FEATURE:
Neonlicht
Kraftwerk’s The Man-Machine at Forty-Five
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A hugely influential album…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kraftwerk performing live in 1978
and the seventh from the German band Kraftwerk, The Man-Machine is forty-five on 19th May. Whereas most groups start to wane or fade by the time they get to a seventh album, The Man-Machine was a refinement of their more mechanical style. Incorporating something more danceable into the mix, you can see how it inspired New Wave artists that came through in the late-1970s and 1980s. Even though it was not a massive commercial success upon its release, The Man-Machine has since gone on to be regarded as among the best albums ever. Renowned and celebrated for its incredible tracks such as The Model and The Robots, I would advise people to get the album on vinyl. I shall come onto some features and reviews that spotlight an album that will turn forty-five on 19th May. This is what Rough Trade said about the majestic and stunning The Man-Machine:
“A bold new look, sound and concept for Kraftwerk. Over supple processed rhythms which predate the rise of European techno and trance, they address automation and alienation, space travel and engineering, The seductive allure of urban landscapes and the vacant glamour of celebrity. Clipped and funky, The Robots adds another dimension to Kraftwerk's ultra-dry sense of humour. Behind its intoxicating melodic pulse, The Model is a highly prophetic satire on the beauty industry, so ahead of its time that it only becomes a UK chart-topper by accident three years later. And Neon Lights is Kraftwerk's most achingly romantic song to date, a sci-fi lullaby for cities at twilight. Pure magic”.
Whilst researching, I was keen to discover the story behind Kraftwerk’s The Man-Machine. Classic Album Sundays provided incredible insight and an amazing background to an album that, whilst divisive in 1978, was recognised as a cultural milestone. It is hard to say just how important The Man-Machine is. If you have not heard the album before, then you really need to spend some time with it:
“With a disco hit under their belt and wider popular recognition, the stage was now set for The Man-Machine, an album that would further refine their stripped-down synth-funk and that would become their most dance-able album yet.
The album was released at the peak of disco, and Euro-disco in particular was pushing the genre into more electronic territory and claiming a large slice of the American dance charts. French producer Cerrone had topped charts with the dance floor hit ‘Supernature’ in 1977. And the same year over in Munich, Italian producer Giorgio Moroder basically invented the trademark euro-disco sound when he produced ‘I Feel Love’ featuring a young American singer named Donna Summer.
So even if the pulsing beats that define The Man-Machine were an anomaly to the rock fans and critics who had been following Kraftwerk’s motorik beat in their Krautrock manifestation, the new synth-funk rhythms were more recognisable to the dancers who flocked to dancefloors worldwide every weekend.
The album opens with ‘The Robots’ which could be seen as their trademark song. It opens with the lines, ‘I am your servant, I am your worker’ spoken/sung in Russian and then the lyrics switch to German with ‘Now we are full of energy. We are the Robots, we work automatically, now we want to dance mechanic.’ At their concert, the song was often be performed by robots and is probably one of their most concise expressions of their obsession of the fusion with man and technology.
‘Spacelab’ is the only Kraftwerk song that deals with space exploration. In 1973 NASA launched their Skylab into the earth’s orbit and the European Space Agency commenced their own Spacelab project the following year (with their first mission taking place in 1981). In Kraftwerk’s 2018 performance in Stuttgart, they had a live link to the International Space Station which allowed German astronaut and Kraftwerk fan Alexander Gerst to speak directly to the concert audience declaring the ISS is a man-machine, the most complex and valuable machine humankind has ever built.
‘Metropolis’ refers to the 1927 German Expressionist science fiction film by Fritz Lang. It was set in a futuristic urban dystopia. As the eeriest song on the album, sometimes even menacing, perhaps this is Kraftwerk making a statement that used unethically, technology could also be humanity’s demise. As Kraftwerk were not into discussing their intentions behind songs, we will never know for sure.
‘The Model’ became their biggest hit, in fact it reached number one in the UK four years later as the B-Side to ‘Computer Love’ and the song most directly responsible for influencing the synth-pop of the 80’s. It refers to models, or in this case women who adapt the role of an artificial person, a mannequin, standing immovable whilst being photographed.
