Customer Reviews

Electric Cafe

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When Kraftwerk's "Electric Cafe" was first released in late 1986, I immediately picked it up on cassette. Back in 1986, I considered it a disappointment compared to their earlier work. It wasn't until 1999, when I picked up the CD to replace my old cassette that I rediscovered "Electric Cafe" in a completely different way. "Electric Cafe" isn't Kraftwerk's best album but it certainly is a crowning achievement. There is more emphasis on rhythm and beat than on any previous Kraftwerk album. Also, the use of sampled repeated phrases (ie: "Boing Boom Tschak") is now commonplace in today's dance music. There also is a slight minimalist approach to this music. Kraftwerk stripped their sound to its bare essentials here keeping the music simple and slightly more repetitive than on previous efforts. There was even one bonafide hit on "Electric Cafe". "The Telephone Call" was in frequent rotation on many dance music stations at the time. The track also is unique because neither Ralf Hutter nor Florian Schneider sing lead vocals on this song. For the first and last time, percussionist Karl Bartos sings a lead vocal.
Although it is slightly underrated and there are better Kraftwerk albums available, "Electric Cafe" has aged gracefully over the years. Many of the sounds that Kraftwerk introduced here have now caught on with a younger generation of electronic musicians. This album was somewhat of a blueprint for what was yet to come with this genre of music. My thoughts on this album are different now than they were in 1986. This album becomes more enjoyable each time I listen to it. It can really grow on you and get you hooked. While it isn't a classic, "Electric Cafe" is a worthy investment. Check it out.

Okay, where do I start? "Electric Cafe" is a masterpiece. Their best album. Not only does it possess the streamlined economy of sound prevalent in other Kraftwerk albums, it combines that with real, cutting wit. I mean, how funny is "Boing boom tschak"? It's not supposed to be taken completely seriously! The rhythms have been honed and layered with precision and calculation. The album is very calculated. Everything is perfect. Everything is there for a reason, and the music woulnd't work without it. For example, the echo stopping the third time the voice says "boing boom tschak" at the very start. If the echo was there as with the first two times, the feel of the music would be very different. One must also point out the variety of sounds on this album is far greater than on any other Kraftwerk album (except "The Mix"). They really used the synths, samplers, vocoders and Robovox (their own synthetic voice generator) to maximum advantage. There are analogue "bleeps" here galore - bent, twisted and coloured with digital processors (every sound is meticulously detailed if you listen closely enough). There are synthetic strings, there are umpteen different snare, bass drum and cymbal emulations. Synthesised guitars. A plethora of new synthetic sounds, more extravagantly detailed than ever before by Kraftwerk and than any songs I have heard coming out these days. Loads of synthetic voices, some blatantly robotic and some very human sounding - "Speak&Spell" could have made a cameo, though! As for the ludicrous insults the title track has suffered in others' reviews, here are some of its lyrics: "aesthetic form, political art, dietary cuisine, in the atomic age". Raising concepts, raising issues, simply and with ambivalence! That's what art should do, and here are Messrs Hutter and Schneider isolating aspects of our modern "atomic age" for the listener to contemplate and evaluate for him or herself. The song is a work of art. The album as a whole lacks thematic omnipotence in that it concentrates rather more on the lonely, depersonalised side of modern living. It's a very social album - tracks like "Sex Object" and "The Telephone Call". I think it could have done with one or two more tracks, about other sides of modern life - office atmosphere, consumer fashions, television soaps, and so on, but I suppose that was all dealt with in the previous "Computer World" album. All in all, "Electric Cafe" is Kraftwerk coming down to the ground level. Technology is sex. Machines are sex. The so-called cold and sterile computer screen can be as "warm" as any human face. You just have to want it. In the end, language doesn't matter, because sound, rhythm and colour communicate so much more. "Boing boom tschak" indeed, because verbal language is dead. Technology could bring about our demise (ie "Terminator" territory) or it could seriously advance humanity onto a new stage, or both. Of course, anything is possible. "Electric Cafe" points to a new era of art.

It usually isn't a good sign when a band tosses a project away and detours into releasing an album.

In the case of Kraftwerk, the bulk of the Techno pop project was nixed after several years of work - though it produced a great video for the original version of Tour de France - for the dance club mix-tape, Electric Cafe.

The album was released five years after the classic Computer World & Kraftwerk's revolution within the studio that made electronics an industry standard.

I split the music into two segments, with the strongest by far Boing Boom Tschak, Techno Pop and Musique Non Stop. Though the final three cuts are interesting - The Telephone Call, Sex Object and Electric Cafe - they show a little strain in the band's cutting-edge creativity.

When released, the album was met with mostly critical reviews from fans and reviewers. But the sound surprisingly holds up well and, though not as adventurous as Computer World, it shows Kraftwerk pulsating to the rhythms of the dance floor they created years before.

