Electric cafe
| Electric cafe | ||||
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| Kraftwerk studio album | ||||
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Publication |
December 1986 |
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| Label (s) | KlingKlang EMI / Capitol Records |
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Title (number) |
6th |
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running time |
35:38 |
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| occupation |
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Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider |
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Studio (s) |
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Electric Café is a music album by the German band Kraftwerk , released in late 1986 and renamed from Kraftwerk to Techno Pop in 2009 as part of a re-release campaign .
history
Kraftwerk worked on the album for half a decade. Production began immediately after the previous album Computerwelt was released. At that time, the production was still under the working title Technicolor and had to be changed to Techno Pop for copyright reasons . At this point, the album's track listing was as follows:
- Techno Pop (this title would have taken up the entire A-side of the album)
- The phone call
- Sex object
- Tour de France
In advance, the title Tour de France was published as a single in 1983 , which was not commercially successful. Shortly after this publication, Ralf Hütter suffered a serious bicycle accident, which interrupted the continuation of the entire project for a long time. The record company EMI , with which Kraftwerk was under contract, had already announced the release of the album under the title Techno Pop . Even the record cover was already made.
It was not until 1985 that work on techno pop could be continued. The band was dissatisfied with the results of their work so far. It has been argued that the album cannot meet the band's high quality standards. The album was therefore completely revised and released on December 16, 1986 under the title Electric Café . The song Tour de France was not taken into account in the revision and instead served in 2003 as the basis for Kraftwerk's last album Tour de France Soundtracks . Electric Café was published in three language versions in English, German and Spanish. The Spanish language version was only published in a limited edition.
The tracks Musique Non-Stop and The Telephone Call were released as a single from the album, both of which were not very successful. However, the music video for Musique Non-Stop , which shows computer-animated heads from Kraftwerk, became known. This technique was still very complex in 1986.
In 2009, Electric Café appeared as part of a complete publication of Kraftwerk's work in a version that was technically outdated. However, the title of the album was changed back to Techno Pop . The track listing has also been changed: The song The Telephone Call has been replaced by a shorter version of the same song and a version called House Phone has been added.
Title list 1986
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Chart positions Explanation of the data |
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A side
- Boing Boom Tschak - 2:59
- Techno Pop - 7:42
- Musique Non-Stop - 5:44
B side
- The phone call - 8:03
- Sex object - 6:51
- Electric Café - 4:19
The entire A-side of the album is kept instrumental - apart from a number of sampled, spoken phrases. The A-side is divided into three songs, with the songs merging into one another without any noticeable separation and also quoting each other. For example, a melody from Musique Non-Stop is also used in the title Techno Pop .
The B-side, on the other hand, contains three clearly separated titles, including the song The Telephone Call , the only Kraftwerk song in which Karl Bartos took over the vocals. The album ends with the title song Electric Café , which contains French lyrics.
Track list 2009
A side
- Boing Boom Tschak - 2:59
- Techno Pop - 7:42
- Musique Non Stop - 5:44
B side
- The phone call - 3:50
- House Phone - 4:56
- Sex object - 6:51
- Electric Café - 4:19
Web links
- Electric Café at Allmusic (English)