Customer Reviews

Trans-Europe Express

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When one hears that Kraftwerk uses basically all computers and synthesisers to make their msic, you might expect a very jagged and metalic sound. Trans - Europe Express, however, is suprisingly beautiful and very melodic. This album proves that Kraftwerk weren't just brilliant musical engineers and sound creators, but also incredible musically. This is Kraftwerk at their best. All the songs are great and flow beautifully. My personal favorites are Europe Endless and the title track. After almost 25 years, this album still sounds like it was made in the future. Trans - Europe Express is, at least, a very interesting album to listen to and at most a brilliant album, mixing melody with technology.

Years ago I purchased the EMI version of Trans Europa Express and have enjoyed it so much I decided to add the Capitol version to my last shopping cart so I culd have the English lyrics. When I played it I noticed lots of low-frequency rumble, especially on the first track - Europe Endless. I popped the EMI version in and it is totally quiet! I guess for $10.98 you get what you pay for but I find this recording unacceptable so I ordered the $15.98 version to see if the problem disappears. Here are the details of the "flawed" version:

Audio CD (September 26, 1995)
Original Release Date: 1977
Number of Discs: 1
Format: Original recording remastered
Label: Capitol
ASIN: B00000DQSZ

The title track to Kraftwerk's 1977 LP is among the most influential and vital singles of the modern era. It's a hauntingly beautiful exercise in electronic minimalism, stripped down to eerie synths, crisp drum machines, and a seductive monotone vocal. When it segues into the next track "Metal on Metal," with its click-clack beats, the recording approaches its very climax. "Trans Europe Express" was released in an era when disco was hitting its peak in popularity and while classic rock bands like Boston were ruling airwaves. Its arrival may have stuck out like a sore thumb, and naysayers may dismiss the album as cold, detatched, and synthetic. But the truth remains that this album, a classic in its own right, is the "Sgt. Pepper" of electronic music, and it deserves to be on as high a pedestal as any beloved rock and roll album. It was powerful enough to transcend many barriers, including hip hop, as Afrika Bambatta stole the title track's synth line for the single "Planet Rock." Beautiful and attention-grabbing in every which way, "Trans Europe Express" is a classic that's also essential listening.

Somewhere between the technologically pioneering `Autobahn' in 1974 and the commercial success of `The Man Machine' came the highly accomplished and massively influential `Trans-Europe Express' (TEE).

Not only did this spur many embryonic British acts to use synthesizers heavily in their more commercial efforts (Depeche Mode and The Human League amongst many) it also provided inspiration - and illegally used samples - for urban black America. It thus provided British groups with the means to retain musical domination globally in the early eighties AND provided the Americans with the means to take over as rap, hip-hop and techno all emerged. Besides, the track pairing of TEE and `Metal On Metal' ran long enough to allow a DJ time to go to the toilet and the bar before having to change the record.

The lyrics are sparse, correctly allowing the music to dominate, but even `Showroom Dummies' caused Debbie Harry to comment that it was "a song I can really relate to." `The Hall Of Mirrors' similarly reflects on fame; TEE mentions other artists that had been drawn to Germany to record at that time - David Bowie and Iggy Pop.

I keep trying to convince myself it must sound really dated by now, but both the electronics and the tunes they make stand the test of time and remain atmospheric today. I rate this one of the three best, most influential albums of all time, with `Sgt. Pepper' and `Velvet Underground and Nico' for company. A must for music historians and true pop fans.

Kraftwerk was totally unknown to me, before I bought this record. I'd read reviews and I heard samples on some CD-stores' websites, but still, I didn't get it. When I bought it, I felt like....wow!

When Trans-Europe Express was released in 1977 by Kraftwerk, that band had no idea of what that record would change on contemporary music. With its seven or eight numbers, it makes a deep journey in other parts of Europe, that we haven't heard of before - an endless journey, into the music of one of the bands that influenced the world, by changing the standards of alternative music.

The third record from Kraftwerk, Trans-Europe Express, had laid on the early albums of Kraftwerk (1974's Autobahn, the record that most Kraftwerk fans consider the greatest work, and 1975's Radio Activity), but still, it returns a melodic and harmonic sound of truly electronic work.

The albums starts off with "Europe Endless", a part of the journey into Europe, that makes people imagine, how they travel into the beautiful and harmonic world of Europe, within 9 and a half minutes listening of pure electronic work. It turns into "The Hall of Mirrors", the reflecting part of being in a hall with no end with the repeated lyric "Even the greatest stars live their lives in the looking glass". "Showroom Dummies" kicks off with the revolutionary sound of the sound, we most hear in disco, and alternative pop, and moves on with vocals by Ralf Hutter along with the beats.

