Product Description

By the 1980s, the world had at least somewhat caught up with Kraftwerk's chilling musical vision. Synthesizers were everywhere, and the automation of music was developing with alarming speed. As pioneers of the genre, Kraftwerk was hittingits stride as the rest of the pop music world was taking its baby steps. 1981's COMPUTER WORLD serves as an ominous reflection of our evolving technological world, and it's a seminal influence on electronic music to come.
Kraftwerk's music had always been completely based in technology, all the while reflecting a healthy fear of global automation. This album met that fear head on, from the plaintive musical themeand lonesome Everyman protagonism of "Computer Love" to thechilling "Home Computer", which foretells the PC revolutionvia the group's trademark marriage of relentless, melodic electronic music and stark, touching human imagery. Other landmark compositions include the infectious, oft-sampled "Numbers" and "Pocket Calculator", a cut which stands out even onthis album as a milestone in quirky, Teutonic synth-pop.

Track Listing

1. Pocket Calculator
2. Numbers
3. Computer World
4. Computer Love
5. It's More Fun To Compute
6. Home Computer

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #162675 in Music
• Released on: 1995-04-17
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
This is the album pundits like to point to when they accuse Kraftwerk of being digital-age visionaries; an all-too-easy assessment to make in the face of tracks such as "Home Computer" and "Computer Love". But to saddle the band with the reputation of sages is to completely miss the low-key wit and all-too-human playfulness of this album. "Pocket Calculator" and "Numbers" (the lyrics are the numbers one to eight) could be read as tongue-in-cheek ripostes to too much bad "educational" programming, but that would smack of creeping punditry. Computer World is Kraftwerk's most loveable bundle of contradictions: at once its most technologically obsessed album and its most human. --Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews

The Greatest Album of All Time
This is easily Kraftwerk's best album, and I have been returning to it regularly for the past 20 years-it really is that good. Do yourself a favour and buy this album NOW!

A nostalgic glimpse into the home computer era.
Computer World isn't just a nice album to listen to, it's a glimpse
into the era in which it was created. Through its sparse lyrics,
it reminds you how revolutionary computers once seemed, leaving you
nostalgic for the feeling of empowerment you got from having a
microcomputer in your own home. At the same time, the sounds
themselves reflect the aesthetic of using only synthetic instruments,
showing the benefits of modern technology. While this isn't a
particularly surprising stance from the group who created an album
called Radio-Activity, about both electromagnetic and nuclear
radiation, it's nice to hear songs about embracing rather than simply
fearing new technology.

For an electronic album, it has a surprisingly charming, charismatic
feel to it. You can tell that all of the keyboards were played by
hand, a stark contrast to most subsequent electronic music. While
the quality of the original master tape itself has one or two iffy
moments (at least, that's the case with the CD version), if anything,
that just adds to its idiosyncratic nature. There's a warm, friendly
feeling to this album that definitely hasn't worsened with age.

The track Computer Love is worth a particular mention, as it features
an astonishingly beautiful melody played by hand on a synthesiser.
The ad lib at the end of the song stretches the track to over seven
minutes, but it's so good that it feels like hardly any time has
passed.

This is both a great album and a historical one, considering how
much it has influenced other musicians and how much it has been
sampled and covered. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in
electronic music, especially the history of it.

Greatest ever electronic album
With "Computer World", Kraftwerk produced the last great album of their entire catalogue, and certainly the finest of their illustrious career. The album builds on the pioneering experiments of earlier albums such as "Radioactivity" and "The Man-Machine", in which newly advanced technology produces spectaular analogue melodies, bleeps and fulminating special effects. The playful "Pocket Calculator", devastating electro track "Numbers" (one to eight in different languages) and charming love song "Computer Love" are the cornerstones of this milestone in electronic music. You won't get better. Kraftwerk know this as well.