Kraftwerk - 'Radioactivity': discuss

Probably the least discussed "electronic" KW album. I still cannot really describe it - it was sold to me as soundscapey but some of the songs are by far their more straight up pop (eg. "Airwaves") and then you have these "computer monologues" which somehow always crack me up. Anyway, your thoughts please.

Classic

my favourite Kraftwerk album.. The perfect combination of pop and experimentalism.

This is my favourite Kraftwerk album and the title track is my favourite Kraftwerk song.

Love hearing Florian's voice on "Radioland". Somehow moving.

Love how -although I should now this by now- 'Ohm Sweet Ohm' starts as a lame bontempi tune before reaching utter magnificence in the blink of an eye (ie. when the drums kick in)

my fave song is on this but its nowhere near the best album.

^correct

my favourite Kraftwerk album.
i wonder how much it was inspired/influenced by Vladimir Ussachevsky's "Wireless Fantasy"?
they'd both studied classical music after all, and weren't averse to 'borrowing' from classical pieces

Hindemith more likely than Ussachevsky I would have thought

Wow, the Hindemith lift is so blatant!

also my favourite Kraftwerk album. more of an album of fillers with a few full-length gems on it. As such it's very relaxing, like being in a space module orbiting the Earth or something with only you, the stars and a few blinking lights for company. "Ohm Sweet Ohm" is possibly my favourite KW track of all time - Richard D James eat your heart out.

Definitely underrated, quality-wise, and even its influence has gone largely unrecognized. Boards of Canada completely ripped off its mood and atmosphere for "Music Has the Right to Children". Plenty of twee/folktronica also owes it a big debt, but this is also rarely mentioned for some reason.

That BoC things always gets mentionned w/r/t this album but I really don't hear it.

Never heard that Hindemith piece before, that's amazing! You naughty boy, Ralf!!

I hear the closest similarities in the shorter interlude tracks on "Radioactivity", the ones with all the twinkly synths that sound like the background music in the operating rooms on UFOs.

xpost

title track just about pips metropolis as my top KW tune, cant stand the remixed 90s version though as it completely drops the brooding melancholy of the original

i can only imagine the BoC/KW comparison gets brought up by people who have been into electronic music for 10 minutes and don't really have anything other frames of reference to offer

Yeah, more than any of their other albums, this is one you just sort of put on and let fill up the room, more of an atmosphere than a collection of songs for me, but I like it a whole lot. "Ohm Sweet Ohm" is godlike, no one has ever made a vocoder sound that good.

xpost

It's the opposite -- people who think that MHTRTC is the best thing ever are the people who have been into electronic music for 10 minutes and don't have other reference frames to offer. Out of all the canonical electronic albums from the past 10-15 years, I'm hard-pressed to think of one that's more derivative.

My that is certainly an opinion that is challenging.

nonsense

I'm not trying to hate on BoC but comparing their lush, pastoral moods to "Radioactivity"'s lush, pastoral moods is hardly a knee-jerk reaction that suggests the lack of other frames of reference.

Is "Radioactivity" lush and pastoral?

yeah "lush" is one of the last things that would come to my mind w/r/t this album

"Ohm Sweet Ohm", for example? The high, flute-like synth melodies that kick in about halfway through (or maybe they were real, sound-processed flutes, I don't know)? The slow beginning (after the vocoder intro) is kinda bluesy, too ...

xpost

Basically I always found this to be Kraftwerk's least "mechanical", most folksy album. Sure, that doesn't necessarily form a direct link to pastoralism, although in my mind -- with this particular album -- it does.

Disagree there, "Autobahn" is much more pastoral and folksy! As is "Ralf and Florian" for that matter.

For me, those albums are more about loose, semi-improvisational jamming (although obv they are also pastoral and folksy). I love how "Radioactivity" takes a bunch of alien sounds, throws a twinkly little singsong melody on top of it, and moves onto something else after two or three minutes. Take a track like "Transistor" -- to me, that's as folksy as anything they've ever done (and I also hear a LOT of BoC on that track).

xxxpost in re Hindemuth

Yeah, my husband, the esteemed Herr Doktor dah, and I were at a Hindemuth concert a couple of years ago and when the Flute Sonata started, we about fell out of our chairs.
N.B. we are married because of Kraftwerk. <koff>

Radioactivity is a classic, absolutely. The descriptions of it as a collection of pleasant interludes with a couple career highlights on it is a little misleading, though. That's how it was always described to me, and as a result it was the last Kraftwerk album that I ended up hearing. A song like "Airwaves" is much more than house cleaning bg music. It is a propulsive monster jam to blast while turning cartwheels across Sound of Music green hills. The album as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Radioactivity gets a decent amount of ILXlovin', but if for some reason you're reading this thread and you haven't given it a full listen, you're totally missing out!

for many years this was my fave KW album, recently I have been playing The Man Machine a lot more but I think its time to go back and reassess. I still remember the first time I heard this, "Stars" was on a mixtape and I was deeply impressed.

I like how much rougher sounding it is than any of the others, more pure noise here than elsewhere in their catalog.

holy connection, that Hindemith piece! you have to admit, that little introductory riff was definitely worth looping. thanks zappi

Hindemith's early 1930's pieces for Trautonium synthesizer make him a worthy target for tribute / tune thievery

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hindemith-Sala-Works-Trautonium-Paul/dp/B00000JPJC

first piece on Sala's album 'Subharmonische Mixture' is one of my all time favorites

http://www.amazon.com/Sala-Subharmonische-Mixture-Paul-Hindemith/dp/B00002S7IL

'Radioactivity' fans should track down this live bootleg: '19750917 - Live At The Dome, Brighton, UK' -- right before the end, they do a version of 'Mitternacht' from Autobahn that slowly turns into a fast paced chug like 'Kristallo' or 'Kling Klang', and over a few minutes, Ralf's keyboard solo works in the melodies for both 'Radioactivity' and 'Showroom Dummies'

wait, where is the hindemith line reused? i know i've heard it before, but i can't place it.

Tour de France

Much as I admire Kraftwerk for their innovations and achievements, I can rarely summon up the patience to listen to a whole album in one sitting. Even classic records like Trans Europe Express and the Man Machine can plod by on the best of days. That's why Radioactivity is by far my favourite KW album in my eyes.

does not compute

Revive as I'm digging into this and the Autobahn album.

+1 on the "Wow, Hindemith" clip upthread – tho it confirms again for me that no one listens to Hindemith outside of conservatory (where I first heard him).

I find these two records to have a ton in common melodically and rhythmically with Cluster's work around the time of their collaborations with Michael Rother, albeit with a bit more emphasis on atmosphere.

In a fit of frustration given the minimal output from these guys over the years, I downloaded some bootlegs from this era – one from Paris in 1976 has the most sublime "Airwaves," all soft pattering rhythm machine and silky "Neon Lights" pulse-width Minimoog. This stuff is eternal.

eternal, yes

It's highly indicative that by '83, Kraftwerk had resorted to co-opting another composer's melody. As a creative force, they really do seem to have run out of steam after Computer World (and I say that as someone who rather likes the Electric Café album). Of course, that's not to deny their amazing achievements during the previous ten years, or that Tour de France is a sublime piece of work.

'Airwaves', 'Antenna' and the title track are three of my favourite Kraftwerk songs ever, but the bit that never fails to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up is that chord change in 'Radioland'.