 
Tour de France Soundtracks
2003
CD
Kling Klang
Rik
3 September 2003 This review also references the "Tour de France 2003" Maxi CD single, 2003, Kling Klang, 18:17. synthpop electronic | The first 'proper' Kraftwerk album since "Electric Cafe" (1986) celebrates the centenary of the world-famous French cycle race, the Tour de France. Cycling has a strong significance for Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider and is widely thought to have supplanted music as the driving obsession of their so-called secretive - I would say justifiably private - lives. The album and single present new versions of the successful 1983 'Tour de France' single. This had been destined for inclusion on the projected Technopop album, but various factors including Hutter's serious cycling accident caused the album to be abandoned and the track never found its way onto an album - until now.
Competitive cycle racing is a supreme manifestation of Kraftwerk's concept of the man-machine - a combination of nerve, sinew and titanium honed to perfection in mental, physical and mechanical efficiency. In its celebration of speed, danger and technology, cycling evokes the values of Futurism, and who better than Kraftwerk to voice a hymn to it? Well, the Nietzschean or even Spenglerian interpretation is one spin I could put on cycling, but another voice tells me it's just a monomaniacal boring sport thing, so let's get back to the music.
The CD single features four versions of 'Tour de France' including a 'long distance' one, and the album suffers from the same lack of variation. There are four trancey versions of 'TdF' (including 'Chrono') and one closer to the original as finale. 'Aero Dynamik' and 'Titanium' share the same melody as do 'La Forme' and 'Régéneration'. Am I alone in finding endless remixes and variation masquerading as separate tracks both a cheat and a bore?
Serious cycling has a whole culture of its own, key points of which are focused on by different tracks. The issue of aero-dynamicism is of course referenced in 'Aéro Dynamik', and cultivation of mind and body in 'La Forme'. Titles like 'Chrono', 'Vitamin', 'Titanium' and 'Elektro Kardiogramm' speak for themselves. Now Ralf and Florian may have become cycling fanatics, but they are also intelligent men, so I take it these titles reflect their dry sense of humour. At least, I hope so.
The individual sound components - when heard on a proper stereo system - are rich, but the musical composition is thin, or, if you like, minimalist. In some ways the album is quite contemporary sounding owing to use of modern dance beats, but the vocoded voices and distinctive riffs give it an unmistakable Kraftwerk signature, which, of course, is what we all want to experience. I know vocoders have been coming back, but this album is vocoder crazy and comes close to self-parody. The album has also been criticised both for lack of innovation and for compromising the group's classic brilliance. In fact, both these criticisms are understandable if written from different perspectives, but the greatest weakness here is simply that apart from the 'TdF' theme itself, there just aren't any specially memorable melodies. Without melodies and without any cutting-edge risk taking, the album is bland.
'Prologue' is an ultra short and minimalist establishment of tonal range. The three 'TdF' tracks at the beginning represent a reassembly of elements with only passing references to the original tune. They are all accompanied by beats which I think even I could synthesise in FruityLoops but don't challenge me. The 'Chrono' version of 'TdF' is particularly tedious. Yes, it succeeds in capturing and conveying the monotony of measured time, but it's never going to supplant watching paint dry for sheer excitement.
The boom-bang-ching 'Vitamin' has a touch of 'Pocket Calculator' and is good, but the recitation of vitamin letters (A, B, C, D) doesn't quite have the romance of the recitation of destinations on 'Trans Europe Express'. Well, not for me, anyway, but perhaps there are some 'vitamin spotters' out there who will experience an inner thrill. 'Aéro Dynamik' has a whooshy pad sound suggestive of the 'passing cars' effect on 'Autobahn'. I am warming to it. The same effect and a bright drum sound is also used to convey the concept of titanium and works well enough.
'Electro Kardiogramm' has predictable heartbeat sounds and the sort of heavy breathing noises which would have got this track banned by the BBC when I was a child. ‘La Forme’/’Régéneration’ has a rather predictable and pedestrian melody and doesn't really go anywhere. The closing 'TdF' track has even more groaning and heavy breathing and sounds like...well never mind. At least it brings us back to the starting point - 20 years ago!
Living in the shadow of their own revolution, Kraftwerk can never surpass their earlier significance, but do they have to be so heavily self-referential and thus so heavily orientated to the past? The answer, undoubtedly, is "yes". They adjusted to the digital revolution, after all, not by expanding into new territory but by slavishly digitising their past material. This lack - or loss - of imagination contributed to the departure of Karl Bartos and Wolfgang Flür. Two new names are credited on this CD, but their rôles are shrouded in the customary Kraftwerk mystique.
Criticisms apart, I remain a worshiper and would not want to be without these discs in my collection. I'll play them for anyone who wants to hear them, but I'm unlikely to put them in the CD player when "Autobahn", "Radio-Activity", "Trans Europe Express", "Man Machine" and "Computerworld" are equally close to hand. Still, it's nice to see that the grandfathers of electronic music are still manufacturing and distributing their own unique brand of, er, technopop.
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