Both ‘The Robots’ and ‘The Model’ like the previous album’s ‘Showroom Dummies’ examines the idea of authenticity versus inauthenticity; human vs object; real vs artifice. In fact, this is the lens through which Kraftwerk’s efforts are also assessed: this is music made by computers and performed by robots – is that real? Is that human? Rather than give us answers, Kraftwerk are happy to pose the questions, and in the process they often take the mick out of themselves almost in a self-deprecating way.
Visuals became increasingly important through Kraftwerk’s life. Artist Emil Schult began his ‘artistic cooperation’ with the band in 1972 and contributed to lyrics and designed many of their album covers which became integral to the Kraftwerk concept and mystique. The Man-Machine album cover was designed by Karl Klefisch and was based on the work by Russian suprematist El Lissitzky.
He popularized the geometric and limited colour art form that sought to move away from the world of natural forms and subjects in order to access “the supremacy of pure feeling’ and spirituality. The back cover image is an adaptation of a graphic from Lissitzky’s children’s book called About Two Squares: A Suprematist Tale of Two Squares in Six Constructions.
When it was released in 1978, ‘The Man-Machine’ opinions were divided but critics were quick to notice this was a cultural milestone. Jon Savage noted in Sounds it was “probably the most completely, clearly realised conception, packaging and presentation of a particular mood since the first Ramones album”.
In Record Mirror, Tim Lott viewed it as more intellectually stimulating rather than emotive: “Their roots in technology are blatant in the six titles — ‘The Robots’, ‘Spacelab’, ‘Metropolis’, ‘The Modal’, ‘Neon Lights’, ‘The Man-Machine’. All are objects, things; nothing that is human. They are a compelling music unit, an obsessive beat machine that touches the scientific/mathematic parts of the brain without producing confusion in others”.
Danceable, sophisticated and elegant, there is nothing else quite like The Man-Machine. Although Kraftwerk albums like 1977’s Trans-Europe Express are seen as out-and-out masterpieces, I think that there is a lot to be said for the brilliance and impact of The Man-Machine. It is such an extraordinary and immersive listening experience. Far Out Magazine discussed how the album helped define the 1980s in a feature from last year:
“The Man-Machine was intended as a concept album of sorts. The sparse, tampered vocal content is enveloped by synthesised instrumentals that bring rhythm to the cold diligent sounds of the German industrial machine. The opening track, ‘Das Robots’, begins with strange noises as if sampled from a sci-fi movie before it lurches into a flow fit for Peter Crouch. The vocals are brought in later with an emotionless tone and tireless uniformity as they proclaim, “we are the robots”.
Of the 36-minute album’s three singles, ‘Das Model’ was the most successful. The UK version of the track, ‘The Model’, was released in 1981 and thanks to protracted airtime on radio stations, it reached number one by February 1982. The track has a sound that at once sounds so intrinsically of the 1980s, yet it was originally recorded in 1978. This observation serves as a testament to the influential grip Kraftwerk had on 1980s pop music.
The album brings a sonic onslaught of industrial noise swept into pleasing patterns that are varied enough that they don’t become grating. The highly influential single ‘Neon Lights’ brings an essential balance to the record with its slower tempo and less tampered vocals that tell a story of a modern-day night out in the city. ‘Neon Lights’ was famously covered by OMD for their 1991 album Sugar Tax.
The German electro pioneers’ singular impact can be distinctly seen and heard in the performances of subsequent acts such as David Bowie, Gary Numan, Visage, OMD, Ultravox, Depeche Mode and The Human League. As Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore once said: “For anyone of our generation involved in electronic music, Kraftwerk were the godfathers”.
The band’s ongoing influence to this day has been remarkable. While we may have migrated from the heavy-handed sci-fi style that Kraftwerk virtually invented, modern acts from Aphex Twin to LCD Soundsystem still frequently cite the German godfathers as a major influence. Of course, The Man-Machine can’t be given sole credit for Kraftwerk’s enduring force in popular music, but it was the album that showed musicians of the 80s synth wave how to apply their electronic innovation to highly accessible and danceable material”.
I am going to finish up with a couple of reviews. This is what the BBC had to say about a classic when they sat down with The Man-Machine back in 2009. I don’t think that it has lost any of its importance and power forty-five years after it was released. Everybody needs to set some time away and lose themselves inside Kraftwerk’s magical and entrancing world:
“The opening passage of The Man Machine, released in 1978, is a very particular vision of the future. It's the chatter of servo-motors, the slow whine of monorails, of control signals manipulating remote machines. It's the sound of abstracted production. Over six tracks and 36 minutes, Kraftwerk thoroughly and succinctly explore the impact of technology upon humanity. It's their defining theme and one which makes the group arguably the most important in the canon of popular music.
