Product Description

Germanic in approach and delivery, this record gets under the skin and infuriates as you find yourself compelled to humthe melodies. A significant record in the development of electronic music, and not to be confused with other "kraut rock" efforts from the school of mid-70s prog, this is the album from which countless bands borrowed riffs--passages of theCure, Depeche Mode, Joy Division, and New Order are to be found among the five lengthy tracks. Don't be fooled: Kraftwerk were there at least five years in advance. Great for driving on the motorway in Europe, incidentally!

Track Listing

1. Autobahn
2. Kometenmelodie 1
3. Kometenmelodie 2
4. Mitternacht
5. Morgenspaziergang

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3304 in Music
• Released on: 1987-06-22
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Futurism that hasn't dated
I was a teenage kid when I first heard the edited single version of 'Autobahn' in 1975. That's 1975. Just to re-iterate, 1975 - when only rich rock stars knews what a Moog was, let alone what to do with one. This album was so far ahead of its time, it's untrue.

The years have gone by and I've only become more fascinated by Autobahn. Taken literally, it's a trip down a German motorway rendered with analogue synthesisers. It could have become a camp museum piece, but the spacey, classically-influenced arrangement and wonderful invention have rendered it a classic. There's just something about it that never seems to date.

Kraftwerk would later continue the themes of retro-futurism that they touched upon here, but I don't think they were ever more experimental or more musical. In the bass pulse of the title track, you can hear any number of future music forms. But then in what used to be side two, you can also hear equally sparse invention with a flute. Yes, that's the most influential of electronic bands ever ... with a flute.

I absolutely love this record. It somehow manages to be challenging and comforting at the same time. Like meeting an old acquaintance on friends reunited and finding that they were more fun than ever.

Dense, evocative, ambient and atmospheric.
Autobahn is one of Kraftwerk's more conceptual offerings, attempting to capture the essence of a drive along the titular motorway system, in a way that predates the similarly expansive concept of 1977's Trans-Europe Express. It's perhaps less fully-formed than that particular album, or certain others that would follow (most notably The Man Machine and Computer World), but it does have that distinctive Kraftwerk charm and a sound that refuses to date!! Unlike their later albums, Autobahn features snatches of "real" instrumentation amongst the layers of robotic synths, most notably the drums - which have a less mechanical and more propulsive feel to them here - and the guitar - which pushes the title track more towards progressive acts like Pink Floyd (particularly the early sound of the pre Medal/Atom Heart Mother era) and their Krautrock-sampling contemporaries, Yellow Magic Orchestra.

The title track is one of Kraftwerk's greatest achievements... a twenty-two minute-long piece of music that manages to capture the lulled ambience of a long motorway trip (from the sense of freedom as you hit the open-stretch, to the endless possibilities suggested by the road laid out in front, with the swirl of landscapes blurred on either side, the buzz of passing motorists and the eventual frustration of a last minute jam all adding to the overall sense of confusion), all wrapped up in a propulsive swirl of evocative instrumental flourishes, disarming production effects, chanted vocals, and an approach to pop music not a million miles away from the Beach Boys!! At twenty-two minutes it's not nearly long enough, with the different breaks, movements and mid-song stretches drawing us in and holding us entranced by the sheer enormity and imagination of their sound and style, whilst further demonstrating, once and for all, that Kraftwerk are one of those life-changing, era-defining bands that have managed to invent their own brand of pop music, whilst, simultaneously, re-inventing and perhaps even straddling a number of other, more disparate musical genres, from electronic or progressive rock, to dance, hip-hop, post punk and pop.

The rest of the album, no matter how great, can only pale in comparison with the lulled ambience of the opening track... with Kometenmelodie 1 offering us something more dense and menacing than the joyous pop of Autobahn, with gloomy synthesisers and an ominous swell of distortion creating a dark sense of dissonance, which is eventually undercut by the more pop-like sound of Kometenmelodie 2. The fact that the song Autobahn is followed by two songs essentially titled "comet melody", which in turn will segue into songs called Midnight (Mitternacht) and Morning Walk (Morgenspaziergang), perhaps imply that the concept behind the album goes deeper than the simple notion of driving on the motorway, perhaps suggesting the idea of escape (from where exactly?), with the dark and foreboding Kometenmelodie 1 giving way to the bright and breezy Kometenmelodie 2, before luring us into those lush and dreamy closers (the metaphorical escape complete: sanctuary found in a blissed-out pop utopia!!).

Autobahn is a fascinating album... an ornate and esoteric collection of music that shows Kraftwerk mixing joyous pop sophistication with propulsive experiments in the field of all things "electronic". It still sounds fantastic too, with the studio built electronic equipment still sounding incredible - even when compared to more recent electronic albums that were created digitally - and while the electro-pop bands that were influenced by Kraftwerk - such as Depeche Mode, New Order, Duran Duran, Gary Numan, Ultravox, etc - now sound dated and cheap, the work of Kraftwerk still sounds absolutely peerless. Autobahn is a bold and really quite ground-breaking record, one that managed to push the envelope in terms of electronic music, and led Kraftwerk into a transitional phase from that early, more progressive sound, into the more enchanting pop sound of Trans-Europe Express, The Man Machine and Computer World.

30 Years on, and it still sounds great.
The year was 1974 and a saturday afternoon. I went to see a friend of mine, and he told me that he had just brought a new album by a band called Kraftwerk. I had never heard off them, so he was keen to tell me that the band were German, and the title track was called Autobahn and was all about a car journey. Well, I thought he had banged his head. He told me, that I had to listen to it. So we went into his parents lounge, and listened to the whole album. I was 100% hooked and just had to own a copy, so 30 minuates later I had brought a copy.

Today the music would be I suppose classed as trance, and it would give some of the modern day music a run for it's money, back in the 70's it was light years in front of anything. Would I recommend it? ABSOLUTELY. I still have my vinyl copy and of course a copy on cd, I still listen to the album at least once a week. Every time I listen to the album the memories come flooding back and of course new ones are logged, and that Saturday afternoon all those years ago is not that far away. This album has been a very good friend to me for 30ish years, it's always been there. It sounds as good today as it did back in the 70's, quite simply one of the best albums in the history of music. I can't recommend this album enough, all I'll say is, if you like music it's a must album for any music collection.