Kraftwerk – Trans-Europe
Express
Capitol, 1977 (1993 Reissue)
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2011
Price: $4
I really have no idea why I bought this because I fucking hate Kraftwerk. OK, hate is probably too strong and “Strongly Indifferent” is probably a better fit. I’m sure there’s something to be said for synthesized electronic minimalism, but the title track makes me want to die of boredom. It’s not that I hate trains or anything. It might be that I can’t think about Germany without thinking about Germans killing Jews. That’s probably a horrible thing to think, and I’m sure the Germans have come a long way since the Holocaust and have had that horror beaten into their skulls at an early age and really turned thing around but I look at this cover with these incredibly Nordic looking German dudes and I’m like “If they’d been born like 20 years earlier they probably would have been Nazi soldiers.” And this argument is absolutely unfair to Kraftwerk, as what there doing has an importance to probably anyone who seriously cares about electronic music this is exclusively a personal hang-up I’m airing. International forgiveness is a weird thing. Fortunately, most of the songs are sung in English so I don’t have to deal with my irrational fear of the German language. It must have really blown to grow up in post-war Germany. And I do like the sparse, cold minimalism and the vocodors a lot of the time; I just can’t get gaga over this.
Price: $4
I really have no idea why I bought this because I fucking hate Kraftwerk. OK, hate is probably too strong and “Strongly Indifferent” is probably a better fit. I’m sure there’s something to be said for synthesized electronic minimalism, but the title track makes me want to die of boredom. It’s not that I hate trains or anything. It might be that I can’t think about Germany without thinking about Germans killing Jews. That’s probably a horrible thing to think, and I’m sure the Germans have come a long way since the Holocaust and have had that horror beaten into their skulls at an early age and really turned thing around but I look at this cover with these incredibly Nordic looking German dudes and I’m like “If they’d been born like 20 years earlier they probably would have been Nazi soldiers.” And this argument is absolutely unfair to Kraftwerk, as what there doing has an importance to probably anyone who seriously cares about electronic music this is exclusively a personal hang-up I’m airing. International forgiveness is a weird thing. Fortunately, most of the songs are sung in English so I don’t have to deal with my irrational fear of the German language. It must have really blown to grow up in post-war Germany. And I do like the sparse, cold minimalism and the vocodors a lot of the time; I just can’t get gaga over this.
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