quoted 9 lines Ok, and let us not forget Eno/Michael Rother/Neu!/Moebius/Roedelius (Cluster),> Ok, and let us not forget Eno/Michael Rother/Neu!/Moebius/Roedelius (Cluster),
> Connie Plank, and other German Prog-gies. I find a lot of their material has
> aged better and holds up a little more strongly than Kraftwerk as a
> pre-cursor, who seem to be--to me anyway--rather dreary and
> overly-pretentious. Anyone who caught their tour/side show last year might
> agree--they are too easy to parody; in fact, they're doing it themselves. The
> Tour De France Soundtracks make me think of hampsters running on wheels.
> Harmonia's "Tracks and Traces" is a truer grandaddy of "Geogaddi" than
> "Autobahn" (and most certainly "Electric Cafe" ;)
You, like so many others, seem to miss the fact that Kraftwerk have always
had a sense of humour both about themselves as performers and about their
music. Just a few examples: the failure of the starter motor to work at the
beginning of the live version of Autobahn, the subjection of Numbers in live
performance to the uncertainty principle, the droll intonation of the vocals
on Pocket Calculator.
As to Geogaddi - lovely though BoC may be, we're not talking groundbreaking
in any real sense of the word. Musical fashions ebb and flow, but Kraftwerk
are widely acknowledged to be successors to the Beatles in terms of breadth
of influence on popular music. No one else comes close. You may not like
Kraftwerk very much, but Harmonia/Cluster/Neu (who I, like Jeff, adore) are
just not in the same league.
Cheers, Colin.
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