Trans-Europe Express

This album, I guess, represents early electronic music limited by the technology of its day. However, it is plain to hear how each piece has been crafted to give it atmosphere and coherence within the context of the album. Also considerable care and skill has also been brought to bare on the recording quality which is superb!These recordings are of the order of 40 years old but most modern rock and pop recordings have nowhere near the sound quality.Certainly the technology has moved on but I suspect recordings these days are designed to be streamed and played through a phone speaker or in the car where there is significant ambient noise and limited dynamic range. This shows in the greater dynamic range of these older recording which leads to a more exciting and engrossing connection with the music. Perhaps people having a dedicated "hifi" is perceived to be a thing of the past - but those of who that still do, find it frustrating that modern record Companies seem generally incapable of producing high quality sound.The vinyl record has almost no hiss or rumble which allows the music to be set against an inky black silence of ambient noise. The soundstage is wide (left to right) and deep (front to back) creating a wonderfully three dimensional musical stage. All this together with the clarity and dynamics of the musical recording reinforces the integrity of the music itself.For those who like early electronica or want to hear what a good recording can sound like, I would recommend this album - especially on vinyl which is what I bought.

USUAL EXCELLENT RELEASE FROM THE GREAT BAND

One of the most enjoyable and innovative records of its era, Kraftwerk's 'Trans Europe Express' is a masterpiece of eerily beautiful, paranoid synth-pop. The album's general structure is, as one might expect, the journey of the Trans Europe Express train, yet the scope and feel of the album go far beyond the train itself (something that cannot be said for Kraftwerk's later 'Computer World'). There isn't a bad song on the entire album, though some are admittedly stronger than others. Opener 'Europe Endless' is the best piece on the album, and arguably Kraftwerk's finest ever song, awash with infectiously catchy electro beats, vocoder-filtered vocals, and prescient lyrics - "promenades and avenues, Europe endless/real lives and postcard views, Europe endless". The album does admittedly have a few relatively weaker (albeit still good) tracks, such as the slightly over-repetitive, yet hypnotic title track, and 'Metal on Metal', these being the two songs which adhere most strictly to the sounds and concept of the train, and lose out a little, from doing so.Still, many of the numbers here, such as the classically-influenced 'Franz Schubert' and the creepy, yet wonderfully melodic 'Showroom Dummies'; an evocation both of social unrest and of the 'robot' image, which the band attempted to cultivate, almost reach the standard of 'Europe Endless' (whilst both sounding largely different to that track). In truth, there's little to criticise about 'Trans Europe Express'. It is a record which still sounds remarkably fresh and powerful over thirty years later (especially with this latest remastering), and which perfectly highlights why Kraftwerk were such an excellent and an influential band. For anyone looking for a great, early synth-pop record, or even just a hauntingly beautiful, pared-down record, then I would recommend 'Trans Europe Express' unreservedly.

This is a review of the remastered edition of this 1977 landmark recording. I purchased it after reading a 2009 review that claimed it as, "Probably the most influential album released in the final quarter of the past century." That's as maybe, but within the first few minutes of the opening track I was struck how it must have influenced Gary Numan's opening on his hit `Cars', and how it also affected some of Billy Currie`s work with Ultravox.Given my love for European train travel, I'm surprised it's taken me this long to sit down and listen to the work all the way through. Kraftwerk passed me by in the 1970s. Their music was seen by me to be too cold, too clinical, and too repetitive. And `Trans Europe Express' is all of these. Instead, I was a Tangerine Dream man. As an example of the inane repetitiveness, the words "We are showroom dummies" is repeated at least thirty-eight times on the `Showroom Dummies' track.What saves this disc is the incredible rhythm of the title track as it meanders across, below, and behind the stereo spectrum. For sure, the words "Trans Europe Express" are also repeated seemingly endlessly, but the difference here is that we are on a journey and there are wider changes in the arrangement of the music.The CD comes with generous sleevenotes, not in terms of information but of photographic representations of the group that attempt to match the mood and titles of the CD's tracks: thus we see them at Dusseldorf Hauptbahnhof, as Franz Schubert, as showroom dummies.I like the way the final track links the sound of its immediate predecessor with the words of the opening track, thus creating a kind of `Endless' circle. It's not, for me, a brilliant album, but it is good enough for me to order `Autobahn'.

I bought this for my sister for xmas. She had the LP over 25 years ago. It sounds amazing on CD and we enjoyed the journey,recognising all those hypnotic tunes we had forgotten! They outclass a lot of todays melodies.If you liked Kraftwerk back in the early 80s and liked Man Machine, you will LOVE Trans Europe Express. You will wake up with the melodies playing away in your head!Buy it!