When you listen to Kraftwerk, do you listen in English or German?
Just a quick show of hands.
And the essay question…
On a fictitious Kraftwerk tribute album, what artist would you like to hear perform what song, and why.
I don’t own either but will listen to either. SO I think my answer would be both and I also like Devo. I have been told I am twisted so take my likes with a grain of salt. haha 
Japanese! OK, they only did one song in Japanese (Dentaku/Pocket Calculator) but I like the Japanese version much better than the English one. I can speak Japanese but not a native speaker, I learned a lot of useful words from that song!
If “both” was a choice that’s what I would choose.
I’d listen in either language. Ich studere Deutsch.
I grew up in the as a kid of the 80’s, living in Germany and the Netherlands. My parents speak fluent German, but I only know a few words. I prefer the German because it sounds comforting to hear the language, and because I can pretend they aren’t talking about graphing calculators.
I’m going to add a secondary question to the poll.
For the essay question…
I would love to hear Nine Inch Nails cover the Man Machine. I think trent’s style of arranging and synthesis would really shine in the darker sound of the track, and conceptually, it doesn’t seem that far off from NIN.
Last thing I did before going to sleep was to briefly whistle Neon Lights.
I think we (Moog Forum) should cover various Kraftwerk songs and share.
Love this idea! On another forum (now long gone) every year we would create a Christmas album. Different users would call “dibs” on a song, and then post their version. It worked well, but old Christmas carols aren’t under copyright protection. We should be safe on this as long as we don’t attempt to distribute it, but maybe we should ask Moog first, just so they don’t get in the middle of something they don’t want to be involved in?
i was once a devoted fan of a band called Kraftwerk
they where once the coolest band out there, as much brilliant as innovative, the absolute vanguard of popular culture
not only their music was perfect but also was so their carefully designed mythography
for me it started one day when i was 8 years old i heard coming out of our old black and white tv set the most compelling and hipnotically strange synthetic choirs and i saw on the screen the most astonishly beautifull waveforms flowing out of what i much later discovered was Radio Activity…
that moment was a real mystical epiphany strike that blowed my little mind into a new state of matter,
it marked my life forever and simply made me interested in electronics and music both of which became my modus vivendi.
then long time later, after much too many years of despairingly wait for some new stuff after the magistral Computer World and the more arguable Electric Café they came with the worst bad joke they could ever manage to insult and exploit us with : THE MIX…
it was an automatic cold shower of absolute disillusionment…
goodbye creativity, make way for a new era of Tecno Pop Exploitation…
i was really pissed off and immediatelly stoped being the fan i was
how can they have destroyed in such one single shot so much wonderfull work of so many years in a compilation that simply toke away all the magic of their previous magistral works ?
since that day mister H. clearly decided to make a bigger fortune just wanking away the same exact show for decades after of course having taken care of re-program a new set of nameless slave automats all four dressed in pathetic neon stripes painted pygamas mimicking some kind of Tron version of the 4 Daltons condemned for life to the forced labor of repeating once and again the same collection of songs while counting the compass with their abacus-like consoles…
his previous set of slaves was getting too moody and charismatic for his new commercial branding projects
they probably would never have accepted to wear those pygamas nor to stop creating so they had to be replaced by a new unsyndicated set who would follow the orders of the CEO without discussion and with a lesser share in the company…
is it iKea? is it niKe? is it Kellog’s ? no! … it’s Kraftwerk !
an inmense majority of new fans would never see the diference with the originals anyway nor care about and will consume his endlessly recycled (bodilly) “stuff” without any discussion, the myth was sold, just like and extatic pill, it was time to make a much bigger profit from it with no need to waste any more creativity…
just like maKdonalds and burgerKing, once a set of burger-like songs have been designed and well publicized, why would they care about creating any new stuff if the TecnoPOPulation will buy the same crap once and again no mather how less tasty and healthy they are compared to the original ones…
now each time i see the name of the K band i feel my stomach to stretch and squize in pain and even some time some nausea…
so of course i very much rather listen to Devo, to Residents, to Yello, to Telex, to YMO or to G.Moroder
or even more to my very much beloved Cluster, Neu, C.Schnitzler, A.Tietchens and Can
anything is bether than that obsolete and dusty “modern museum” K band. (did i say K brand ?)
by the way, if anyone is interested i must still have somewhere in my many years old papertrash chaos the adress and phone of mr H. himself
if i manage to find it again i may sell it to any willing fan for one million bucks
or should i organize a KickStarter campain for it ?
but then i would also happilly exchange it for the whole discography of Korla Pandit, Moondog, Harry Partch and Gordon Mumma (only original vinyls please)
How about Motörhead doing Kraftwerk’s “Metropolis” and Kraftwerk doing Motörhead’s “Metropolis”? It will never happen now…
I’m sorry you feel that way. I can kind of understand where you are coming from. But I think that everything after and including The Mix can still be considered consistent with that which came before. It’s like they were distilling the essence of electronic music into something wonderful - maybe the newness of it was a major aspect, but instead of new songs now it’s new imaginings of old songs. Actually, Tour De France Soundtracks is an awesome album. I saw them live on their 3D tour - it was great! I don’t really expect you to re-embrace them, but you should realize that your perception may not equal reality.
And I thought of another cover - Damo Suzuki doing “Vitamin” - and Kraftwerk can do Can’s “Vitamin C”!
I like Ruckzuck in english als well… .
I’d do Spacelab or Radioactivity.
I’d click both if there was the option.