Autobahn (album)
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Autobahn (/awe-toe-ban/, German for "motorway") by Kraftwerk, released 1974, is considered one of the most pivotal albums in music history. The album is often credited for bringing electronic music to the public for the first time, and the Autobahn single is certainly a strong candidate for being the first ever electronic pop song. (The 22-minute title track was edited to about 3 minutes for single release, and reached #25 on the US Billboard charts, charting even higher around Europe.)
However, Autobahn is not a completely electronic album, as violin, flute, and guitar were also used with synthesizers. The title track featured by untreated and vocoded vocals; the remaining tracks were purely instrumental. Kraftwerk used a Minimoog as one of their synthesizers, which were known to cost as much as a Volkswagen at that time. (Kraftwerk would lose the rest of the non-electronic instruments for their next album, Radio-Activity.)
The title track was used to capture the feelings of driving on the Autobahn. From the high-speed concentration of the fast lane, to the tuning of the car radio, to the monotony of a long trip, the song captures it all. Autobahn is also the first of Kraftwerk's concept albums of sorts, in which they have done up to 2003. The cover was painted by long-time friend of Ralf and Florian and artist, Emil Schult, who also co-wrote the lyrics to the song Autobahn.
Track listing
- (22:36) "Autobahn" (Motorway) - SAMPLE (250KB)
- (06:26) "Kometenmelodie 1" (Comet Melody 1) (inspired by Comet Kohoutek)
- (05:48) "Kometenmelodie 2" (Comet Melody 2)
- (03:43) "Mitternacht" (Midnight)
- (04:04) "Morgenspaziergang" (Morning Walk)
Personnel
- Ralf Hütter (voice, electronics)
- Florian Schneider (voice, electronics)
- Wolfgang Flür (electronic percussion)
- Klaus Roeder (electric violin and guitar)
Roeder was not a member of the band for very long, and had left before the recording sessions were completed. His face was included on the back cover of the original LP (grafted onto Emil Schult's body), but all trace of his name and visage were removed from CD-releases of the album in the 1980s – instead, a photo from the 1975 Autobahn tour was used, showing Hütter, Schneider & Flür with new recruit, percussionist Karl Bartos.
In a rather disingenuous move, producer Conny Plank's name was also removed from re-issues of the album. Plank had reputedly played a large role in developing the Kraftwerk sound, and much of the recording and all of the mixing of the work took place at his studio in Cologne.
Flür had joined the band late in 1973, first appearing with the band on a Berlin TV performance to promote their Ralf und Florian album. On that show, he debuted the band's custom-built electronic percussion pads, and these feature heavily on the Autobahn album. When Flür published an autobiography in the late 1990s, legal wranglings ensued over his claim to have have largely built and developed these pads himself (with electronics assistance from Schneider), cannibalising a organ beat-box for the sound generating circuits. Schneider had in fact filed a patent on the device under his own name in 1977! Again, Flür's name was removed from the artwork on later re-issues.