release date: Aug. 3, 1983
format: digital (1999 remaster)
[single rate: 4 / 5] [3,86]
producer: Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider
label: Kling Klang / EMI - nationality: Germany
Tracklist: 1. "Tour de France (Radio Version)" (4 / 5) - 2. "Tour de France (Kling Klang Analog Mix)" - 3. "Tour de France (Remix François K)"
Single release by Kraftwerk, originally intended for the album Electric Cafe (1986) but instead issued as a stand-alone single when the album ran into several years of delay. The single has since '83 been issued in many different versions and the 1999 edition is also an edited version. Originally, the single was released in 7'' and 12'' format versions with the maxi single having a more than 6 minutes version followed by the two tracks from the regular 7'' single - a 3 minutes version and a 2:40 minutes instrumental. The '99 CD edition starts off with an edited version of the original track, followed by an edited mix of a 1984 remix, and it ends with a 1984 François Kevorkian remix.
The single was neither a major hit nor went completely unnoticed when it first came out. It charted as No. #47 in Germany, No. #20 in Ireland, No. #6 in Sweden, and as No. #22 in the UK. When it was reissued in 2003 in a re-recorded version for the Tour de France Soundtracks album, it once again delivered similar chart positions, but the track has nevertheless become almost synonymous with Kraftwerk as the track that links the band's earliest and later phases smoothly together.
