Kraftwerk - Tour de France Soundtracks

Grows on you, but not the same Kraftwerk of old.

Considering these guys haven't put out proper new material in ages, this album is a good effort but falls short of the superb classics like Computerworld or Trans Europe Express. Since this album was built around the unattainable single Tour de France from 1984, it would have been good to include the original on the CD just for completeness' sake. July 11, 2008

dull "music of der future".

There is something inherently prosaic in this dead dull "music of der future". Fortunately, man has still some sense of individualism, but barely, and Kraftwerk's fascist goal for music has not rendered vocals obsolete. Listening to this, it harkens back to the techno geek 1970's when Germans laden in neo-fascist uniforms with thin ties and a pound of grease on their hair, showed no emotion on stage, acting like machines. Most of them wore leather pants so tight that they froze while playing, hence the dumb and inarticulate Krautbot look. They copied architecture chic from the 1930's, added some 70's porn montage and called it "modern" 1970's and praised the revolution of robots and computers. Not only is that very idea horrifying, but it is also silly. "Kraftwerk" means "cheese plant" in German and they are very cheesy.

The CD is probably one of the most horrible things I've listened to. If you can get to the end of it, you'll find all sorts of unwanted electronic noise, Krautbot voice dubs, electro fuzz, beeps, computer konks, repugnant computer-generated vocals, static, repulsive synthesizers, and extremely unpleasant clamor that goes on forever, that you'll soon be reaching for a hammer to crush the CD. In my estimation, all crap. A few American bands at the time tried the stale trend with deadly results, Gary Numan The Pleasure Principle (1979), Styx Kilroy Was Here (1983) , both tossed their careers away because of it.

You'll be reminded of foolish telephone companies, lumbering computer screens, electronic wires and moronic techno cabarets in dark German cellars. July 9, 2008

Nipple to the bottle

This is a sad record. Kraftwerk released almost no new music from 1986 right until 2003, during which time the media assumed that the band was obsessively working on a perfectionist masterpiece. The reality is that Kraftwerk ran out of ideas in 1981, coasted on technique for their 1986 LP Electric Cafe, and spent the next seventeen years going to the cinema, shopping, talking on the telephone, living their lives like normal people. Tour De France Soundtracks is the aural equivalent of an old university friend who you have not seen for a long time. You ask him what he has been up to, and he shrugs and says that the years passed quickly and he cannot remember. You realise that you are the same as him, you have achieved less in twenty years than you used to achieve in a single day, back when you were young. You have more money now, but nothing to spend it on.

The record gets off to a poor start. "Prologue", "Etappe" and "Chrono" are really parts of one long track, which I shall call Fred. Fred has a melody that seems uncomfortably close to "Computer World", but it's no Jack Kennedy. In fact the whole composition is a dead loss. It's pleasant, but tedious; the overall sound is very smooth and dull. There isn't enough musical material to fill all those minutes. The production is no more advanced than typical dance pop music, and it is years behind Squarepusher. There was a time when Kraftwerk could rely on their electronic production skills to patch over a lack of musical ideas, but Tour De France Soundtracks has none of that. The drums are perfunctory and the electronic beeps could have been squeezed out by anybody. There are some phased strings here and there, but the Kraftwerk sound has been diluted to nothing.

"Vitamin" is an improvement. It's a simple and hypnotic four-minute pop single. Unfortunately it is eight minutes long, it seems to stop half-way through and start again from the beginning. If I wanted to listen to "Vitamin" twice in a row, which I do not, I would play the track twice. I don't need Kraftwerk to do it for me.

"Aero Dynamik / Titanium" are one long track, which sounds like a pygmy version of "Pocket Calculator". It's the most Kraftwerk-sounding song on the record, on account of a strings noise that reminds me of the last half of "Trans Europe Express", but on a musical level it's just filler. "Elektro Kardiagramm" is a five-minute slog that does nothing and goes nowhere. It sounds like one of those finger-clicking 1920s-style swing songs. I would love to have been present when the record company executives were presented with it. You can't hum it, you can't dance to it, it's not clever, it doesn't make you think, it's not extreme or shocking, it doesn't advance music, it's a copy and paste nothing. "La Forme / Regeneration" is pleasant, but it would not seem out of place on the soundtrack of a second-hand PlayStation game from 1996.

"Tour De France" is a return to form. It's the best song on the album. It sounds like a sweeping bicycle race through some mountains. The production is elaborate and charming. It has a catchy tune. Mind you, I would have preferred less heavy breathing. I felt that when I first heard the song, about ten years ago; it's actually from 1983. By which I mean that the audio recording is the original 1983 release of "Tour De France". It's a testament to Kraftwerk's potential for greatness that a twenty-year-old song could be re-released on an LP in 2003 without sounding hopelessly dated. I can't imagine Paul Hardcastle performing the same trick. On the other hand, "Tour De France" just goes to highlight how far Kraftwerk have fallen. There are as many ideas in this song as there are on the rest of the record, and they are condensed down to five minutes.

Overall I am curious about this album. It cannot have taken very long to make. The music and the production are both very simple. It's like one of those extended remix singles that bands used to put out in the 1990s. "Vitamin" is decent, but the rest is completely disposable. It doesn't work as nostalgia; it doesn't work as a ground-breaking new direction in electronic dance pop; it's doesn't work as a catchy fun record of pop tunes. March 19, 2008

elektro-fun

i first became a fan of krafterk in highschool back in the early to mid 80s. i'm gonna be 40 this year (has it really been that long since high school?!) then, a 15 year silence from kraftwerk. then, put of nowehre, this cd came out. wow! i waas blown. my favorite band had come back. la forme is an awesome track as is the updated version of tour de france. any self-respecting kraftwerk fan will purchase this cd. September 18, 2007

Not Good

Kraftwerk has done some wonderful music - Key word "has". The music on this CD is awful. I cannot believe how they took one song and played it over and over again with maybe a one bar change - evidently they didn't have enough material or creative juices flowing to introduce new songs. It seems as if they hastily made the CD to re-enter the music market and profit from loyal fans - of which I was one. Purchasing this was a complete waste of money. Sometimes it's better to leave well enough alone - PLEASE Kraftwerk - NO MORE!
July 19, 2007

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