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Kraftwerk is hypnotising good. But anyone has his/her taste.

If you know what good music is , that is a plus.

But you cannot please anyone. I loved bands like Polvo, The tall dwarfs (flying Nun, new Sealand) - lots of people I knew never heard of them. Sometimes they would like it or just didn't care. Music is like art - when is it art? For you to decide

Radioactivity is just wonderful, in a very literal sense of that word. Every time I listen to it I want to go out and get a radio scanner and listen to what's out there, in the air.

such good music....trans europe express..akatchou,akatchou,akatchou!!!!

not crap!!!

Kraftwerk mean/meant as much to me as the Beatles do/did to...people who really like/liked the Beatles, which I don't/didn't.

Um.

I mean to say NOT CRAP.

Zero.

Adam CR wrote:Kraftwerk mean/meant as much to me as the Beatles do/did to...people who really like/liked the Beatles, which I don't/didn't.

Um.

I mean to say NOT CRAP.

Zero.

Well said. Anyone that thinks Kraftwerk is crap should have a damn good thesis written on why. I can understand it "not being your thing", but most people I meet who think they are crap, can't articulate why on an intellectual level whatsoever. And these same people often like stuff like the Beastie Boys, Ludacris, fuckin' Coldplay, the Chemical Bros. or Fat Boy Slim. Shit that would not be the same craptastic shit it is without the pioneering done by Kraftwerk back when these haters were shitting mustard poo in diapers.

I saw them live 3 years ago in Bern (Switzerland), it was musically and visually fantastic!!!!
I've never heard a live sound that clean in my life.....

not crap
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alex maiolo wrote:What the hell can possibly be the problem?

I love this band, but I'll tell you a couple problems I know other people have, and that even I have to a degree:

1) It often seems to some people (and sometimes even to me) that Kraftwerk's music is soulless, emotionless and not very musically expressive. Some of their songs evoke moods incredibly well (the chilling, anomic deadness and air of superficial vanity that "The Hall of Mirrors" conjures up is jaw-dropping), but not all of them do that incredibly well. I know of someplace online somewhere where a guy bitches that Kraftwerk singlehandedly undid all of Stevie Wonder's achievements in making synthesizers musically expressive instruments. I think this is absolute bullshit myself, but that is one argument.

2) They're incredibly repetitive, and if you're not in the mood, they can be deadly boring, and this is coming from a Fall/PiL fan. Do most of the songs on Trans-Europe Express need to be over six minutes? All told, there are about five or so different musical ideas on that album, and while they're great musical ideas, there really isn't much of a need for them to go on so long. It was already trancelike at four minutes. I want more songs!

3) I wish Hutter would sing more in his normal voice, and not process it so often. I like his voice! (That's pretty trivial.)

That said - damn. What a smart band. I wish they'd tackled human themes more often, like with the two songs on Trans-Europe Express about the worthlessness of vanity ("Hall of Mirrors" and - admittedly, this is a subjective interpretation - "Showroom Dummies"), but they're great nevertheless.

SecondEdition wrote:1) It often seems to some people (and sometimes even to me) that Kraftwerk's music is soulless, emotionless and musically amazing.

FYP, to make it fit exactly why I love them.
There's two groups in the world I will dance to, regardless of my environment, if I hear them. Kraftwerk is one of them.

SecondEdition wrote:

alex maiolo wrote:What the hell can possibly be the problem?

I love this band, but I'll tell you a couple problems I know other people have, and that even I have to a degree:

1) It often seems to some people (and sometimes even to me) that Kraftwerk's music is soulless, emotionless and not very musically expressive. Some of their songs evoke moods incredibly well (the chilling, anomic deadness and air of superficial vanity that "The Hall of Mirrors" conjures up is jaw-dropping), but not all of them do that incredibly well. I know of someplace online somewhere where a guy bitches that Kraftwerk singlehandedly undid all of Stevie Wonder's achievements in making synthesizers musically expressive instruments. I think this is absolute bullshit myself, but that is one argument.

2) They're incredibly repetitive, and if you're not in the mood, they can be deadly boring, and this is coming from a Fall/PiL fan. Do most of the songs on Trans-Europe Express need to be over six minutes? All told, there are about five or so different musical ideas on that album, and while they're great musical ideas, there really isn't much of a need for them to go on so long. It was already trancelike at four minutes. I want more songs!

3) I wish Hutter would sing more in his normal voice, and not process it so often. I like his voice! (That's pretty trivial.)

these are all reasons why I love Kraftwerk. I have many many more.
I love how sterile it can be, and how calculated it is. cold and distant are also emotions. the repetitions. the repetitions. the repetitions.





Not Crap.

Over the last four or five years, Kraftwerk has become more and more important to me.

I always liked them a lot, but they're one of only three rock bands to which I have listened obsessively over the last few years.

I have two friends who just detest this band. They are both really big music geeks and have broad tastes, but they just loathe these guys. I run into people from time to time that share this sentiment.

No accounting for taste, I guess.

I do think it's extremely calculated music, and perhaps these guys you know like to be fooled a bit more about the degree of calculation involved in whatever music they play for enjoyment.

The lack of overt emotional content in most facets of Kraftwerk's music only serves to highlight the emotional content when it does surface to push against the machines and mechanical trappings.

That tension is exactly why their music is so often thrilling. Computer Love is a great example of this--amazing, beautiful, totally fucked-up song.

Good example of when this DOESN'T work is this Coldplay song that cops about 1/3 of Computerlove as its basis. Basically dude tries to spell out, in agonizing lyrical detail, everything that's already going on in the melody. NO POINT.

Just dawned on me that Coldplay's name may well be some bastardization of Kraftwerk.