Collecting Kraftwerk records – update 2024 – English Version

Kraftwerk

are basically Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider-Esleben. In early 1970 the album Tone-Float was released under the name Organisation, only in the UK on the RCA label. Today it is a sought-after collector’s item. Finally, on 1 December 1970, the famous ‘Hütchenalbum’ was released on the Philips label under the name Kraftwerk, with the support of Klaus Dinger and Andreas Hohmann.

Some may remember the title track ‘Ruck-Zuck’ as the theme song for the ZDF political magazine ‘Kennzeichen D’. The album sold around 50,000 copies and by the end of 1971 Kraftwerk had won several music awards. The Trans-Europe-Express began to roll. The album and its title track ‘Autobahn’ were a huge success in 1974.

Hütter and Schneider-Esleben continued to develop and refine their robotic pop on various albums until 1986, with changing collaborators such as Michael Rother, Klaus Dinger and later Wolfgang Flür and Carl Bartos.

A creative hiatus followed until 2003, interrupted only by various remixes and a second-short commissioned work for Expo 2000. The band has inspired countless artists, including David Bowie, Depeche Mode, OMD, Ultravox and Front 242, to name but a few. Kraftwerk’s music has also left an indelible mark on the rap, house and techno scenes.

In 2003, Kraftwerk released their last studio album of new material, Tour De France Soundtracks, but they continue to perform live with great success. Kraftwerk concerts regularly sell out within minutes of being announced. Following the death of Florian Schneider-Esleben in 2020, Ralf Hütter is the last original member of Kraftwerk.

Although Kraftwerk released their last new studio work in 2003, there are still a number of highly interesting vinyl releases in the form of remixes, remastered pressings, coloured editions or edited live recordings.

Kraftwerk play their music, which they describe as ‘electronic folk music’, both on record and live, in German and, for their international audiences, in English and, when the occasion demands, in French (Tour de France), Spanish, Russian or even Japanese. Almost all Kraftwerk original pressings have seen a dynamic price increase in recent years. The German-language original editions have risen particularly sharply in price.

The eight albums from Autobahn (1974) to Tour De France Soundtracks (2003) have been lavishly reissued on black vinyl in 2009 and 2015 and on coloured vinyl in 2020. The remastered albums sound full, rounded and modern. Five of the eight albums (Autobahn, Radio-Aktivität, Trans Europa Express, Die Mensch-Maschine, The Mix) have a new cover design, Electric Café even has a new title (Techno Pop) and a slightly different track list (see below), Tour De France Soundtracks is shortened to Tour De France in the title. Of all the albums, 1981’s Computerwelt is the only one that has remained almost unchanged, apart from a few changes on the back of the cover. Obviously the intention behind these massive changes is to merge these eight albums into a stylistically, visually and thematically unified iconic Gesamtkunstwerk in in a retro-futuristic design. It almost looks like a future ‘Kraftwerk legacy’.

The album Electric Café is renamed to its original working title Techno Pop. The B-side of the new pressing contains two shorter tracks, ‘Der Telefon Anruf’ (3:50) and ‘House Phone’ (4:56), instead of the one long track on the first pressing, ‘Der Telefon Anruf’ (8:03). Really a good reason to have both pressings in your Kraftwerk collection.

Finally, 2017 will see the release of 3D (Der Katalog), an eight-album box set of live recordings from previous tours. The concept of this work seems to be to compare the actual live recordings with the material from the last eight studio albums. To make the comparison as easy as possible, all audience noise has been removed. This seems to be in line with the artists’ desire to be perceived as a “real” live band and not just “robots” pulling their songs and sounds off a hard drive. Personally, I really like the catalogue. Hats off to Kraftwerk!

copyright CPG Books

Prices are for near mint records (German pressings unless otherwise stated).