238. Kraftwerk, "Trans Europe Express"

 


"Kraftwerk’s 'Trans Europe Express' is the most important pop album of the last 40 years, though it may not be obvious."

OK, calm down a little, Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times.  First off, I'm not even sure this is a pop album.  At least not the kind of "pop" that can stand without a synth- or electro- in front of it.  Now, this is certainly an important album, and was certainly influential, but most important pop album of the last 40 years seems like kind of a stretch.  I mean, Thriller is just sitting there going "Wha?"

To me, the funniest thing about this album (well, one of the funniest things, after the song "The Hall of Mirrors," which I'll get to) is the fact that it was recorded at Kling Klang studios in Dusseldorf.  Is there any better example of an album sounding like the name of the studio where it was made?  This album is all klings and klangs and boops and deet deet deet noises.  There is some pop on here, I guess - "Europe Endless" is something like a pop song, if robots decided to write pop songs.,  It's totally enjoyable for whatever it is.  I also liked "Franz Schubert" - the song, not the guy - which sounds exactly like the background music for those time-lapse videos of plants bursting out of the soil and growing and spreading their leaves.  "Abzug" is entertaining, and definitely one of the songs where you can hear the influence this album had.  You can hear everything from Parliament to Joy Division in there.  (In fact, this album was Joy Division's house PA preshow music for years.)

 Now the silly parts.  "The Hall of Mirrors" is all self-serious Germanic iciness with a sung/spoken vocal part that I guess is supposed to sound deeply meaningful:

The young man stepped into the Hall of Mirrors
Where he discovered a reflection of himself
Even the greatest Stars
Discover themselves in the looking glass
Even the greatest Stars
Discover themselves in the looking glass

I can't completely explain why this is so funny, but you get it.  The next song, "Showroom Dummies" ("We are standing here/Exposing ourselves/We are showroom dummies/We are showroom dummies") also has that kind of high-schooler-who-just-discovered-pot philosophy vibe.  (Also the original German title - "Schaufensterpuppen" - is so much better for some reason.)  But hey, I'm giving these crazy krauts a break, it's not their first language.

Anyway, I get it.  Despite the silly parts, it's a totally enjoyable album and it really did set the stage for so much of what followed.  Still, for me this is gonna be an "appreciate" more than "love."  Good music to have on while you're working, though.  (Daft Punk is coming up soon, speaking of influence.)

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? I'm sure it does.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

103. De La Soul, "Three Feet High And Rising"

Image
  Sorry for the service interruption!  Monday I had, like, work stuff to do and yesterday I was picking my wife up at the airport and they lost her bag and we had to file a claim about that and by the time I got home it was well into my Work Hours and you know, I'm just sorry.  (This was tail end of quite a journey for my wife that found her taking off in Ireland and landing in Newark, New Jersey, and then sitting in a plane for almost three hours and then the flight just getting cancelled and then staying in the Courtyard by Marriott in downtown Newark, NJ [not recommended, she says] and then getting on a flight to SFO at 6:30 am and finally getting back here a solid 14 hours later than expected.) Speaking of the greater New York City metropolitan area, a group of kids from Amityville, Long Island, got together in 1988 and started making songs and released this album, one of the best in hip hop or any other genre, in 1989.  De La have been called the "Beatles of hip hop"
Read more

3. Joni Mitchell, "Blue"

Image
  Do you want the good news or the meh news first?  The good news is that this album is better than the other Joni Mitchell albums we've seen , or at least better for me.  I hated one of them and barely tolerated the other, so I was not expecting to like this, and after three listens yesterday, it was not as bad as I'd feared it would be.  The meh news?  I still don't love Joni Mitchell and I don't particularly like this album. Obviously, since it's the number 3 out of the Top 500 albums ever made, a lot of people feel differently.  Pitchfork called it "possibly the most gutting break-up album ever made," which may be true, who knows, but if it is it's about breaking up with a whole series of dudes, from Graham Nash to James Taylor to some guy named Carey.  (In Pitchfork's estimation, this is the 86th best album of the 1970s, so not exactly in number 3 overall territory). One thing that bugs me is Joni Mitchell's voice, which I find kind of g
Read more

1. Marvin Gaye, "What’s Going On"

Image
  500 albums later and we're out of albums.  This album was number 6 on the last iteration of the Rolling Stone list and has now moved up to number 1 (displacing Sgt. Pepper , which was the last album to hold that spot).  I think it's a lovely album with maybe three absolutely incredible songs, a fair amount of average-to-good, and some not great songs.  I'm not a voter and will never be a voter but I just don't think this is the best album of all time. In fact, I would be perfectly fine with this list if they just sawed off the top 3 and left the rest as is: 1. Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life 2. Beatles, Abbey Road 3. Nirvana, Nevermind 4. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours And so forth.  But let's take this album on its own merits. The first of the three absolute bangers is the title track, "What's Going On," the scene-setter for the rest of the album, a loose concept album that's told from the point of view of a Vietnam vet returning to a country th
Read more