The French music critic Paul Alessandrini was drawn to Cologne because of the work of composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Düsseldorf being close to Cologne, he also interacted with Kraftwerk who were in the process of developing a more sequenced electronic sound due to the availability of more sophisticated sequencing equipment. Alessandrini told Ralph Hütter and Florian Schneider that "the kind of music you do is like an electronic blues, railway stations and trains are very important in that universe, you should do a song about the Trans Europe Express”. They took up this idea. Kraftwerk’s famed Kling Klang Studio was at this time in Mintropstraße in Düsseldorf, next to Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof, the main railway station. Hütter and Schneider would go from the studio to stand beneath the railway arches and listen to the sound the trains made. They found that the rhythm of the trains was not suitable to dance to, so they changed it slightly and the idea for “Trans-Europe Express” was born.

“Trans-Europe Express”s best known moment would likely be the single “Showroom Dummies” but its best would be the title track and the opening “Europe Endless”, adding up to a synthetic train journey across Europe in around 17 minutes.

This albums influence spreads far and wide. After meeting with Kraftwerk and having his name used in the lyrics (“From station to station, Back to Düsseldorf City, Meet Iggy Pop and David Bowie”) Bowie wrote the song “V-2 Schneider” in tribute to Florian for his album “Heroes”. At Ian Curtis’ insistence Joy Division would play “Trans-Europe Express” over the PA before they took the stage. Afrika Bambaata famously used part of “Trans-Europe Express” on his seminal Hip Hop release “Planet Rock”. Madonna sampled sections of “Metal On Metal” for her “Drowned World” tour. Siouxsie & the Banshees' covered "The Hall of Mirrors" on the “Through the Looking Glass” album and there are many more instances.

In 1977 this was music from the future, the very definition of the Futurism I’ve talked about previously. 

Trans-Europe Express - https://youtu.be/i_85fUIRlmU?si=n19zJ03DdrFNVcGW

Kraftwerk were formed in 1970 by Florian Schneider and Ralph Hütter, two students at the Robert Schumann University in Düsseldorf. Both were interested in the experimental music scene that was developing in Germany through the late ’60’s and early ’70’s (jokingly referred to by the Melody Maker as Krautrock, and the name stuck). Although Kraftwerk are best known for their purely electronic music Schneider played flute and violin and Hütter piano. A careful look through the credits for this album reveals Organ, Piano, Guitar and Flute appearing, so not fully electronic yet.

“Autobahn” has Kraftwerk honing their sound and moving closer to the fully electronic quartet we came to know but in 1970 they weren’t quite the ice cool robotic cats they are now known to be. Take a look at the picture of the band on the back of the sleeve, there’s long, lank hair and…beards, it could be a bunch of hippies on their way to a Grateful Dead gig! Bizarrely I’ve just looked at that picture on my copy (a 2019 Blue vinyl re-issue) and then compared it to the original German issue (don’t ask why it’s just the sort of thing I like to do) and, whichever band member is sitting far right (***) has had his head replaced…weird.

The music however is a lot more familiar. Synthesizers throb and pulse and blip and blop throughout, interspersed with flute’s and other occasional acoustic instruments. The few lyrics there are, are not exactly passing on earth changing truths “Wir fahren, fahren, fahren auf der Autobahn” translates as “We drive, drive, drive on the highway”. It is the reach for a purely electronic music that is important about “Autobahn”. The full length version of the title song (almost 23 minutes and covering all of side one) is hypnotically masterful. That was somehow edited down to 3 and a half minutes for a single release which started to pick up airplay in the US which led to a worldwide hit (#11 in the UK in 1974) and a US tour bringing them to an audience they could only dream about a year or so prior.

The rest of the album is instrumental ranging from the almost ambient to the more uptempo, electronic classical music, not yet having the pulsing, robotic style they would develop once Schneider and Hütter were joined in their best known line up by Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos, whence they fully embraced electronic instrumentation. Just to prove that music journalists are often stupefyingly wrong, “respected” US critic Robert Christgau felt the music of “Autobahn” was inferior to other electronic music of the time by Wendy Carlos (“Switched-On Bach” anyone ?) and Mike Oldfield !!! Kraftwerk were picked up on by the likes of David Bowie and Brian Eno giving them the reflected cool of such artists and becoming one of the most influential groups in modern music.

Autobahn - https://youtu.be/vkOZNJYAZ7c?si=Br0MDeZk52cj_yyf

(***)The picture of the band on the re-issue is the original picture, as it should be, and the chap on the far right is Emil Schult who appeared in the picture but did not actually play on the album. On the original German sleeve the head of newest member of the band, Wolfgang Flür, was superimposed on Shult’s body…mystery solved.

Ray Davies is inarguably (inarguably ? unarguably ? You know what I mean right ?) one of the UK’s greatest ever songwriters and “The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society" goes a long way to explaining why this is so. It’s an album concerned with the cultural and social changes ripping through Britian, and the rest of the world, in the 1960’s. Davies was concerned about the influence of American culture on Britain (some of us still are !). Released in 1968 it was The Kinks first album that failed to chart in either the UK or US, critics loved it, the record buying public (yes, them again) didn’t !

At its core, the album is a nostalgic ode to a quickly disappearing way of life, the Enid Blyton/Famous Five idyll of some sketchy period in the 1940’s and ’50’s which Brexiters hanker after but may never have actually existed except in children’s books. Ray Davies paints vivid pictures of small-town England, its traditions, and the people who inhabit it. The songs are beautifully crafted, filled with delightful melodies and whimsical but insightful lyrics.

The album opens with its title track which sets the scene, a celebration of the simple pleasures in life, a heartfelt anthem for preserving what was, in the face of what is to come. It’s been done to death by too may people at Open Mic nights but it doesn’t make it any less of a great song

“Preserving the old ways from being abused

Protecting the new ways, for me and for you

What more can we do ?”

That’s followed by "Do You Remember Walter?" a song that always makes me think of our friend Matthew (his nickname was Walter). Listening to it here for the first time since his tragic passing earlier this year makes me wanna smile and cry in equal measure and music that can do that should be treasured

“Do you remember, Walter, smoking cigarettes behind your garden gate?

Yes, Walter was my mate, But Walter, my old friend, where are you now?”

"Picture Book," continues exploring the idea of memories, identities, and the passage of time, I shall try and forget how it was used in an advert for HP printers (or somesuch nonsense). “Last Of The Steam-Powered Trains”, shall we say, “borrows” the riff from Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning” to tell the story of the end of steam trains, and how the passage of time affects us all and what we can continue to do

“Like the last of the good ol' puffer trains

I'm the last of the soot and scum brigade

And all this peaceful living is drivin' me insane”

Musically this is very much not The Kinks of “You Really Got Me” and “Til The End Of the Day”. Those records had a big influence drawn from American R&B whereas this (apart from the aforementioned Howlin’ Wolf steal) is decidedly English in nature, very folky. The Kinks had been blacklisted in America in 1965 after some “bad behaviour” on a US tour and didn’t go back for 5 years. Ray Davies has cited this effective ban as being responsible for his concentration on English focused music and lyrics. The lyrics here reflect that very English pastoral poetry of Blake and Wordsworth and a yearning for an idealised rural past.

“The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society" is a classic whose exploration of change still makes sense today. Its stories of nostalgia, identity, and the preservation of the past are universal, we all at times hanker for a past that will never come back.

"Do You Remember Walter?" - https://youtu.be/Erhio9iZpSU?si=kPND2sL5jrwktrqT