I can't see that artist's name and not think about "Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk". Please click that link, it will make you happy. If it doesn't... I will have never lost more faith in humanity. No amount of Fatboy Slim music could ever bring me as low and you hating on the Land of Chocolate could.
Anyhoo, sounds like someone has a DX7 keyboard, eh? The opening track "Europe Endless" is at best super-dated, but even in 1977 I'd be calling this embarrassingly bad. I'm pretty sure I heard this song played by that guy who sets up his keyboard in the North Station subway mezzanine. Next time I see that guy I'll ask if he's ever played with Kraftwerk. Or maybe he is Kraftwerk. I'll never get this catchy tune out of my head: "Europe. Endless. Endless endless endless endless."
There's no way that "Hall of Mirrors" isn't just the result of Kraftwork sampling the soundtrack of an Atari game. This is the cheapest synth rock I've ever heard in my life, and I used to compose music on a Casio. The only thing I'm finding the slightest bit entertaining is the singer's German accent. Somehow the German accent singing in English makes it sound slightly satirical. That might be the point of "Showroom Dummies" but it's still a really dumb song.
I'm sure in the 70s when Kraftwerk were first doing their thing this music was seen as a revelation. I know when I first became familiar with Jean Michel Jarre and Oxygene I was much kinder to electronic music. But other than primarily using synthesizers, Kraftwork and Jarre just aren't comparable. With Oxygene Jarre created a sprawling symphony that one man could play on stage. Kraftwerk is actually a band of 4 men who stand on stage, each with their own synthesizer and their music is so much more simplistic and insignificant.
Maybe the worst part is how sloppy the playing gets on side 2. The songs "Trans Europe Express", "Metal on Metal", and "Abzug" are essentially one continuous looping piece with "Abzug" being nothing but 5 minutes of one synth going "deet deedee deedeet deedeet deedee deet...", another going "dun dun... dun dun... dun dun...", the vocalists repeating "Trans. Europe. Express." over and over, and another keyboard sloppily playing what might generously be called a melody. But whichever bandmate is paying the simple pattern manages to fuck it up in so many different ways.
Trans Europe Express manages to be the combined nadir of Euro-trash techno and 80s music (yes, I'm aware it was released in 1977, but not all 80s music is confined to the decade between 1980 and 1989). Beyond sounding absurdly dated, the beats are lifeless, the synth sounds are canned and uninteresting, and the lyrics are completely pointless. The only positive to the album is the songs get shorter as the record wears on, so if you can get through the plodding nightmare of the side 1, side 2 is a relative breeze.
1 star, and I'm embarrassed to even give it that.
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