Opening track The Robots is a remarkably confident statement which sounds contemporary more than 30 years later. It's difficult to imagine a world before the synthetic sounds essayed here became so influential. The words themselves are a manifesto: “we're full of energy / we're dancing mechanic". Kraftwerk embrace the repetition inherent in dance music and equate it with the automation of industry.
Spacelab and Metropolis are instrumentals full of pathos and wonder. Their references to science fiction made fact and Fritz Lang’s vision of a future dystopia highlight cultural references that provide extra context for the album’s themes. The Model became a UK number one on its reissue in 1981 and as a result is probably the group’s best-known song. It identifies an object of desire, a female counterpart for the man machine.
Neon Lights may be Kraftwerk’s most beautiful composition. It’s a hymn to the unintended beauty of modern life whose synthesizer melodies evoke the neon glow of the city. Once again the music is utterly consistent with the lyrical subject. The album ends with its title track echoing and haunted, gliding effortlessly into a future that is now well on its way to arriving.
The Man Machine is remarkable for its consistency, elegance and absolute deliberation. It’s made all the more powerful by the marriage of Karl Klefisch’s El Lissitzky-quoting design and the group’s appearance as minor variations on a single theme. The remastering and inclusion of previously unavailable photography make this reissue the definitive edition”.
In 2020, Audioxide asked André Dack, Frederick O'Brien, and Andrew Bridge to provide their thoughts on The Man-Machine. I was not really aware of just how far and wide the influence of Kraftwerk and their seventh studio album reached. It is still changing and informing music. In revisiting it for this feature, it sounds remarkably fresh and new – even though it was released forty-five years ago. Kudos to Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Karl Bartos, and Wolfgang Flür (and to the exceptional production work from Hütter and Schneider):
“André
For us electronica enthusiasts, we owe almost everything to Kraftwerk. From Gary Numan to Aphex Twin, my love of music made from electronics is largely due to these genius Germans. Going back to one of their most celebrated works, The Man-Machine, has been a wholesome experience. Arrangements here, at least in comparison to other Kraftwerk records, are made for easy listening. The rhythms are more danceable, and the song structures are surprisingly accessible. The impact this record had on synth-pop artists is palpable; not just the likes of Depeche Mode, but more modern artists such as Hot Chip. The Man-Machine is one of those timeless records. You'd not bat an eye lid if it was the soundtrack to Stranger Things. It's quite simply staggering that this was released in 1978.
Kraftwerk are usually defined by robotic qualities, but The Man-Machine instead ventures into the realms of humanity. The mechanical aspects are softened by glorious melodies; wonderful refrains that could only ever come from a human being. The instrumental climax that occurs half-way through “The Model” is pure bliss, and it remains one of the most iconic and gratifying musical motifs ever. In contrast, the monotonous German vocals are the least alluring aspect of the record. Aside from “The Model”, I'm not convinced The Man-Machine would be any less of an album if it was purely instrumental. “Neon Lights” is a curious attempt at a sci-fi pop epic, and whilst it remains an enjoyable listen, the toneless vocals don't exactly lend the required inflection for those wonderful washes of synthesisers. It probably doesn't need to last for nine minutes, either.
Minor mishaps don't make The Man-Machine any less of a classic. I just think we've since seen bigger and better records. I very much doubt The Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, or even Squarepusher would sound the same today without Kraftwerk setting such solid foundations, similarly those artists who incorporate electronica into other contemporary genres, such as New Order, Nine Inch Nails, and Radiohead. It'd be remiss of me to tribute these successes purely to Kraftwerk – especially when the history of electronic music goes way back to beyond 1900 - but the way the group incorporates electronics into conventional music is nothing less than a revelation. Rest in peace to founding member Florian Schneider, to whom we owe an awful lot. A true pioneer”.
On 19th May, the mesmeric and monumental The Man-Machine turns forty-five. A classic that has influenced so many different artists and sounds, I would rank this album alongside Kraftwerk’s very best. There are those who have not heard The Man-Machine. As it has a big anniversary coming up, I would advise time aside to listen. Since its 1978 release, so many incredible and passionate reviews have been written about it. Spin this wonderful album, and you will be…
MOVED and transported.