The last great Kraftwerk album, Computer World captured the band right at the moment when its pioneering approach fully broke through in popular music, thanks to the rise of synth pop, hip-hop, and electro. As Arthur Baker sampled "Trans-Europe Express" for "Planet Rock" and disciples like Depeche Mode, OMD, and Gary Numan scored major hits, Computer World demonstrated that the old masters still had some last tricks up their collective sleeves. Compared to earlier albums, it fell readily in line with The Man-Machine, eschewing side-long efforts but with even more of an emphasis on shorter tracks mixed with longer but not epic compositions. While the well-established tropes of the band were used again -- electronically treated vocals, some provided by Speak and Spell toys; crisp rhythm blips; basslines and beats; haunting, quirky melodies -- there's a ready liveliness to the songs, like the addictive "Pocket Calculator," with its perfectly deadpan portrait of "the operator" and his favorite tool, and the almost winsome "Computer Love." Cannily, the lyrical focus on newly accessible technology instead of cryptic futurism and vanished pasts matched this new of-the-now stance, and the result was a perfect balance between the new world of the album title and a withdrawn, bemused consideration of that world. The title track itself, with its lists detailing major organizations presumably all wired up, echoes the flow of Trans-Europe Express, serene and pondering. "Pocket Calculator" itself is more outrageously fun, thanks to the technical observation that "by pressing down a special key it plays a little melody." Others would take the band's advances and run with them, but with Computer World Kraftwerk -- over a decade on from their start -- demonstrated how they had stayed not merely relevant, but prescient, when nearly all their contemporaries had long since burned out.
Shit i just needed a fix of weird elektro and i got my just desserts...i saw kraftwerk a couple of years ago at the Big Day Out Gold Coast and they were...well obviously they're pioneers but they remind me of just a bunch of german engineers...who have been robotisized. it was surreal. I remember walking into the tent and there was a dude who basically ran out of the tent swearing and saying "w...
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Source: MotherJones.comA new bill would give the President emergency authority to halt web traffic and access private data.—By Steve Aquino Thu April 2, 2009 12:33 PM PSTShould President Obama have the power to shut down domestic Internet traffic during a state of emergency?Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) think so. On Wednesday they introduced a bill to establi.
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My next door neighbor Bruce asked me the other night if I had any Kraftwerk discs he could borrow, and I met his reasonable query with my usual unreasonable response, that being "What am I, an asshole? OF COURSE I have fuckin' Kraftwerk discs! Only a jackass wouldn't!" Kraftwerk were so goddamn awesome and so unbelievably prescient that they ought to be considered fuckin' prophets! People get a...
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Yep, today I'm the big 2-4!! God I'm getting old!!Time for a party song, I think.Yep, that's right--get down and count it, folks!!And to my friend _Fistula Spume_ celebrating a birthday, Happy Candles and Kudos. :-)Until the next round, Cheers!![Oh, and "Chapter 8":http://trans-europeexpress.blogspot.com of my Kraftwerk fan fiction is finally up... after working on the darn thing for a week or...
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It seems, I've become an absolute _Werkaholic!!_ Judging from my latest Kraftwerk mix, I think I may have outdid myself a little but, if you're gonna make a mix that cranks up the jam beats and keeps the coworkers going, you HAVE to make them understand that, "it's more fun to compute."Evidence--the playlist:Nummern [Numbers] (Full Mix)Aero Dynamik (Kling Klang Radio Mix)Die Roboter [The Robot...
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Shit i just needed a fix of weird elektro and i got my just desserts...i saw kraftwerk a couple of years ago at the Big Day Out Gold Coast and they were...well obviously they're pioneers but they remind me of just a bunch of german engineers...who have been robotisized. it was surreal. I remember walking into the tent and there was a dude who basically ran out of the tent swearing and saying "w...
More >
Original article from MMN partner A Future in Noise READABLE HERE---How would you like to find a mystery mix CD or tape left on a bench? What about making one?I had tossed around the idea in my head of making a mix and leaving it somewhere for awhile, and then this item on 43things reminded me again a few months ago. So, I made a playlist...that has gone untouched and unremembered for 3 months....
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| Title | Lyrics | Buy |
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| 1 Computer World |
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| 2 Pocket Calculator |
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| 3 Numbers |
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| 4 Computer World, Pt. 2 |
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| 5 Computer Love |
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| 6 Home Computer |
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| 7 It's More Fun to Compute |
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 "Computer World")
