Kraftwerk: Autobahn (2009 remaster) [KLING KLANG/MUTE]

Why you'll love it

This 2009 remaster comes on 180g vinyl with a full-size 12-page booklet and a picture inner sleeve. Autobahn reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and No. 4 in the UK, and in 2015 it went into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

This edition

• Remastered
• 180g vinyl
• 12-page 12-inch booklet
• Picture inner sleeve
• Pressed in Germany

About the album

Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider simply liked driving on the autobahn, and they set out to make music that felt like the trip. Recorded mostly at Conny Plank's studio in Cologne with new members Klaus Röder and Wolfgang Flür, the album completed Kraftwerk's move from experimental krautrock to the electronic pop that made their name. Their associate Emil Schult also suggested a new, neater look for the group.

Side one is the title track, 22 minutes of Minimoog, vocoder and custom electronic drums that hum, whoosh and cruise like traffic in the fast lane, with lyrics by Hütter, Schneider and Schult, who also painted the original cover. Side two drifts off the highway into "Kometenmelodie 1" and "Kometenmelodie 2," the nocturnal "Mitternacht" and the pastoral "Morgenspaziergang," all of them instrumental.

A Chicago radio station started playing an edit of "Autobahn," and it spread across the US to become an international hit in 1975. In 2013 the band played the whole album at the Tate Modern in London. It remains the rare road trip on which nobody has once asked if we're there yet.

Also at Kops: more Kraftwerk on vinyl · browse Electronic

Tracklist

Listen

On Kling Klang / Mute (cat# STUMM 303), a reissue of the 1974 album.