It seems like when "Electric Cafe" came out in 1986 Kraftwerk weren't as revolutionary anymore and many others had catched up on their electro music. It was 5 years after their last album "Computer World" and many things had changed, They had actually been in the studio for 5 years to come up with a new album and the expectations were enormous. There's also 3 diffrent languages versions (German, English and Spanish) of this release. Even if this album isn't bad in any way and grows on you I feel like the first 3 of the songs are too simular and actually could have been just one, they mention their respective title's (Boing Boom Tschak, Techno Pop, Music Non Stop) through the songs and have a simular structure also, however they do have diffrent melodies and the third song "Musique Non Stop" was also a hit. But apart from that we saw loads of simular albums released at the same time and the emergence of Electro and Techno music. The song "Telephone Call" which deals with telephones and dialing, is one of the best. It once proves how much you can create with computers and samples. "Sex Object" had a odd title for this album, what simularity had it with technology?. It feautures trademark robotic voices and simular strcture as the other songs, but isn't as good. Last song, the title track is a highlight. It sounds like The Neptunes and Timbaland had this as a role model when they started out. The beats are awesome but coming last it feels a little overlooked. Check this song out though, it's one of their best!. "Electric Cafe" would be the last Kraftwerk album til "Tour The France Soundtracks" in 2003. That's almost 20 years. It's not one of their best, but it isn't as bad as some experts say. The only problem was that they didn't come up with any revolutionary ideas on this album and many other musicians had done simular albums at the time. However, It's defenitely worth purchasing. Half of the 6 songs are excellent. The rest are decent but alright. If you are new to Kraftwerk don't start here though, take a look at "Trans-Europe Express" or "The Man-Machine" first.

I first heard this album in college with a friend named Lazarus. Wow! I have been hooked on electronica and Kraftwerk ever since. If you like a large, full range, dynamic, precise sound, then this is for you. Be prepared to be blown away.

The concept behind Electric Cafe was excellent, that is Kraftwerk reflecting on the bands they influenced and incorperating some of the new ideas into their own music. This was the era of synth pop and the "new romantic" movement. New wave had departed from punk and was radio and commercial friendly. Kraftwerk after releasing some of the most influential albums of the 70's (Trans Europe Express, The Man Machine) went through an inactive period and came back with 1981's brilliant Computer World. They attempted to release an album in 1983 called "Techno Pop" but for various reasons, it was modified to become Electric Cafe and released 3 years later. Music Non Stop, Techno Pop and Boing Boom Tschak as a suite are great, using sampling and heavy techno beats for a song (in the remixed version) that was so catchy that it concludes all of Kraftwerk's concerts. This continues the dehumanized, robotic virtues that held every good Kraftwerk song together. On the other hand,a song like "Sex Object" just doesn't work. The lyrics "I don't want to be your sex object. Treat me with feeling and some respect" just don't sound like Kraftwerk when compared to earlier takes on relationships such as the Model ("she's posing for consumer products now and then") or the prophetic "Computerlove". Its not that Kraftwerk ran out of ideas ("Tour De France" intended to be on the album has all of the Kraftwerk virtues). Its just that they didn't stand out so much, since a multitude of bands were by then, highly in debt to Kraftwerk. "Electric Cafe" is a product of its time. It is still listenable and fun but not the place to start for a Kraftwerk novice.

The last Kraftwerk album of the 20th Century was looked on rather softly at the time. After all, it was almost five years since the boundary shattering "Computer World." Hip-hop was already starting to find electronic sampling as a source of inspiration, and suddenly, those ideas seemed a bit old hat. However, I have always considered the original side one of this album to be a masterwork of electronic music, on a par with Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe Express" or even "Autobahn."

Those first three pieces, "Boing Boom Tschak," "Tecno Pop" and "Musique Non Stop," formed a perfectly building suite of the machines that make the music, building from the elemental three words to the final explanation of purpose. "Boing Boom Tschak" (pronounced 'chuck') set out everything that Kraftwerk considers musical in three simple words. The electronic percussion begins to layer underneath and "Techno Pop" is born. Finally, "synthetic electronic sounds, industrial rhythms all around" wrap it all up. It is as close to a summation of electronica as has ever been recorded, and I love "Electric Cafe" because of it.

The other half of the CD is pedestrian by comparison. Where before Kraftwerk would lay down electronically altered robot-voices, this time much of the work is sampled. "The Telephone Call" was a minor dance hit, but it seems less groundbreaking and more of the times. Same with "Sex Object," which seems like the aftermath of "Computer Love" - "you turn me on, then you forget." The CD comes to a satisfying conclusion with the title track, a chill piece. Little did we know that it was the last we would hear from them till 2006 and the "Tour de France Soundtracks." Fortunately, the art on the front may be the only thing on the album that's dated. "Electric Cafe" has really gathered luster over the years.

Electric Cafe was a very much delayed project and was originally called Technopop and should have included the awesome single Tour de France. After years of frustration and innuendo the album was finally released in 1986. It is way of ahead of its time in its use of sampling, loops and the way they use their keyboards. it has 6 awesome tracks on it starting with boing boom tshak and ending with the hypnotic electric cafe, Sex Object is the best track on the entire cd with amazing beats, lyrics and a melody that is quite accomplished. The book-let is typical Kraftwerk with very little information and odd looking photographs. The graphics may look basic today (2005), but back in 1986 this was cutting edge and if one used computers back then, then one knows how advanced these graphics truly were for their time. This is a great album from Kraftwerk. It is just a shame that they record so seldom these days.

This album made a LOT of Kraftwerk fans ex-fans in 1986. Even then, I didn't especially like the minimal proto-techno of the first 3 tracks, but 20 years later it's hard to see what the fuss was over. I like it now! It has a lot over tons of lame techno I've heard in the meantime! But tracks 4-6 were clearly successful even then, being much richer musically than the rest of the album. "Telephone Call" and "Sex Object" are prime Kraftwerk, full of stimulating electronic and acoustic eddies and currents of sound.

Superb Condition. Excellent quality of music. Perfect packing and forwarding. Got in perfect condition. Cheers.. Recommendable to others defenitely !!