Kraftwerk sell me a box

“Without them there would be no hip hop, no house, no ambient music, no electro.” Q Magazine

Like them or not, you cannot deny the influence of Kraftwerk on electronic music and a whole generation of musicians. Personally, I find a large part of their work cold and impenetrable. Whilst “Computer World” and “The Man-Machine” are two of my favourite albums of all time, little of the rest of their back catalogue sounds nearly as good to me. Part of my ambiguity towards Kraftwerk is as a result of their attitude towards the press, their fans and the world in general. I hate it when people are aloof ‘just to be interesting’ or ‘arty’. It’s wank. Grow up and get on with life. Yet, I am constantly drawn back to Kraftwerk and their music as if it were some irresistible force.

In order to appreciate their music more I felt I needed to know more about the band. Thus, a few years ago I purchased the book “Man, Machine and Music” by Pascal Bussy. I purchased the second edition of the book in 2001 when Flür and Bartos had departed, but the integral duo of Hütter and Schneider remained intact. Reading the book did give me a greater insight into the band and also an appreciation of the experimental nature of albums I did not like such as “Radioactivity” and “Autobahn”. Yet I still had limited admiration for people I could not connect or associate with in any way.

Consequently, I decided not to purchase any of the remastered albums or the box set ‘The Catalogue’ when it was released last year and was content with my motley collection of original releases and imports. Yet something has drawn me back to ‘The Catalogue’ and during one late night shopping trip on amazon, that irresistible force acted once again. Almost before I knew what was happening I had ordered ‘The Catalogue’ on CD and was contemplating the vinyl versions of my favourite albums.

I really didn’t think too much about what the package would actually look like or consist of and thus when my box set did arrive, I was very impressed indeed. You see, like the ultimate edition of the Pet Shop Boys album ‘Yes’, ‘The Catalogue’ is as much a thing of beauty, as it is a collection of music. As an item it is very nice to own.

But the music: the remastered audio. You will read contradictory reports about the audio on the internet. This is with good reason. Some of the albums sound better thanks to their digitalisation and some sound worse. Personally I like the dynamic range of the new ‘Computer World’ and the noise reduction on ‘Radioactivity’ makes it a more pleasurable experience for me. Yet some bemoan the lack of background noise and dislike the new mixes and reconstructed tracks. Its all a matter of taste. For some albums I will revert to my old versions, for others I will go to the remastered ones.