release date: Aug. 4, 2003
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,46]
producer: Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider
label: EMI - nationality: Germany
Track highlights: 2. "Tour de France Étape 1" - 3. "Tour de France Étape 2" - 7. "Aéro Dynamik" - 9. "Elektro Kardiogramm" - 12. "Tour de France" (4 / 5) (officiel video)
11th and final studio album by Kraftwerk released a full twelve years after The Mix (1991) - and seventeen [!] years after Electric Cafe (1986), which stands as their most recent album with completely new material. This final outing is also the band's only album with a line-up consisting of Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider together with the two new members of Fritz Hilpert (who in '87 replaced Wolfgang Flür) and Henning Schmitz, who after ' The 91 album replaced Fernando Abrantes (who had only just replaced Karl Bartos). The album is as all the band's albums from '74 and onwards also released in a remastered 2009 version, and for that, it was issued with the shorter title, Tour de France for the simple reason that it had been created to the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the first Tour de France. At the same time, it also happens to be the 20th anniversary of the band's first edition of the title track. The album consists of 12 compositions with a total running time at approx. 56 minutes.
Stylewise, the band here presents a new sound based on basic elements from their previous albums but now with an implementation of techno, for which the band itself is seen as a major inspiration, and which in a way provides the music with a breath of fresh air. Most lyrics are written in collaboration between Ralf Hütter and French songwriter Maxime Schmitt.
The album was generally met by positively reviews and it ended up topping the German albums chart as the band's only. It reached number #7 in Sweden, number #21 in the UK, and a position as number #3 on the US Top Dance/Electronic albums chart, although it didn't chart on the Billboard 200, as the band's only album to date. A total of four tracks were selected for single releases: "Tour de France 2003" (Jul. 2003), which contains four different versions of the title track - none of which appear on the album (which basically is in keeping with the multiple versions of the original "Tour de France" single from '83), "Elektro Kardiogramm" (released as a promo single) in a 'Radio Mix' version, "Aéro Dynamik" released in 2004 as "Aerodynamik" for a single with the track in four different mixes, again, all of which differ from the album version and "Aerodynamik + La Forme Remixes" released 2007. The first single peaked at number #50 on the German singles chart, which was bettered by a number #20 in the UK.
The album stands as Kraftwerk's final with new material, although several releases have followed, e.g. the live album Minimum-Maximum from 2005, the box set Der Katalog (2009), the live box set 3-D Der Katalog (2017) and most recently, the exclusively digital release Remixes (2020). The band has maintained regular live tours up to the present day, despite one of the band's founders, Florian Schneider left the band in 2009 and then later in 2020 died at the age of 73.
The title track has iconic status and fits fantastically as an underlay for cycling, but the album is a slightly odd conglomerate with few other highlights and quite a bit of filler material, but it's nevertheless still worth to know off.
[ allmusic.com, The Guardian, Mojo 4 / 5, Rolling Stone, Q Magazine 3 / 5 stars ]
