'Neon Lights' by Kraftwerk

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Say something interesting about this track.

― one track mind, Friday, 18 February 2005 12:39 (twenty years ago)

the OMD cover is better.

NB: it isn't. i'm being "controversial".

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Friday, 18 February 2005 12:42 (twenty years ago)

omd is better , u2 is worse

― sugar trax gang, Friday, 18 February 2005 12:43 (twenty years ago)

If God made a version of "Neon Lights" it wouldn't be better than Kraftwerk's version

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 18 February 2005 12:45 (twenty years ago)

EXTRA,EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT....
kraftwerk hte enigmatic keyboard genius's mysteriously make warm,emotional track using cold,lifeless machines..stay tuned.
I'd like to think that if God made music He'd be original (or would he front a Stryper cover band) ?

― sugar trax gang, Friday, 18 February 2005 12:46 (twenty years ago)

Apparently, the Devil has all the best tunes, God has killer beats tho

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 18 February 2005 12:48 (twenty years ago)

Possibly the most covered Kraftwerk track? Simple Minds did it too.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Friday, 18 February 2005 12:51 (twenty years ago)

i fear that if god made music it would sound like eric clapton.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Friday, 18 February 2005 12:52 (twenty years ago)

There was a novelty cover called 'Nylon Tights'

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 18 February 2005 12:55 (twenty years ago)

I hope that's true and you're not just joshing us

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 18 February 2005 12:55 (twenty years ago)

Sorry.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 18 February 2005 12:58 (twenty years ago)

Obscure Britpop band Octopus covered this too I believe.

― dog latin (dog latin), Friday, 18 February 2005 12:58 (twenty years ago)

I know one of Octopus!

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 18 February 2005 12:58 (twenty years ago)

(he holds good parties in Stoke Newington now)

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 18 February 2005 12:59 (twenty years ago)

You've raised our hopes sky high only to dash them on the rocks of your cruel unyielding wit (xxxpost!)

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 18 February 2005 12:59 (twenty years ago)

apparently it was also covered by luna and, umm, love tractor.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Friday, 18 February 2005 13:00 (twenty years ago)

Maybe I will record it myself, and stick it on the B-side of my cover of LCD Soundsystem's 'Pruning My Hedge'. I will be a "Weird" Al Yankovic for our times.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 18 February 2005 13:01 (twenty years ago)

you do realise that you're now going to have to write an entire lyric for "pruning my hedge" and post it here?

"i was there
with my strimm-ah"

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Friday, 18 February 2005 13:05 (twenty years ago)

God knows we need one! (xpost again)

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 18 February 2005 13:05 (twenty years ago)

I'd say this is the quintessential Kraftwerk track off the quintessential Kraftwerk album - Kraftwerk boiled down to pure essence. It's got the Glass-influenced mesmeric minimalism, it's got the nostalgia for the modernism of a pre-Nazi Germany and the yearning romanticism that goes with it, it's got a whiff of transcendentalism in the idea of a city of light, it's got that beat that is robotic and yet suprises you occasionally with an offbeat, it's got a German who can't really sing, it sort of works itself up to a quiet climax, it's got everything.

― lhooq, Friday, 18 February 2005 13:08 (twenty years ago)

I feel a song coming on:

"It's got a whiff of transcendentalism in a city of light
It's got a German who can't really sing
It's got everything."

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 18 February 2005 13:10 (twenty years ago)

argh Octopus. the first review i ever wrote was on them.

― Alienus Quam Reproba (blueski), Friday, 18 February 2005 13:15 (twenty years ago)

It was in Gary Numan's top ten in Smash Hits about 24 years ago. From that album, I stil prefer The Model, overplayed tho'it is.

Btw, If anyone hasn't visited the Kraftwerk Site...

― Jez (Jez), Friday, 18 February 2005 13:16 (twenty years ago)

Marc from Octopus's new band is called Meon, funnily enough. OK, not that funnily, but Meon, like Neon, you know.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 18 February 2005 13:19 (twenty years ago)

the melody at the end is what makes it for me

― Alienus Quam Reproba (blueski), Friday, 18 February 2005 13:20 (twenty years ago)

Oh God, "The Model" is probably my least favourite Kraftwerk track and that includes "Atem" and "News"!

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 18 February 2005 13:20 (twenty years ago)

I read somewhere that Beck's done an acoustic version of 'Pocket Calculator'. Has anyone heard this?

― franklin p., Friday, 18 February 2005 13:38 (twenty years ago)

An acoustic version of 'Pocket Calculator'? "Pocket Abacus" perhaps?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 18 February 2005 13:39 (twenty years ago)

Abacus - good name for a prog rock band

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 18 February 2005 13:39 (twenty years ago)

luna's version beats them all

― jb, Friday, 18 February 2005 13:46 (twenty years ago)

Beck does his acoustic 'Pocket Calculator' live. It's pretty cool. Don't think he's recorded it though.

― James GWR, Friday, 18 February 2005 14:12 (twenty years ago)

The First Vienna Vegetable Orchestra does a version of Radioactivity on prepared vegetables. Beat that.

http://www.gemueseorchester.org/anfang_e.htm

― FDT, Friday, 18 February 2005 14:22 (twenty years ago)

Haha is 'Atem' the one off "Kraftwerk 2" that's made up of treated breathing noises? 'The Model''s a BIT better than that, surely. Not that I like it that much either.

