Kraftwerk cassettes

ELECTRIC CAFE (Edicion Española) (1987, Spain) EMI 274 24 0688 4 Time to bring out the big guns... Here's a well known and sought-after item, and one that seems to fetch surprisingly high prices on the collectors market: The Spanish edition of Electric Cafe. Kraftwerk had been interested in the use of language over many years; even when they were an instrumental band, their titles would feature some word play and puns that are frankly surprisingly creative... After Autobahn was a surprise hit in the USA, Kraftwerk would cater more to their international audience, and for Radioaktivität, the lyrics were in both German and English. Then, for Trans-Europe Express, they had one song, Schaufensterpuppen, translated to French (issued in France and Belgium, but not Canada. Fun facts: Les Mannequins was also issued as a club 12" in the USA, and on the TEE LP in Greece!). On Computerwelt, language took a yet more prominent place, when the lead single Taschenrechner was released in Engl

  ELEKTRIC MUSIC: ESPERANTO (1994, Poland) Maraton, 92834 (Unofficial release) I just realised, I haven't had any related or "solo" projects on the blog so far! Kraftwerk's core members Ralf & Florian didn't really participate much in other projects besides Kraftwerk, but several band members came and went, especially in the early years. A surprising amount of releases feature musicians who at some point were members of Kraftwerk, the most famous being Neu! I suppose, but Elektric Music must be a close second! Karl Bartos left Kraftwerk in 1990 or 1991, and commenced work on his next project right away. He was joined by his old friend Lothar Manteuffel of NDW group Rheingold, and also Emil Schult for artwork and lyrics. Initial press photos also showed Wolfgang Flur, but according to Flur (in a 2021 Facebook comment - welcome to the future!), they hadn't actually asked him to be a member of the group, nor was he at that point interested in joining.  Elektr

  ROBOTS (1986, USA) Capitol, 4XL-9445 The USA had an array of interesting releases, Kraftwerk had some success in club markets and of course, Autobahn was famously the biggest hit on the Hot 100 up to that point that wasn't sung in English. So when you cross that threshold, there will be lots of releases - albums will be pressed in several editions, I've discussed the "Music Club" phenomenon in an earlier post, and with so many radio stations, even for a medium-sized release, there would be promotional items in addition to the product you could buy in shops or through mail order. And because Kraftwerk would re-appear in the public eye from time to time, without ever making it big, it seems to have made sense to make compilations of previous singles, to get the back catalogue out to new audiences I suppose. And so we get the 1978 four-track 12" EP with the fantastic title "Kraftwerk's Disco Best" and - this, a 1986 compilation of the Capitol albums.