Trans Europa Express

My cousin Jeff, three years my senior, had an extensive record collection. Plenty of what he liked, I didn't, but our tastes did intersect. I distinctly recall him playing the first three tracks on side B of Trans Europe Express to me one Sunday; assuming, correctly, that I'd be interested - it certainly wasn't like anything else I'd heard up to that point. That would have been a few years before I started buying music of my own: nevertheless, it planted a seed.

What we have here is a 1994 German CD issue of Kraftwerk's sixth album, with the original monochrome cover design. It has unkindly been said that Germans prefer the English-language versions of the band's songs and English-language speakers prefer the German ones: in any case, that is generally true for me. I'd had Autobahn on cassette since the '80s, and then later on CD, but had dithered about buying any others until my German music phase of '07/'08, when I acquired this disc and Radio-Aktivität.

I find their sharper-edged later work less appealing: this album, however, hits the spot rhythmically, melodically & thematically. There's not a bad track on it.

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All Wrapped Up

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