"She's a POLL And She's Looking Good": Kraftwerk, The Man-Machine

ROBOTER

Surprised nobody has made a video with The Robots + clips of Autons yet.

love this album! voted man-machine

Surprised nobody has made a video with The Robots + clips of Autons yet.

― Wuhan!! Got You All in Check (Camaraderie at Arms Length)

the bbc would probably send a takedown, they're _really_ not into transformative use

besides which, why the autons when chris boucher's fantastic robots of death are available?

"We are ze robots" comes unbidden to play in my brain over and over...

Considered voting for "The Robots," but — heresy, I know — I prefer the version on The Mix, because that was the first Kraftwerk I heard. So yeah, "Neon Lights."

MASHEEN MASHEEN MASHEEN MASHEEEEEN

xps because "WE START TO MOVE... AND WE BREAK ZE GLASS!"

honestly i've only ever listened to "die mensch-maschine" and even though their german is fairly straightforward it's not a language i speak :)

That's Schaufensterpuppen, not Die Roboter but OK?

Even though every song on this album is a contender, answer is very easily Neonlicht - but not so much because of the amazing album version, but because of all the incredible live versions from the 1981 tour, the highlight of which is always more and more extended breakdowns of "Karl Bartos gets incredibly funky" which make my heart go weak. I've found at least 9 different versions from that tour, and I can't even decide which is best, I can just listen to that song for hours.

That's Schaufensterpuppen, not Die Roboter but OK?

I am a fucking idiot, sorry.

I will blame it on the heat

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i'm just going to say what i think everybody is thinking:

god i hope there is an equal distribution of votes across these 6 tracks

lol

it's all great but The Model is among the first songs I ever remember hearing and it still sounds amazing

shoutout to love tractor's ace jangle pop cover of 'neon lights.' no way is it better than the og, but damn does it give it a run for its money.

Neon Lights in a walk; easiest poll ever.

Yeah I love that Love Tractor cover!!

(xp)

robots goes the hardest

piscesx otm

also German versions or GTFO

nah the English versions sound way better

this is the best album

anagram how dare you

Yeah, Neon Lights

I tried (and failed) to get Kraftwerk tickets online a few years ago and found it ironic that I had to prove that I wasn't a robot.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Told ya

this is unfairly undistributed, but tbf, that's ok

a proper blowout, i reckon.

wait where's Neonlicht

i love neon lights, and i think i might have started a thread on it (? could be very wrong on that) but i think 10% of my ilm posts have been about that song.

but no way is it the blow-out champion on the album, because most of it is just as good. i admit that spacelab and metropolis are just a cut below, though i still listen to them every single time. but the model, man-machine, and the robots are all certified all-time legendary tracks in my book, in addition to neon lights

agreed, mr. malone. such is the nature of alltime classics, i suppose.

hard to argue with the result

you guys are going to hate me for saying this but i always got a “jellicle cats” vibe from the last half of neon lights

I have never disagreed more strenuously with an ILM poll result

Wish Spacelab had more love.

everything except the inexplicably overrated winner deserves more loved

so who's the 1

I voted for Neon Lights but I get "Metropolis" stuck in my head all the time, great track

Team Man Machine and I'm a little surprised it placed above The Robots although listening to the one disc 3D set has persuaded me that the former is the best and the latter a bit too long and repetitive. Tbf the original is much more hypnotic.

Low scores for Spacelab and Metropolis were kind of predictable given the nature of these all or nothing polls.

"Neon Lights" and "Man Machine" are the two best tracks on this album, wish I'd voted MM now to push it up to 2nd spot.

i voted man-machine and feel good about it

Voted metropolis to avoid a zero so yay me

This was a toss-up for me between The Robots and Neon Lights and I ended up picking the latter. Way to hive-mind!

Also a member of Team MM. To be perfectly honest, I probably love Neonlicht even more, but The Man-Machine is the most perfect distillation of their vision and genius.

Classic album, hard to believe it wasn’t polled in here before.

I didn’t vote (I think?) but title track is the first Kraftwerk song I heard and the one I find the most fun to listen... something about those synths and the bouncing effect they create, also love the Moroder sound of Spacelab. Underrated song judging by the votes.

Metropolis is the one I could live without, so at least I agree with that one in the last place

re: Spacelab and Metropolis, i love those songs but i think the only reason i put them at a slightly lower tier is that that remind me of other music of that period. moroder, yes, but also some prog and tangerine dream and all sorts of stuff.

i suppose you could make a similar argument with the robots and especially the model, which use more conventional song structures. but they're both such monuments of electro-pop, imitated so many times, they're absolute classics. and then neon lights and man-machine are just off in mindblowing trailblazer land