T/S Telex vs. YMO vs. Kraftwerk

"Ah Mr. Okira..."

I don't know how impressed I was with the songwriting on the one Telex album I've heard (though it was a later one--Looney Tunes--maybe I need to hear it again).

I wish I could get ahold of more Telex, really. They repressed the SSR remix discs though!! Eurovision (DJ Elin's Autorepeat mix) here I come!

You should add Yello to the question just for the hell of it.

Just the consistency, the purity of the aesthethic, being the originators. There's a subtlety as well that Telex and YMO lack. Both Telex and YMO were quicker to sort of cheese out with goofy numbers at times, whereas Kraftwerk's tongue was so firmly in cheek it reads as sincerity.

You may give points to YMO and Telex for silly but effective electro-techno-pop cover versions, but Kraftwerk get's points for not doing cover versions and living in their own hermetic world. Likewise, Kraftwerk's lack of collaborations, whereas YMO and Telex both worked with others.

Telex gets points for smarts for getting the Mael bros to write their lyrics, though.

eg I was trying to say that after hearing one of these albums you wouldn't necessarily expect the other to sound the way it does (either way)

"Morganspaziergang" ?!?!?!??

I guess we must be talking about a different style of "quality" then as well.

Kraftwerk wasn't that prolific! If you start with Autobahn as the we're not really gonna be hippies anymore, you have Autobahn, Radioactivity, Trans-Europe Express, Man Machine, Computer World, the Tour de France single and Elektric Cafe. And that's over 10 years. Each record represents a certain place they were in, which I've always associated with the styles of music that would draw most from it.

I can vouch for vol.2, the Stacey Pullen remix of "I don't like music" and the aforementioned Buckfunk 3k rmx are worth the money all alone. Been looking for vol.1 like, forever.

They need to rerelease the albums, or at least put out another comp of original versions.

Now I have like 3 or 4 Telex songs stuck in my head and no Kraftwerk or YMO at all.

Hmm.

It's like how a defeated France came back to win WWII...uh, yeah. Y'know, with American help (Eisenhower = the Maels). Okay I'm going now.

Telex, I have no idea about.

Mmm...that's a beautiful dream.

Kraftwerk cover "Taiso" by YMO
YMO cover "En Route Vers de Nouvelles Aventures" by Telex
Telex cover "Pocket Calculator" by Kraftwerk

"A bland dance machine and a reasonably clever techno-pop team"

On the first album: "The orginals...are mundane and one-dimensional."

On Neurovision: "Another batch of boring originals."

On Sex: "Unfortunately, Telex's languid creations lack the spunk to keep up with the warped wordplay."

Side note: Kraftwerk take all for making the best lps, but Moscow Diskow is prolly my fave dance party tune.

When I opened this thread I was going to point out that the winner is definitely YMO, but now I'm pretty sure the winner is stevem.

Where the heck are thier rereleases?

http://park10.wakwak.com/~techno/kraftwerkesque.html

(actually that whole webpage is amazing!)

I can't stop listening to Telex. I'm not about to claim they're better than YMO or Kraftwerk (both among my favorite groups ever), but they certainly deserve mad props, and probably a thread of their own.

I am INTERESTED in Telex and am not putting this up to slag them, but here is Ira Robbins in the Trouser Press Guide Telex entry:

On the first album: "The orginals...are mundane and one-dimensional."

uh...This is incredibly misguided. The originals are fucking brilliant.

Recommendation: If you haven't heard "Moskow Discow", fix the hole in your life you never knew needed filling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLJSsE-m4lI

These are the recommended dance moves when you listen to the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsW2RuLE3dA&feature=related

I have a lot more understanding for Autobahn than I used to. half of it still sounds way too much like sound effects/library tunes from the same time frame to seem all that much like a real kraut groundbreaker, but what do I know, I think GAS and NEU are fucking boring

also sad fact: I kind of wore out "Taiso" for myself for at least a little while

i've been listening to Telex's "Neurovision" again a lot lately. "My Time" and "En Route" are amazing.

