Autobahn occupies a strange place in the Kraftwerk canon. The German electronic music pioneers’ best-seller, it has by far the greatest name recognition and influenced everybody from David Bowie to Arthur Baker. For ‘proper’ Kraftwerk fans, though, it’s nowhere near their best album: Trans-Europe Express explored similar routes with more intensity.
Yet to listen to Autobahn now is to once again be dazzled by just how many of its ideas were embraced and expanded by key artists: once the underdog outsider, its ripples today dominate modern music. Its “weird” has become the norm.
Its 50th anniversary – it was originally released in November 1974, but gained more interest the following February when the single edit of side one surprised charts – is celebrated with a new Dolby Atmos mix by sole remaining original member Ralf Hutter on Blu-ray.
It’s accompanied with a vinyl picture disc featuring the 2009 remix. It was panned by some critics back then, but it’s hard to see why. It’s crystal clear, and that’s no bad thing: Kraftwerk didn’t exactly aspire to muddy, gritty authenticity.
The pristine new Hutter polish likewise, wisely, doesn’t fix anything that ain’t broke. It’s headphones heaven. It may be the case that, just by existing, it causes the listener to exercise increased levels of attention.
The 22-minute title track still glides along, its numbness a virtue, although the little moments of interruption leap out with the shock impact of a body lurching in front of a windscreen.
The hisses and shuffles remain faintly spooky; the human voices are still disengaged, wilfully cold
The hisses and shuffles remain faintly spooky; the human voices – even in the famous cheeky “Beach Boys bit” – are still disengaged, wilfully cold. It’s often forgotten that the last few minutes noodle aimlessly as if to pad out time, on the very brink of illusion-shattering improvisation.
But then a sequence of moments will bring to mind side two of Bowie’s Low and it’s lucid again. What a creative gold rush this undemonstrative journey was. What a (road) trip.
The 50th anniversary edition of Autobahn is on sale now via Parlophone.
