Radioactivity
| Radioactivity | ||||
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| Kraftwerk studio album | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | EMI / Capitol Records | |||
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Title (number) |
12 |
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running time |
37:39 min. |
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Radio Activity is the fifth studio album by the Düsseldorf band Kraftwerk . It appeared in November 1975 in a German and an English version, which differed only in the labeling in the respective language. The English version was titled Radio Activity .
Creation and publication
The album was recorded in the band's own Kling Klang studio in Düsseldorf and was the first album with the participation of Karl Bartos . For the first time only electronic instruments were used, which meant the change in style from krautrock to electro pop , which had a defining influence on the band .
On the album cover is Volksempfänger model German small receiver displayed. Inside each LP there was a sticker that depicts the international symbol for radioactivity .
The album was mixed by Peter Bollig and Walter Quintus ; it can - with regard to the play on words radio-activity - be understood as a concept album , since all the songs deal with either radioactivity or nuclear energy or radio .
The album reached number one in the charts in France and sold more than 250,000 copies. More than 400,000 copies of the single Radioactivity were sold in France. For the remix album The Mix , published in 1991 , the title song was re-recorded and provided with new lines of text, as the original text was classified by various sides as being too uncritical with regard to the risks of nuclear energy.
A new edition of the album was released in 2009 as the Kling Klang Digital Master 2009. In contrast to the earlier editions, the album cover shows a red on yellow trefoil as a warning sign of radioactivity.
Track list
The German and English names of the songs are given.
- Geiger counter / Geiger counter (1:07)
- Radioactivity (6:40)
- Radioland (5:50)
- Aetherwaves / Airwaves (4:39)
- Transmission break / intermission (0:39)
- News / News (1:17)
- The Voice Of Energy / The Voice Of Energy (0:54)
- Antenna (3:42)
- Radio Stars / Radio Stars (3:30)
- Uranium / uranium (1:27)
- Transistor (2:14)
- Ohm Sweet Ohm (5:37)
occupation
- Ralf Hütter - vocals , keyboard instruments and synthesizer
- Florian Schneider-Esleben - vocals, keyboard instruments and synthesizer
- Karl Bartos - electronic drums
- Wolfgang Flür - electronic drums
- Walter Quintus - sound engineer
The pieces of music
- Geiger counter
This piece consists primarily of a rhythmic, slowly accelerating crack. Later there is an irregular noise and another electronic noise. Shortly thereafter, Geigerzähler merges seamlessly with the title track.
- radioactivity
The title track in A minor builds on a constantly repeated theme , the melody of which is largely characterized by quarters . The harmony sequence is limited to tonic A minor and subdominant parallel F alternating, tonic parallel C and its dominant G.
In terms of content, this song deals with the play on words from the title. "Radio activity" (radio technology) and "radioactivity" are sung about - alternately in German and English . Reference is made to Marie Curie as well as popular slogans advocating nuclear energy (“When it's about our future”). The word "radioactivity" is played in Morse code between the text passages .
The 2nd mixed version of the song for the album The Mix is also the version used for the band's concerts. It differs from the old version through the new text ( radiation death and mutation through rapid nuclear fusion ), through the "STOP" in front of "radioactivity" and the beginning, in which nuclear accidents are listed by a Robovox voice.
- Radioland
In this song, sung passages, instrumental processing of themes and electronic effects alternate. Everything is underlined by a knocking rhythm in 4/4 time, with 1, 2 and 3 beats on the beats.
The slogan-like text is about tuning a transistor radio . Each text passage is first sung in German and then repeated in English.
The lines of the song are sung alternately by Hütter and Schneider-Esleben, which is extraordinary in that the voice of Schneider-Esleben can otherwise only be heard electronically throughout the band's work (= vocoder voice ).
- Aether waves
This song is based on a fairly simple, seconds- down melody used by instruments and singers and played on two thirds related pitches . The song is characterized by a fairly high tempo.
Lyrically the song is kept quite simple. It describes sending and receiving on radio in a poetic way (“distant voices sing”) and is also sung alternately in German and English.
- Transmission break
This piece is a short transition that is modeled on a pause on the radio with a concise pause sign .
- news
In this piece are offset and z. T. simultaneously played various spoken news programs from the radio and played back with electronic effects or background noise.
The news is said to come from WDR , NDR , Bayerischer Rundfunk and Radio Bremen . The news texts report on planned and built nuclear power plants, progressive developments in energy technology and limited uranium deposits .
- The voice of energy
A voice that sounds like a robot with the help of a vocoder (the voice of energy ) speaks from the perspective of the power plant generator about the dependence of modern society on electricity (“I am your servant and master at the same time”).
