https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBGNlTPgQII
The pioneering German electronic outfit Kraftwerk is playing an eight show retrospective at MoMA in April. EIGHT! Sadly tickets sold out in like three seconds flat and I did not get any. Instead, I will sit and listen to their entire discography in sad solitude.
Kraftwerk’s shadow looms over everything from synth pop to techno to hip-hop to the entire city of Detroit, and their songs have been sampled by everyone from Madlib to Coldplay. “Trans-Europe Express” is Kraftwerk at its most quintessential. It’s the track that best combines their cold, dark, and downright uninviting sounds with their sensibilities towards pop song structures. I can listen to it a million times and it will never get old. I only wish I could have heard it at MoMA.