YMO ( pre-90's Techno comeback) for me. They could do goofy and spacey and Romantic - sometimes within the same song! - like no one else and their tunes are definitely the catchiest. Plus THOSE SYNTHS!

I hope this thread has by now at least made Tom's list of things to recant on his deathbed.

oh yeah that was fucking insane and terrible when I tried to compare some bands that weren't kraftwerk to kraftwerk

I mean they recorded morgenspaziergang

I still haven't heard any Telex other than this one, which is the best Eurovision entry by anyone ever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6USa0zUMmqI

xpost No, I know, equal time and all that, but I sense a definite anti-Kraftwerk tendency. (Kraftwerk backlash?)

Maybe the best thing about Kraftwerk is how it all should by rights sound like sound effects and library music, but instead it sounds like grace.

Myself, I just give thanks. :)

i've been listening to Telex's "Neurovision" again a lot lately. "My Time" and "En Route" are amazing.

-- jaxon, Thursday, 1 May 2008 04:27

"my time" is a cover of this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=OdIec0xuz40. i love both versions.

also great: http://youtube.com/watch?v=fVRtaBJzuKY (original is good too).

I tend to think there was more interplay going on between Giorgio Moroder and Kraftwerk than we give credit, whereas Telex and YMO feel in the wake of this.

Moroder's 1975 album seemed to be heavily influenced by early Kraftwerk, and songs on Kraftwerk's 1978 album Man Machine (Space Lab, Metropolis, etc) seemed to borrow even more from the post-1977 I Feel Love/Midnight Express world of Moroder.

But Sakamoto's harmonic approach has me coming back to YMO more than the others.

So no-one commented on Marc Moulin's death last month (TELEX). Seemed like a thoroughly great guy, the kind you'd wanna be when you grow up if you weren't already so old.

10 years ago I would have said Kraftwerk, but nowadays I much prefer YMO.

Egg City Radio (one of my favorite blog things) put up a bunch of Telex very recently. It is awfully good. Trouser Press not to be believed.

Original version of "My Time" is on this album, all of which is really wonderful!

I have heard too little Telex to really make up an opionion about them, except I love what I've heard. Like both Kraftwerk and YMO too, but YMO kind of lost it throughout the 80s. So, Kraftwerk then.

the second side of Technodelic has floored me.

posting from the floor here

I do stand behind "Gradated Gray" as maybe the single greatest technopop song period

i am STILL on the floor. i am trying to figure out which limb i could bite off for sustenance and still live

my local shop had a copy of some new Telex compilation and I decided I owed it to myself to grab it. one record is like salmon pink and the other is neon green. in other words two of the least appealing colors on the planet. it's not really a "best of" but rather one of those anthology-like compilations that just tries to show off everything the band can do. only 4 of the 14 tracks are from the first 2 albums. it is so funny to hear Dan Lacksman sing Russell and Ron Mael's lyrics. I think these may be new mixes because "Radio Radio" (released 1984) sounds so far beyond what Kraftwerk was trying to do on Electric Cafe. They actually pulled off a beefy and sample-heavy dancefloor sound in that period that so many other artists like Devo, Numan, & Sparks couldn't capture. Side D is all covers: "The Number #1 Song in Heaven", "La Bamba" (??) and "Dear Prudence" (?????). there's also a cover of Sonny & Cher's "The Beat Goes On" at the start. it's such a weird compilation. definitely not the tracks I would've picked but I am really digging it.

ok, now listening some of these side-by-side...yeah, there is definitely some extensive remixing done. reminds me a bit of the Kraftwerk 3-D stuff, the new versions are different and more modern even if it's not as easy to pinpoint exactly what has changed.

apparently Mute is going to reissue their entire catalogue. I wonder if it's all gonna get that treatment. If all of Wonderful World is remixed like this it's gonna rule.