when, and Ciccone Youth was after that.

Obviously JAMC had turned them on to Neu! when they were all hanging around in the dressing room after the gig

Definitely a Neu! influence on Bobby Gillespie as you can hear if you listen to his motorik bongo beats from that one show he played sitting in with Damo Suzuki and Captain Beefheart.

Also he says this:

"Neu! is, in my opinion, one of the more towering musical achievements in recent history, and we are all living in the individual shadows of these two men. Speed and stillness, simplicity and cacophony, gentleness and aggression, mania and focus, are all juxtapositions that have been given a voice, and have learned to coexist under the equally as contradictory guidance of Michael and Klaus."

Nah, I'm sure they were all trying to get tales out of Jayne Casey... (xpost, Pink Military were 2nd support)

Spitzenqualität could be a mid-80s JAMC b-side

Also he says this:

"See that fuckin' Neu!, fuckin' ripped me aff so they did. They came tae see the fuckin' Mary Chain, ah think it wis at Janie's in Gourock... aye the Boey Hairdressers wur supportin' us, pile o' shite they wur till ah fuckin' lent Norman some Big Star records and said, "Here ye go, son, rip that moab aff and ye'll be laughin'"... anywey, where wis ah? Oh aye, there ah um fuckin' knockin' back the shandies wi' Stephen Pastel and that fuckin' Klaus Dinger cunt comes up tae me 'n is aw like "Oh, herr Bobby, you are the best drummer I hef ever seen, Mo Tucker voz right about you!" and ah'm like, "Aye aye, pal, heard it. Who let this pair o' losers in?". And the other yin, he wis oo'er at fuckin' Wullie Reid bendin' his fuckin' earhole aboot fuckin' guitar strings or sumthin'. Next thing ye know, the cunts huv pit oot their fuckin' first album 'n it's goat the fuckin' Mary Chain aw oo'er it!"

^ much more believable than his actual quote, when will these so-called newspapers print the truth?

Pretty good interview with Michael Rother in the new Wax Poetics, of all places. Summary: Couldn't really handle being friends with Klaus because he was crazy, but we really connected over the music and I'm super proud of that.

I know that Klaus was really the "genius" of the group but I feel like Michael should have had the final word on what was actually released

i have read this thread several times over the years, but never dived in until today.
just found neu! and neu!2 in fopp in the £2 exchange bins in very good condition.
listened to neu! and starting neu!2 now.
i already know that these going to be top of the playlist for a very long time to come.
very chuffed.

Neu 75 even better!

as of today, i will be tracking that one down

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

Is there anything else like side 2 of Neu '75? Proto-punk classic.

Not by Neu! La Dusseldorf carries on equally awesome but never as raw.

If you're John Lydon you'd say "Nadir's Big Chance" by Pater Hammill.

Thanks Dan, I'll check them both out.

I totally love the La Dusseldorf albums, but I admit I once played them through my Arp 2600's preamp so I could distort it a little bit!

"Opa-Loka" by Hawkwind has a nice punk-kraut vibe.

where have this band been all my life.

just picked up neu! 75 from hmv in bristol as the counter guy said : 'excellent album - now go get la dusseldorf album'

i genuinely feel as if i have struck audio gold as this stuff ticks so many of my boxes.

oh, and for an update on this type of groove, i reckon steve webster from the band fort lauderdale in his higamos hogamos guise gets pretty close to the source :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyQez0TwDvA

must give a shout out for michael rother's "sterntaler" & "flammende herzen" beautiful plangent gtr / xylophone / synth melodies with jaki l on the tic-toc rhythms. thankfully picked em up at the local for 1.50€ a pop whoop!

Rother is divisive round here- see the krautrock listening club thread from here onwards. I think Rother's stuff is great, personally, but I can understand why people like the edge Dinger brought to things with Neu!

right on, if you enjoyed Neu! a lot, the first two La Dusseldorf albums are the way to go.

suspect i wont be able to just nip into fopp and pick them up ..

I think the La Dusseldorf albums are fairly commonly available, Rother solo probably not. I got the former from eMusic not so long ago...

Don't sleep on Harmonia - far better than Rother solo.

Oh yeah - those two albums are far better than anything I've heard from Rother solo.

how great is that first La Dusseldorf album? I feel like I really hadn't paid it enough attention until now. It's freakin' gorgeous.

i listen to the first 2 la dusseldorf records way more than neu!