Sunday Synthpop Brunch: 'The Man Machine'

Being one of the most influential bands in all of music over the last three decades, so much has already been written about Kraftwerk that I'd considered just skipping them altogether in favor of writing about the usual more obscure electro-pop fare. Some further thought on the matter changed my mind, since I realized it's a toss up between these guys, The Human League, and Gary Numan as to who had more of a hand in pushing me so heavily into electronic music as a teenager.

I won't bother with bios, behind-the-music stories or career overviews on this edition of the Sunday Synthpop Brunch, since so many have already been written about this iconic act (including a very interesting memoir by an ex-band member). Instead, we're simply going to zero in on what I feel is Kraftwerk's finest moment: their 1978 album The Man Machine.

Over the course of their three high-profile offerings (Autobahn, Radio-Activity, and Trans-Europe Express) pre-1978, Kraftwerk already earned a reputation for sounding rather bloodless on record, and even by that standard The Man Machine seems particularly sleek and refined -- a rather ironic quality given that the album represented a step towards more straight-ahead pop song structures. Perhaps the ultimate sonic demonstration of fabled German efficiency, The Man Machine is a masterpiece of tonal economy -- there is not a wasted note or beat to be found anywhere on this album. Making even Autobahn sound warmly inviting in comparison, The Man Machine is the most perfectly airless work Kraftwerk ever released -- even the occasional lyrics (when they're not sung through a vocoder) are delivered seemingly without intake of breath and are nearly free of any variance in tone.

All of this detached perfection would probably be unlistenable if it weren't for the songs themselves, which are among the most striking and memorable in the Kraftwerk catalog. Sandwiched between the forbidding, lockstep precision of the "The Robots" and the title track, The Man Machine offers up a handful of simple, yet elegant electronic works like "Spacelab" and the weirdly timeless single "The Model," which manage to get your feet tapping along to the rhythm while the songs seemingly do nothing more strenuous than gleam silently like distant stars on a clear winter's night. The real prize, though, is the lengthy, hypnotic synth ballad "Neon Lights" which for me is the definitive Kraftwerk track: arid, dry, ultraclean, almost standoffishly robotic in execution, yet possessed of a shimmery, innocent beauty that has yet to wear out its welcome after all these years.