Kraftwerk: "The Robots"

Are they men, or are they machines?

Kraftwerk certainly look the part of unnaturally stiff, synthetic, and emotionless androids in "The Robots" music videos, based on the song from The Man-Machine album of 1978. The first version of the song is in English, and the second is "Die Roboter" in the band's original German language. When I first discovered Kraftwerk a year ago, my initial reaction was that they were a rather strange band, perhaps an obscure one or two hit act of the 1980s. They also positively reminded me of science fiction, and especially the android character Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I found out that instead of coming from later, Kraftwerk had released "The Robots" and the rest of The Man-Machine album in 1978, which puts it a few years earlier than my initial guess. I understand now why fans of Kraftwerk believe that they are generally ahead of their time, relative to the release date of their work. Upon viewing the video of "Die Roboter," then "The Robots" video, I couldn't remember seeing another band that looked and sounded quite the way Kraftwerk did, and they certainly are a very distinctive part of the music industry. I had discovered Kraftwerk coincidentally, while searching for strings music featuring avant-garde, dissonant sounds. I came to discover "The Robots" through a video of the Balanescu Quartet's "Robots" piece, from their album Possessed, of which version of the song is also a favorite of mine for many of the same reasons, being represented through the violin sounds of a strings quartet. I believe that Kraftwerk's "The Robots" is the definitive electronic song about robots, featuring my favorite use of the vocoder. Few other pieces represent machine sounds alongside a compelling melody as perfectly as this does. Some find Kraftwerk to be slightly creepy, which is understandable due to their intimidatingly expressionless, mannequin-esque appearances and robotic movements, even when not only photos of their mannequins, but certain pictures of the band itself. Since last April, "The Robots" has become one of my personal favorite songs, representing the ideals of mechanical perfection, and an obligation to duty I am able to identify with.

10/10