One record at a time: 229. Kraftwerk - Tour de France Soundtracks

Released in 2003 as "Tour de France Soundtracks" this was the first album of new material Kraftwerk had released in seventeen years - to say it was highly anticipated is something of an understatement. Unfortunately I think it is equally valid to say this record turned out to be a disappointment to many. 

Here I am playing the 2009 remastered version which is simply titled "Tour De France". The original vinyl that carries the "Soundtracks" subtitle seems to be considerably scarcer and is more expensive as a result.

In 2000 I was playing the single "Expo 2000" in my car and a passenger commented that he quite liked electro. Up to this point it had never occurred to me that Kraftwerk had begun recording straight up electro - but that's exactly what the music was. Having seemingly not managed to scratch the itch with "Expo",  Kraftwerk returned to the studio to create an entire album of minimalistic electro that revived a long held ambition to create a concept album centred on La Grande Boucle.

There's not a great deal to say about the music on this record as it all sounds fairly indistinguishable. Every idea, riff and leitmotif is repeated ad infinitum no matter how short or meritless they may be. The sounds used are all VST generated and are nothing that we haven't heard before. There are flashes of inspiration here and there, but even the new version of the title track is lacklustre. 

The sleeve offers us the cryptic credit of "Music Data" which actually describes the album very well. In essence this record is exactly what Ralf has always striven for: repetitive, anonymous, computer driven electro about cycling. The fact that the record isn't very good is quite sad as, let's face it, this is probably the last album of original material Kraftwerk are ever going to make. 2/5