The Man Machine
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The Man Machine is a 1978 album by Kraftwerk. It was released in German as Die Mensch Maschine. It contains the song "The Model" which was a #1 single in the UK in 1982 and has been covered by bands such as Carter USM, Rammstein and Spanish pioneers Aviador Dro.
This was the first Kraftwerk album to see Karl Bartos co-credited with song-writing along with Hütter & Schneider. Emil Schult co-wrote the lyrics for "The Model".
Musically it builds on the already impressive Trans-Europe Express, further refining Kraftwerk's by then unique sound – the tracks are more concise, the melodies even stronger, the electronic percussion and sequencing even tighter.
Philosophical Interpretation
The Man Machine, can be seen as a pillar in Kraftwerk's philosophy; the dehumanising process of humanity does not come just from plugging our brains into a machine. Postmodern society is already as dehumanised as the model, who acts mechanically in order to satisfy. Although the album can be seen as a leap away from that society into a bright future (note the major key of "Neon Lights"), the spookiness of "The Robots" reminds us that humans will not be needed in the same way in the future. Electronic Vocoder-disguised voices speak "Я твой слуга, я твой работник" ("Ya tvoj sluga, ya tvoj rabotnik" - Russian for "I am your servant, I am your worker").
The robot's words and the cover (where the band members not only share a common appearance, but are made to look as one with the background) inspire thoughts of a collective future, where the "I" dissolves into the "us", and "us" is the cold and inhuman Metropolis. Thus, the inhabitants of that massive Metropolis (both humans and robots) have lost any trace of what humanity used to mean. There is also a pun here on the now common meaning of the word robot – a mechanical person – and its Slavonic origin, where it refers to workers, or labourers.
The presence of song called "Metropolis" is significant, also, because it references Fritz Lang's 1927 film of the same name, which depicted a technologically advanced city run on virtual slave-labour. Kraftwerk expressed interest at one point in producing a score for a restored version of the film, although this job was eventually undertaken by another German electronic pioneer, Giorgio Moroder.
Controversy
This album, and Emil Schult's cover in particular, led some critics to accuse the band of experimenting with fascist imagery. The use of red and various Russian phrases, with a design based on the work of Soviet artist El Lissitzky, actually suggests an attempt to reference a broader spectrum of pre-war totalitarian art.
Track listing
(English release titles - German release titles)
- (06:11) "The Robots" - "Die Roboter"
- (05:51) "Spacelab" - "Spacelab"
- (06:00) "Metropolis" - "Metropolis"
- (03:39) "The Model" - "Das Modell"
- (08:51) "Neon Lights" - "Neonlicht"
- (05:32) "The Man-Machine" - "Die Mensch-Maschine"no:The Man Machine