Minimum-Maximum from 2005. It's a live album of their 2004 world tour that covers all the high points of their eight-album catalogue. Was my own entry way to becoming a life-long fan of the band. I guess it was also founding member Florian Schneider's last release before he retired.
Thanks for sharing that Mark, One point I wanted to touch on was your mentioning of the Radioaktivität artwork being almost a rewriting of history; that the album was originally solely about radios and communication, and that the themes of nuclear power only came later. But I don't believe that to be the case. From what I understand, the title of the album has always been a play on words. It plays into the idea that Kraftwerk's music has always had a dry, underlying sense of humour. That double meaning is even addressed in the lyrics of the title track, "discovered by Madame Curie," and song titles such as "Geiger Counter" and "Uranium". Anyway, that's one little thought I wanted to respond with. Looking forward to watching through part two when I get the chance.
Thanks for that - stops me looking..! It was the (at that time at least) ever unreliable Record Collector magazine in the UK that absolutely insisted that early UK copies of Exceller 8 came with a poster. They also claimed until relatively recently that the original UK Ralf and Florian was issued on the spiral Vertigo label (it wasn't...)
The fact that I never saw "Exceller 8" with poster might be an indicator but not a proof. So I did a Popsike research. And looked at the highest sold copies of "Exceller 8" through the years. Not a single one had a poster. So it's safe to assume that there never was one.
Oh, you're right! The theme was far more subtle on the original LP than the 1991 remix. There's only so much space in my brain. I do dislike the changes they have made to the sleeves for the 2004 Remaster / 2009-onwards reissues.
For someone who is an avid Kraftwerk listener, but not necessarily a collector, are these worth getting to have strictly for listening pleasure on vinyl? I do prefer vinyl over CDs whenever I can get a good pressing, but I don't care to spend the extra cash on vinyl versions of CD sounding masters, if that makes sense? I've seen the crazy prices older pressings go for and cannot quite justify it, but I would pick up a few of these for sure if they beat my CDs at all. My turntable is much nicer than my CD player as well.
Absolutely worth it, yes. They are extremely well done. Pick up a couple of your favourites and see what you think. I don't believe you will be disappointed...
Aside from the substitution of the original 1986 LP version of "The Telephone Call" for the 7" A / B-sides, these 2020 coloured vinyl repressing as very, very well done. The sleeve designs have been updated to reflect iconography as opposed to pictures of band members, however the original cover art is found on the inner sleeves and booklets. If you don't have the albums on vinyl, these are a great entry point.
I just started buying OG German first pressings and they're audiophile quality 320 pressings. Very nice! I also just ordered a "new" 1971 live recording pressed at GZ that supposed to be really good.
Did anyone have a fault on the German version of The Mix, near the end of track 1, side 1? Mine was skipping back. Nuisance as my local store sold out and can’t get a replacement. I’ve had to order elsewhere. The other 5 were all fine.
There's a couple of jumps/skips on my copy of "Die Mensch-Maschine" ... but when I played the vinyl on my main setup and not the portable one it played fine, so it's the record player - not the record.
Bought all coloured LPs. 6 out of 8 are just fine (the German versions). But Autobahn and Tour De France are far from perfect, both full of clicks and pops and noisy in places. My original Dutch 1975 pressing of Autobahn sounds better.. Eventually I returned them both for a replacement. The replacement copies arrived and are similarly flawed
Does anyone know where to get the German versions shipped to USA? Getting confused about the ASIN/Product numbers...
Thanks for the advice, this thread is going to cost me a lot! I have most of them on order through a local record store and Rough Trade U.S.
Thanks. Is JPC one of these companies that bills before shipping? I notice all of these have “if available from supplier” regarding shipping.
Charged me straight away when I managed to order Trans Europa about a week ago; think it was the last one of that they had in stock (sorry!), they were already out of Mensch Maschine by then. I pre-ordered those 2 and Computerwelt from 2 different places and only ended up getting 1 record out of 6, which was Computerwelt.
Sheez. And I thought I did well when I found a spare copy with poster for €25 and managed to sell it for €50...
. Thank you for that update. I guess I might suffer with the English versions then unless I get lucky.
My copy skips a few times during Spacelab. Very annoying. I've only 1 turntable to play it on. I've bought 3 of the others and they're all perfect
Had no issues with Die Mensch-Maschine just The Mix (why is it not called Die Mix??). Managed to get another copy of it and this one is okay thankfully.