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Features Disc of the day
Kraftwerk
Trans-Europe Express
(EMI, 1977)
All aboard for the Düsseldorf techno illuminati's sixth.
With its sleeve image of a Mercedes-Benz and a VW beetle, Autobahn was a surprise US smash for Kraftwerk in 1974. When the following year's Radio-Activity failed to repeat its success, the group returned to European transport with their next LP, Trans-Europe Express. This signalled a significant refinement of the band's aesthetic; losing all traces of their earlier experimentalism, it presented coolly gliding, rhythmic techno-pop flavoured by classical melodies and musique concrète techniques, and examined the emerging European ideal via a train journey from Paris to Vienna. Europe Endless and Franz Schubert seemed to find this idea full of ambivalences - see also the '30s-style sleeve images by Chicago's photographer to the stars Maurice Seymour - while Showroom Dummies and The Hall Of Mirrors reflected the dehumanising effects of the consumerist age. Some argue the latter song, which depicts a narcissistic celebrity disappearing up his own reflection, relates to the then-Berlin resident David Bowie's offer of a collaboration (the title track's lyric "From station to station back to Düsseldorf City / Meet Iggy Pop and David Bowie," is more sanguine). Five years later, electro godfather Afrika Bambaataa lifted a chunk of the title track and spliced it with Kraftwerk's 1981 track Numbers to create the mighty Planet Rock, while Trans-Europe Express itself remains an essential part of the Kraftwerk live experience.
Clive Prior
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 11/08/2009
Further Listening
Kraftwerk – The Man-Machine (EMI, 1978)
David Bowie – Low (RCA, 1977)
John Foxx – Metamatic (Virgin, 1980)
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Kraftwerk is the best!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by aeiou at 7:05 PM GMT 24/10/2009 Report Abuse
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