AUTOBAHN

Autobahn is a difficult album to judge. I remember both me and big brother were rather disappointed with it and frankly, I didn't check out any kraut again until I had become a fan of the bands that were inspired by it. Our main issue with Autobahn was the lifelessness of it. Of course the 23 minute nihilism of Autobahn was fun the first time but it wears thin rather quickly.

Another issue I first had was the lack of melody. I was raised on symphonic prog so this sparse minimalism was a bit too much (or too less?) to take back then. I can appreciate it a lot more now but compared to the following albums, this still remains not much more then a transitory album between their early kraut (Morgenspazierung, Mitternacht) and the techno direction they would take later one.

The first 5 minutes of Autobahn and the Kometenmelodie2 are the only tracks that reveal where Kraftwerk was heading for. For me the album is a historical document but not much more then that.