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Radio-Activity

Kraftwerk - Radio-Activity Audio CD

A fair review of the Kraftwerk "Radio-Activity" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Kraftwerk reviews here, or go back to the Kraftwerk tabs.

Band: Kraftwerk
Title: Radio-Activity
Rating:

Release Date: 2003-02-03
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Geiger Counter 2: Radioactivity 3: Radioland 4: Airwaves 5: Intermission 6: News 7: Voice of Energy 8: Antenna 9: Radio Stars 10: Uranium 11: Transistor 12: Ohm Sweet Ohm

One of the best
My uncle owned the original Autobahn and Radio-Activitat vinyls so naturally we'd hear it at full blast during visits. I've been exposed to Kraftwerk since I was little. One interesting note is that the first track of this album sounds like a defective record, and my uncle did not know it was supposed to sound like this, and did not find out otherwise until he angrily returned it to the record store and had the clerk listen. I grew up on this so I'm already a biased fan. But this is by far the most intricate of albums for the titled subject, Radio.

Atmospheric masterpiece
The whooshes, the bleeps and the disembodied voices are just the icing on the cake although they give the music an other-worldly dimension. This experimental album with its electronic sighs and bleeps and atmospheric crackles is such a timeless masterpiece not because of the electronics but because of the heavenly melodies and the engaging rhythms. The title track is mesmerising in its ebb and flow, while Radioland and Airwaves get progressively more weird. The more I listen to it, the more I think that Radio Activity is by far Kraftwerk's most varied and innovative album. What set Kraftwerk's electronics apart from most of the other synth pioneers, is the sense of classical structure that underlies the music. True, Klaus Nomi also used classic and operatic structures but he came much later. Songs like Antenna and Ohm Sweet Ohm with their beautiful melodic hooks are as accessible and addictive as their huge hit Autobahn. I recommend this album to all fans of synthesizer music like OMD, Eurythmics, Yazoo, Suicide, Gary Numan and Sparks, to enjoy the source that most of these artists drew from to some extent. .

"Turn the dials with your hands"
It's sort of strange though. Kraftwerk's 1975 album, "Radio-Activity," is an interesting album. And it doesn't match the quality from some of their later albums, "Man Machine" from 1978, or "Computer World" from 1981. However, I still like "Radio-Activity. " Where ever these four guys from Dusseldorf got their ideas from when puting this together, I don't know. But I have to say, this is sure something.

There are twelve tracks featured on this disc. Track one, "Geiger Counter," is just over a minute long. It begins with these thumping sounds. They go at around one beat per second and go slightly faster through the first half of the track. There are these two other sound effects, a zipper sound and some other sound (I don't know exactly what it is though) in the second half. Near the end of the track, the thumping sound speeds up and continues through the beginning next track, the song, "Radio-Activity," fading away after the first few seconds of the song. "Radio-Activity" is a very mysterious sounding tune and is the longest track on the CD at 6:45. It's sung in both English and German, and includes morse code. Track three is "Radioland," a soft melody featuring both regular human vocals and robot vocals. The song also includes various radio sounds. It's sung in German and then in English. "Airwaves" is track four. It's a more faster, more lively tune. It's a little weird. The Jetsons are the first thing to come to my mind when I hear "Airwaves," mostly because of how intergalactic sounding it is. Either than that, this is my favorite song in the album. Tracks 5-7 are all short tracks. "Intermission" is just musical tones, "News" is just people talking (It's hard to make out what they're saying) and different sound effects, and "The Voice of Energy" features only a robot talking in German. "Antenna" is track eight. It's a strange song with echoing vocals and laser sounds. Things get even more strange, and even spooky, when "Radio Stars" plays. "Radio Stars" features deep human vocals and the robot vocals from "Radioland. " The only other thing included in the three-and-a-half-minute long track are these like broadcasting signals that go on through the whole track. This isn't even the spookiest track on the CD. "Uranium" has given me oodles of goosebumps the first time hearing it. I was driving down this rural road at night with no one else driving when I first heard this, a perfect time and place to be that freaked out. This track features a whispering robot voice saying "Through constant decay, uranium creates the radioactive ray" and then whispering in German. "Uranium" is ninety seconds long. Track eleven, "Transistor," is an istrumental at only two minutes and fifteen seconds long. It sounds something like a theme song to maybe a TV production company. The last track in the album is "Ohm Sweet Ohm. " The track begins with these robots singing "Ohmmmm. . . Sweet Ohmmmm" seven times before the music starts. The rest of the track is instrumental, starting calm and getting more lively till its a happy, joyful sounding tune.

Overall, this is a neat album. I like it. I only wish they didn't need to use tracks 5-7. Tracks nine and ten I still like, even though I got shivers from those two tracks. I find this an enjoyable album.

Kraftwerk/ Radio-Activity
This disc launched a series of classic music from Kraftwerk. Radio-Activity is a concept album about radio waves and their travels through space and time. The vocals are in
English and German. Great stuff from the innovators of electronic music. The CD comes with a booklet filled with lyrics and original art work. Got to love the simple cover.

Highly recommended.

Midway Between Old and New
As such it doesn't always flow as well as the better integrated albums that followed it, or the preciding hit album Autobahn. This album contains some of the last vestiges of the experimentalism of their first three albums. The band also moved away from their German-only approach by making this a bilingual album, before they started recording separate versions. However, it does contain great songs like Antenna and airwaves as well as the title track as well as the spoken pieces, and Transistor is a gem. As a friend of mine once said, 'this is an album we would show to the aliens who visit us to show what we're capable of. ' .

You can see a complete list of all Kraftwerk discography, or go back to the Kraftwerk tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.