"Trans-Europe Express", the head-track on the record, takes it away with the sound of a train, the TEE, and is given the metallic beats in a flash of imagination and travelling. It walks further with "Metal on Metal" (which in German is splitted into two parts, with "Abzug") as one of the good tracks on the record, where Hutter also kicks it off with the synthesizer. As it moves on to "Franz Schubert", probably a tribute to the german componist, we hear the enjoyment of playing classic music again and again, where the main sample continues to the last track on the record "Endless Endless", which is given the "endless" vocals, as it had on "Europe Endless".

Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider had with no idea produced a part of electronic work, which is the godfather to other types of techno, we know today. Trans-Europe Express is the best Kraftwerk-record in my opinion. All the tracks are essentials, and make me happy by buying it, you won't regret.

My first exposure to this band was this album, and via the track, "Europe Endless". I recall saying to myself "if i hear that chord progression once more..........." that was back in 1983. It took a bit of time, but finally I understood what Kraftwerk were telling me. Music should flow seamlessly, trance like, with no sudden bumps in the road, and this is what it delivers. From the foundations of rythm, or texture, they slowly build, gradually adding more, then slowly stripping down, to finally arrive where they began.
This album opens with the beautiful "Europe Endless", this sets the scene for the later half of the album. Next it moves into two fairly straight foward pop tunes, one of which is the classic "Showroom Dummies".
From here Kraftwerk now make their point, "Trans-Europe Express", is an epic track that chuggs along like a train. Travelling smoothly, no detours, no seams, just as music should be in the land of Kraftwerk. "Metal On Metal" arrives, and proves that there is a place for industrial noises in pop with its banging of rubbish cans, and metal precussion. The album then comes to a close just were it began, with "Franz Schubert" and a reprise of "Europe Endless", "Endless Endless". Kraftwerk leave you just were you began.
Many have claimed that Kraftwerk invented hip-hop, electronic pop, and trance. Whatever the case, Kraftwerk are still about, and leave all these trends in there wake.

Trans-Europe Express is right up there with Computer World as Kraftwerk's best "Werk." It is far more accessible than their groundbreaking Autobahn in that the tracks are more melodious and memorable. I find myself humming passages from some of these songs whereas on other Kraftwerk albums I cannot even remember how the tracks go. "Europe Endless" is a free spirited, fun ride. I can see myself alone on the autobahn with this 9:35 track in the background. "The Hall of Mirrors" is a haunting yet gentle song with more lyrics than the usual Kraftwerk number: "Even the greatest stars discover themselves in the looking glass." The imagery in "Showroom Dummies" takes the listener to another world; a robotic world. Alan Parsons could have taken some lessons from Kraftwerk before recording "I Robot" of the same year. The haunting synths on "Trans-Europe Express" are awesome. Unfortunately, the track carries over through most of the rest of the album which is a little too much repitition for me. I would rather have another song of the caliber of those on the first side. The first 4 tracks are definitely 5-star worthy, but the rest of the album is not nearly as solid, but I'll only knock it down a star. Kraftwerk was a major influence on so many of my favorite recording artists of the early 1980s like Gary Numan and John Foxx. It is amazing that they were making such albums in the mid 1970s, years before the electronic craze took over. They were pioneers. Every music collection should have at least one of their "Werks" and Trans-Europe Express is a good place to start, although I also recommend Computer World.

I've listened to quite a few Kraftwerk albums since college friends introduced me to this talented and innovative group back in the early '90's, but somehow I'd missed out on "Trans-Europe Express" until this last Christmas. This is really excellent electronic music, possibly one of Kraftwerk's best efforts. Sometimes it seems that their sense of musicality and melody and such gets just a bit swamped by their fascination with mechanical and computerized sound, and sometimes this makes some of their pieces seem to drag just a bit on the verge of monotony--never completely, but a tad too close for comfort. They have deftly dodged this minor glitch in this album, though, even with the wonderfully harsh, mechanistic "Metal on Metal" to say nothing of the beautifully transcendental "Endless Endless" or the disturbingly surreal "Hall of Mirrors." On a humorous note, "Showroom Dummies" inevitably evoked for me the classic Doctor Who villains known as the Autons (aggressively colonizing beings who inhabit plastic mannequins and attack earth, starting with our shopping malls) but I suspect this was unintentional on Kraftwerk's part. In any case, I think this may well be the most approachable album for those newly wishing to explore Kraftwerk's work, but old explorers like myself will undoubtedly enjoy it as well.

This album was first released in 1978, exactly 21 years ago. With their carefully crafted cool-steel sounds, even now you hear it is still so advance and progressive. If you'll take a Europe trip, bring this CD with you when you on TEE/TGV, you'll know what I mean.

If you like Kraftwerk try also French-Italian band of that time:
Rockets "Atomic" (1982). Comparing with Kraftwerk they were a kind of amateurs, but with original sound and some good songs.
If you a lover of techno of the 80s - you would like them.