AUTOBAHN

Kraftwerk

Progressive Electronic

3.59 | 375 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

I wonder how people who lsiten to progressive rock can find any interest in such a tedious, pretentious and vague band how Kraftwerk is.

I understand that in the 70's what we hear in this record could have been labeled as "experimental", but:

1] there were contemporary names (such as Tangerine Dream, Mike Oldifield, Brian Eno, Vangelis, to name some) which were far ahead: can you in any way compare the complexity and fascination of Tangerine Dream's "Phaedra" to the 22 minutes of Autobahn vacuum?

2] Kraftwerk have NEVER evolved from that minimalistic, cold, synthethic 70's sound: they are still making exactly the same bleep-based torment nowadays, after more than 30 years.

I also acknowledge that there was some sort of social message behind the anguishing atmosphere created by the impersonal vocals and the robotic sounds, but this is surely not the best effort made by an artist in this direction (Warhol went way over, for example).

I would never recommend a listen to Kraftwerk: to me it looks like it has somehow stated that Kraftwerk are cool for some reason, and people must accept it, which is just the opposite of the social message cited above.

Listening to Autobahn is like imaging the Beach Boys of year 3000: 4 robots in a car driving through an highway pervaded by a synthetic euphoria which is just the result of a robot program. This is a good idea indeed, but the result is extremely annoying: changes are minimal during the whole duration of the song, and the melodies are unbareably cheesy.

The other songs, far less known than Autobahn, are indeed even less interesting. Maybe you could resist at listening to the entire album if you set it as background music, but is it background music what really progressive music is for?

I rate this two stars, because there are fans of Kraftwerk, and for them this is surely their bestwork. Well, I'm happy for them, but this is surely not to be intended for any progressive music lover.

Warholizer | 2/5 | 2005-10-10

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