By the mid ’80s, mechanical, inhuman synthpop that Kraftwerk pioneered had gone from an avant-garde experiment to the main stream. Artists like the Human League, New Order, and even Madonna had already taken the same artificial instruments and turned them on pop music.
And so when Kraftwerk released Electric Cafe, it was in a world where electronic music wasn’t just made by robots anymore. The adjustment is a little difficult, but it’s more rewarding than not.
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Right off the bat, it’s worth mentioning that Electric Cafe is widely considered to be a tier or two beneath Kraftwerk’s classic albums. The ironic simplicity of The Man-Machine and Trans-Europe Express is nowhere to be found. Instead, the arrangements are much more dense, with rich rhythmic layers in place of their Krautrock minimalism.
It’s a rewarding listen, but at times it feels as if they’re trying to keep up with the pack rather than lead it. Opener “Boing Boom Tschack” sounds almost like a parody of hip hop, with an intentionally square scat sample driving an onomatopoeia beat, augmented with some lovely crystalline synth leads. Certain moments of the record feel more like a pastiche of pop music than a robotic approximation.
But graciously, these moments are rare. And at its best, Electric Cafe feels like Kraftwerk’s take on a non-stop dance party. “Techno Pop” and “Musique Non Stop” run right into one another without stopping, computerized voices MCing the fete. B-side opener “The Telephone Call” has the first true verse-chorus structure of the album, interrupting the song with dial tones, busy signals, and operator samples.
“Sex Object” breaks up the party for a second, introducing string pads and more minimalist drum machines, offering shades of their classic irony pop, but halfway through, the layers of drum machines kick in again, aided by slapped bass synths that have no interest in sounding anything like the real thing. Closer “Electric Cafe” goes old school again, featuring the same bubbling, cascading synths as songs like “Metropolis,” closing the record with a taste of what Kraftwerk does best.
This certainly isn’t peak Kraftwerk—they’re nearly a decade past their most classic work by this point (yet only album between this and Man-Machine, largely due to Ralf Hütter’s bicycling accident that put a wrench in the production process). But, there’s absolutely no mistaking this as the work of any other band. It’s not as iconic as their more celebrated works, but this is not a bad record by any stretch. It’s just as oddly wonderful as you’d expect any Kraftwerk album to be.