Kraftwerk ‎– Electric Cafe

Not one of my favorite Kraftwerk albums but still good none-the-less. Like Man Machine, I find the title track being one of the weakest on the album. My personal favorite is "The Telephone Call". It has a electro-comedic feel to it and I bought the 12" single as well cause I loved it so much. Great sampling and synth lines. "Sex Object" follows the same line but the first 3 tracks on the album flow just as nice as the "Trans-Europe Express" ones, expect that I don't find them as pleasing. As with other albums of Kraftwerk they kept up the pace of being 'ahead of thier time'. Everywhere I look there's an Electric Cafe!

Electric Café is the ninth studio album by the electronic group Kraftwerk, originally released in 1986. In October 2009 it was re-released under its original working title, Techno Pop.
Audiences generally appeared to find the music somewhat more sterile and less engaging than that of its conceptually more cohesive predecessor, Computer World. Compared to the band's four preceding albums, some critics have pointed to the lack of a strong and sufficiently intriguing theme to tie the Electric Café material together. Furthermore the near half-decade hiatus in the band's record releases and performance activity lost them crucial momentum in their career. Whatever the possible influence of these factors, Electric Café did not meet with any great commercial success. The album was recorded using the world's most expensive Synclavier II and Fairlight CMI Systems[citation needed] ever made along with some very expensive high-end modular synthesizers.

Two singles were released from the album, "Musique Non-Stop" and "The Telephone Call". Both were accompanied by promotional videos. Though both singles went to #1 on the Billboard dance chart in 1987, neither of the singles performed well in the general pop charts.

This release is the best sounding version of all the 7 CD El. Café versions I've tested! More detailed and precise! + + + + + + + + + + + + + The German was the 2nd best and the Japanese was the worst of all (as usual). The remaster is terrible. Like a cassette rec.

I admire this album and find it their best. The title track I find the best Kraftwerk song ever beside the Man Machine. Brilliant sounding-wise, and soundqualitywise also. A perfect production and the MOST Übermensch-ish album of all time. Pity, the remastering destroyed the soundquality. That was a sin done by an amatheur, earless stupid even if it's R.H. himself...

Original version is high-end audiophile recording. Remastered version is worse than a cassette recording! Japanese CDs used to be even worse. I've already tested houndreds of CDs and versions. Japanese were the worst ca. 9x out of 10.....

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Original version is high-end audiophile recording. Remastered version is worse than a cassette rec.! If you don't have ear, then don't rate it but buy both of the releases and listen close each after the other, in juxtaposition... Only then come to the conclusion! This is the same I advice for the Kraftwerk personnel and shame-on themselves! I don't know why was it necessarily to remaster a digital soundsource? It's absolutely pointless. I think it was purely about the money. But in this case Kraftwerk cheated their fans. In this case Kraftwerk is a cheater. The rest is up to you.

Why Kraftwerk fiddled with this albums tracklisting on this re-release? Maybe they don't even know for themselves... the version of Telephone Call/Telefonanruf is the original 7" version and this is followed by the original 12" B-Side of Telephone Call/Telefonanruf, Housephone.
For the collector, it's nice to get these formerly vinyl-only versions remastered on CD, and the collectors have got the original "Electric Cafe" CD anyway. For all others, the original album version of Telephone Call/Telefonanruf is lost.
So, this album, though renamed "Techno Pop" does in now way show what was intended in 1984 as the "Techno Pop" album. Two demos of this have been leaked years ago and show a totally different sound mixing analogue synths with early sequencers.

Hi, please note, not only replaced the title..
the telephone call is an shorter edition, and house phone an completely diffrent remix version as appeared at original Electric Caffe issue.
BR,Erik

When fans have voted for their favourite Kraftwerk album, Electric Cafe has never done very well. It's release was delayed for years and when the album finally came out, it wasn't as pioneering as the band's earlier works.

Despite all that, Electric Cafe is surprisingly one of the albums I find myself listening to over and over again. Side A is just hypnotic in it's monotonous sound and side B features The Telephone Call, a true eighties pop classic no matter how unlike Kraftwerk it sounds. Sadly the title track which ends the album is just plain rubbish and probably the worst piece of music made by the band.

All in all, Electric Cafe is an excellent pop album, but not as original and influential as what we're used to expect from Kraftwerk.