- antenna
In the popular style, the song describes an antenna that receives the radio waves sent by a transmitter as vibrations. The verse is sung in German and the refrain in English. Characteristic is the singing with many reverb effects .
- Radio stars
Only a rhythmically repeated oscillator tone that increases its frequency exponentially forms the basis of this piece of music. The singing is again provided with reverb effects and reports of quasars and pulsars , which release radio waves in space and can also be received on earth. Words of the text are sampled in rhythm , over which an alienated voice lies again, emphasizing the core words of the text ( pulsars and quasars ).
- uranium
This piece ties in seamlessly with radio stars and describes the radioactive decay of uranium in an alienated voice . The text is reproduced again in English and underlaid with an atmospheric chord.
- transistor
Introduced by radio samples, this is a short instrumental piece characterized by many echo effects, the title of which alludes to transistor radios .
- Ohm Sweet Ohm
The last piece is introduced by a vocoder voice that repeats the song title several times. This alludes to the English phrase "Home, Sweet Home" and the unit of measurement ohm for electrical resistance .
This is followed by a longer instrumental piece with a few solo passages, the tempo of which is constantly increasing and which, in contrast to the previous piece, is through-composed and only slightly repetitive. It ends in unison and fades out.
Music videos
In addition, two music videos for the songs radioactivity and antenna were recorded in 1975. The booklet of the 2009 remastered version of the album is decorated with artwork, which is strongly based on the music videos. Kraftwerk also used excerpts or certain scenes for the background films at today's concerts.
- The music video on radioactivity is held in a shade of red and begins with a five-second fade-in of a red trifoil on a yellow background, based on the international radioactivity symbol and the stickers enclosed with the LP. This is followed by KRAFTWERK lettering for another five seconds , which is surrounded by pulsating dots. Next, two gloved hands appear from the side in a black room, moving up and down every second. A point of light appears again and again on the hands. A fade-in of the band members in suits follows. Now alternating close-ups of one hand (probably Hütters in the video) playing the piano, two hands playing the electronic drums (probably Wolfgang Flür) and the profile of Ralf Huetter's head while he is singing into a microphone. An overall picture of the band can be seen twice in the darkened room. Hütter on the left with the synthesizer and microphone, in the middle Bartos and Flür next to each other on electronic drums, and finally Florian Schneider-Esleben on another synthesizer standing at stomach height on the right . Approximately in the middle of the video, matching the instrumental in the song, the two hands in gloves appear again in the upper left half, which are now moving up and down to the beat. The point of light is clearer. At the bottom right you can see another hand moving a small Morse code switch. In the meantime, the word radioactivity can be heard in Morse code in the song . The video ends with a people's receiver on which the camera zooms in.
- The music video for antenna has a similar structure. Now in a shade of blue, the video begins with a front view of Hütter, who sings into the microphone to match the music. This is followed by a short animation that uses circles to indicate how an antenna receives waves. This is followed by an image of a parabolic mirror . Now, like in the radioactivity music video , the band can be seen as a whole. As before with Hütter, you can see a front view of Florian Schneider, who is also singing into a (different) microphone. The animation of the antenna, the band as a whole and the image of the parabolic mirror can now be seen one after the other. An oscilloscope now appears to match the music and synchronously visualizes the “vibrations” heard in the music. A picture of the band now appears, sitting around a small table on which a people's receiver is standing. This picture can also be found in a similar form in the booklet of the 2009 remastered version of the album. The animation of the antenna is briefly shown again, then the image of the parabolic mirror again, in order to finally get by with the starting position, the group portrait of the band. The video ends with the front recordings of Schneider and Hutter singing and the group view of the band at the instruments. It fades out with the music.
reception
Commercially, Radio-Aktiv was a little less successful than its previous album Autobahn , but reached number 22 in the German album charts.
The music offered on the album is initially rated as a style break in contrast to the previous album:
“Much less trendy than Autobahn and with experimental elements, a similarity to the earlier Kraftwerk pieces could be seen. They continued to consistently use modern technology, but the industrial sounds from the early days have been tamed into a kind of electronic chamber music by radioactivity. "
"With 'Radio-Aktivity', Kraftwerk completely switched to electronic instrumentation, after their previous albums were largely made with electronically alienated conventional instruments."
The album was rated well by critics:
“'Radio Activity' fascinates with flawless technopop songs, emotional and powerful electro ballads as well as with experiments and a good deal of rough edges. That makes it an extremely exciting and inspiring listening experience even today, 28 years after its publication. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Music video for "Radioactivity" on YouTube .
- ↑ Music video for "Antenne" on YouTube .
- ↑ Search for "Kraftwerk" at charts-surfer.de
Web links
- Reviews of radio activity on the baby blue pages
- Review by Einheitsstufe.de , archived in the Internet Archive
- Essay on the music by Kraftwerk