― A Viking of Some Note (Andrew Thames), Friday, 18 February 2005 14:27 (twenty years ago)

"Neon Lights" seems like one of those songs that makes the city, something basically opposed to the nature that gave humans their ideal of beauty and thus "ugly" SEEM beautiful (another's say F Sinatra's "Autumn in NY"). Have it playing in yr head as you walk around at night and the basic sensory wash yr in gets to be gorgeous by grace of the (equally "modern", cityied, etc) soundtrack. City life produces its own means of being beautiful and equal to what was once overwhelmingly beautiful on its own simply by existing, unrecorded or reflected on.

― A Viking of Some Note (Andrew Thames), Friday, 18 February 2005 14:51 (twenty years ago)

I almost bought a Beck 12" yesterday because Eye did the art.

― Fat Anarchy on Airtube (ex machina), Friday, 18 February 2005 15:21 (twenty years ago)

There's a part that sounds like "Jellicle Cats"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 18 February 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

This song sounds better in English than in German. "Neon licht, schimmendes Neon Licht
Und wenn die Nacht anbricht ist diese Stadt aus Licht"

― Vic Funk, Friday, 18 February 2005 15:52 (twenty years ago)

I agree with jb. It's gorgeous.

― dan. (dan.), Friday, 18 February 2005 16:11 (twenty years ago)

Thirding the Luna cover

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 18 February 2005 18:18 (twenty years ago)

Also, on that ep they do a wonderful cover of Waiting on a Friend by the Stones.

― dan. (dan.), Friday, 18 February 2005 18:38 (twenty years ago)

And one of their best songs, "Astronaut."

― nickn (nickn), Friday, 18 February 2005 22:27 (twenty years ago)

"Neon Lights" is the most shimmering shimmery sonmg of all time, even more shimmerful than anything the Cocteau Twins ever did, more shimmertastic than even New Order at their most shimmerlicious (you get the drift).

Not to mention that "Neon Lights" can be spoonerised to give us 'Leon Knight', the free-scoring striker of no-home Championship no-hopers Brighton and Hove Albion. Try singing that over the 'Werk !

― darren (darren), Friday, 18 February 2005 22:35 (twenty years ago)

kraftwerk.com is pretty cool!

― Lingbertt, Friday, 18 February 2005 23:03 (twenty years ago)

Very nice.

it sort of works itself up to a quiet climax

Very very nice.

― thee music mole, Friday, 18 February 2005 23:42 (twenty years ago)

I love this song. There was a luminescent twelve-inch single released, which caused me to projectile vomit all over my best friend's rug when I was in high school.

We weren't best friends at the time. In fact it was the first time we'd met, but I'd been hearing tales from my cousin about this guy with a fantastic record collection. So, one summer evening, after injesting a huge meal and some little something or other as well, we decided to pop over for a visit. The tales were true -- Tom turned out to have all the latest imports and indies, rare psychedelia, reggae & krautrock, all the stuff I only dreamed of hearing as a kid in a small midwestern town in the late 70s. The first thing I remember him asking is whether I liked the Talking Heads, and proceeding to play a hot-off-the-press bootleg of a show from their current tour.

I thought I knew a bit about records, so he continued playing and displaying one ultra-cool artifact after another. After hours of this, along with the passing of several pipes, he broke out the coupe de grace, the glow-in-the-dark "Neon Lights" maxi single. He pulled the disc partway out of the sleeve, exposing half of it, then turned out the lights and played the record. Nothing was visible but the strobe on the turntable and the whirling green-yellow hemisphere, with the shadow of the phono cartridge passing over it once every revolution.

neon lights
shimmering neon lights
and at the fall of night
this city's made of light

The record ended and the lights came up, me sitting on the sofa utterly stunned and stoned. "Well, what'd you think?" Tom asked. I opened my mouth to answer, and out exploded "BLEAAUUGGHHHHH!!!!" in a three-dimensional technicolor arc that leapt from my face and across the room, landing in a perfect circle on a spiral area rug, with not a drop out of place. Tom rolled up the rug and deposited it outside, and it was a good three or four weeks before I worked up the nerve to stop back over and listen to more rare records.

― briania (briania), Friday, 18 February 2005 23:54 (twenty years ago)

luna has sexy,leggy,slim britta phillips who did" satisfaction" with justine bateman".
where is their kraftwerk cover ?

― phritta billips, Saturday, 19 February 2005 00:52 (twenty years ago)

two years pass...

hahahahahaha great story briania!

― Z S, Thursday, 3 May 2007 02:52 (eighteen years ago)

Oh wait, this was years ago.

I've had this thread open all day, for some reason. My comment still stands, though.

― Z S, Thursday, 3 May 2007 02:52 (eighteen years ago)

three years pass...

Driving into Chicago with this song is such an unforgettable experience. It really does capture the beauty of technology and urban life more than anything else I can think of. Those last 3 minutes are gold and floor me every time. Looooove it!

― frogbs, Wednesday, 30 March 2011 22:07 (fourteen years ago)

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