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Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution
Score: 95%
Rating: Not Rated
Publisher: MVD Entertainment Group
Region: A
Media: DVD/1
Running Time: 180 Mins.
Genre: Documentary/Musical/Historical
Audio: English (with some German)
           Stereo

Subtitles: English Subtitles when German is
           being spoken


Features:
  • The Dusseldorf Scene vs. the Berlin Scene
  • Extended Interview: Karl Bartos: I was a Robot
  • Contributor Biographies:
    • Conrad Schnitzler
    • Dave Ball
    • David Stubbs
    • Diedrich Diedrichsen
    • Dieter Moebius
    • Edwin Pouncey
    • Hans-Joachim Roedelius
    • Ingeborg Schober
    • Karl Bartos
    • Klaus Lohmer
    • Klaus Roder
    • Klaus Schulze
    • Manfred Gillig-Degrave
    • Mark Prendergast
    • Rusty Egan
    • Wolfgang Seidel
  • Limited Collector's Edition
  • 4:3 (Widescreen) Screen Format

I can't attribute Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution as having given me an appreciation for Kraftwerk, as I had been introduced to their music when I was just a kid by the girl down the street that used to beat me up and take my bike from me (as I understand it, she "liked" me and didn't quite know how to express her emotions). While, with time, I would get my bike back and the bruises would heal, my appreciation for Kraftwerk has stayed with me to this day, evidently much like the emotional scarring.

What I can say about Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution is that it increased my appreciation for Kraftwerk and also deepened my understanding of these pioneers into electronic music. Specifically, Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution explains the history of Kraftwerk and highlights the turning points in their history, while providing informative insights into what was going on at the time, providing a sense of context which is much needed to fully appreciate the genius that is Kraftwerk. What Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution is not, however, is a music video album on DVD. There are very short clips of music interspersed throughout the documentary, often with their accompanying music videos, but these are usually used to illustrate a specific point being discussed in the documentary and are so short as to, quite possibly, fall within "fair use" time constraints. This also applies to some short clips of live shows, which according to the DVD box cover, came from private collections.

While I had enjoyed Kraftwerk's song ,Autobahn, I had not observed the playful musical references to the Beach Boys' Fun, Fun, Fun, which was also about driving. The lyrics of Autobahn are in German but the highly repeated refrain, "Wir fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der Autobahn" is very cleverly written; "fahr'n" means driving and can be easily mistaken for "fun" to someone who speaks English. Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution illustrates some of these homages to everything from German culture to the quickly approaching digital age.

If you're familiar with Kraftwerk and you'd like to know more about their history or if you're a electronic music lover interested in learning where the whole thing started, you owe it to yourself to check out Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution.



-Geck0, GameVortex Communications
AKA Robert Perkins
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