- Audio CD (22 Jun 1987)
- Number of Discs: 1
- Label: EMI
- ASIN: B000007U6V
- Other Editions: Audio CD | MP3 Download
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 39,888 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
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Product details |
Track Listings
| 1. Autobahn |
| 2. Kometenmelodie 1 |
| 3. Kometenmelodie 2 |
| 4. Mitternacht |
| 5. Morgenspaziergang |
Product Description
Product Description
"All pop music begins with Kraftwerk", it has been said--and, indeed, the 1970s experiments in minimalist electronics on the part of these four reclusive and bourgeois-looking young Dusseldorf men were directly responsible for the electrified landscape of subsequent decades of rock, pop and dance music. The album is dominated by its 22-minute title track, a beautiful electronic simulation of a motorway journey, from cranking up the engine to bowling along grey lanes cutting a swathe through the countryside, swerving and hooting the horn. Kraftwerk were prefiguring music's next step into the machine age but the antipathy they aroused in 1974 exposed the deluded Luddite tendencies of the pre-punk critical establishment who felt that music could only remain "real" by remaining as close to "nature" as possible. Kraftwerk slyly undermined this notion. After Kraftwerk, pop music would echo, not reject the sounds and rhythms of modern life. --David Stubbs
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I find the title track of this album to be the most intensely moving piece of music - bar none. A small nod backwards with Florian's flute, but a sign of things to come from Kraftwerk with the use of the Vocoder and the precise rhythmical qualities.
Don't listen to Autobahn when stuck on the M25, but if you're driving long distance at night, put this track on repeat and go into a trance and feel yourself at one with your car - ManMachine indeed!
If the other more 'experimental' tracks from the album appeal, you could do worse than searching out some early (pre-1975) Can albums.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
What were you doing in 1974 ? Whilst the rest of the world were glamming it up and hippies were fast disappearing, Kraftwerk were sitting in a studio in Dussledorf making music. Not only were they writing songs but they were creating the instruments on which to play them. You have to consider what the world was listening to in 1974 to truly appreciate the importance and the innovation represented by this lp.
With its release Kraftwerk had created an electronic prototype for a style of music which would take the world by storm and remains a major influence today. Thats a lot for album to live up to, but Autobahn is equal to the task.
Turn the hi fi on, sit back, close your eyes and drift away with possibly the finest popular music lp ever made. It has everything - art ('A simply perefect musical painting of a drive down the motorway''), tune and beauty. Its a masterpiece, if you don't own it already your music collection is not complete.
The tunes are timeless and it has aged so much better than most lps released at the time. No lp comes with a guarantee that you'll like it, but this is about as close as one gets to having one. Brilliant.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I remember a time when every Party I went to had to have this album (alongside Rubycon , Phaedra , Oxygene etc...)
It was a great album then , but a Milestone now.(2005)
Released at the time of "Album Bands" who were less interested in the singles charts ( Staying Power as opposed to 1 hit wonders). This has to be the Ultimate KW "Theme" Album .
For younger listeners they may have forgotten that you used to have to actually flip an album to hear the 2nd side. So the title track (whole 1st side of the album) is totally absorbing whether as Ambient Background Music , or on headphones "UP LOUD".
Not a Pop album , more like a Vintage wine for connosieurs , and as superb today as it was 20 years ago , if not better.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Das is good ja!
Most definately is a brilliant piece of Electronica. In my opinion Trans Europe is a better and more enjoyable album but me is not saddened by this purchase. Buy buy buy!
Published 3 months ago by Marklet1982
Kraftwerk, Autobahn
Too long has this been missing from my collection, someone "liberated" my vinyl copy. It's been good to have a replacement at a reasonable price.
Published 5 months ago by C. P. Brown
Superb title track; forgettable side two.
Much has been written about the quality of this album but for me, only the title track (all 23 minutes of it) is worth listening to. Read more
Published 21 months ago by MR K J DOWNING
Superb
Brilliant,and in its day ground breaking.Everyone should have a copy of this in their music colection.
Published on 4 Sep 2009 by Brynley D. Warren
A timeless, superior release
The current available Kraftwerk catalogue represents only a portion of Krafwerk's ouevre : "Autobahn" is the first album where Kraftwerk hit maturity - a central, and thematic... Read more
Published on 4 Aug 2009 by Mr. M. A. Reed
Great 70s classic
To me this is a classic album from the mid 70s and it was great to hear it again after losing my cassette version years ago. Read more
Published on 26 Mar 2009 by Mr. D. Mawby
Futurism that hasn't dated
I was a teenage kid when I first heard the edited single version of 'Autobahn' in 1975. That's 1975. Read more
Published on 24 Aug 2008 by Jeffrey M. Black
Dense, evocative, ambient and atmospheric.
Autobahn is one of Kraftwerk's more conceptual offerings, attempting to capture the essence of a drive along the titular motorway system, in a way that predates the similarly... Read more
Published on 31 Jan 2006 by Jonathan James Romley
30 Years on, and it still sounds great.
The year was 1974 and a saturday afternoon. I went to see a friend of mine, and he told me that he had just brought a new album by a band called Kraftwerk. Read more
Published on 3 Sep 2005
What a trip!
Boy, did this album take me back!
I owned a vinyl copy when I was at school, but someone liberated me of its ownership (I live in South Africa) many years ago. Read more
Published on 17 Mar 2004 by Aj Viljoen
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