release date: Oct. 1975
format: cd (1986 reissue)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,98]
producer: Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider
label: Kling Klang / EMI - nationality: Germany
Track highlights: 2. "Radioaktivität" (4,5 / 5) - 3. "Radioland" - 4. "Ätherwellen" - 8. "Antenne" - 12. "Ohm Sweet Ohm" (4 / 5)
5th studio album by Kraftwerk and the band's second album on the compilation Der Katalog (2009) following one year after Autobahn. Here the band is for the first time a permanent quartet with the two primary composers and musicians Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider, again together with percussionist Wolfgang Flür - who also played on the predecessor, as well as new percussionist Karl Bartos. Emil Schult is songwriter of more than half of the songs and he is also credited the artwork of the album, but still not credited as an official member. The album runs just under 38 minutes and it's the band's first to be simultaneously released in an original German version as well as a versioned English edition with English song titles mainly for English-speaking countries, but also for release in the Netherlands and in Scandinavia - where the album was released as Radio-Activity.
Once again, the band has managed to take another leap further into the electronic genre. You'll find only a few overlaps with Autobahn and additionally, the album here is more stringent with electric percussion pads, vocoders, and a stronger pop profile with melodic choruses, in addition to a number of experimental traits, which tend towards modern glitch pop with what some have condescendingly called 'blip-blop music' - with reference to sounds simulating radios and electronic instruments. Between more traditional compositions at three to six minutes duration, shorter compositions from 14 seconds to just over one minute are interspersed, as small breaks with different sound sequences. It's a new and ground-breaking way of making music, which has inspired artists then and now. English band Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark have especially on their Dazzle Ships (1983) included some of the same sound loops and fun quirks found on Radio-Aktivität.
The album was met by lukewarm reviews and didn't perform to well commercially on a national scale, where it peaked at number #22, but the album went to number #4 in Austria and simply topped the albums chart in France. Contemporary reviewers were skeptical - probably because it's so different, but retrospective reviews attest to the album's status as yet another of the band's seminal releases.
Personally, I can easily hear OMD's huge inspiration, but because I first listened intensively to OMD, it's somewhat difficult to see Kraftwerk's music as better. It's obvious though, that the British band stole with hands and claws, but they didn't just copy, and that's ultimately what musicians do when they help push boundaries and create their own sound. Radio-Aktivität is a proof of the band's innovative style and is not a complete album without twists and turns, where in particular the slightly outdated instruments used distinguish the album from later releases, but it's nevertheless so beautifully produced and thoroughly new in form and sound that it surpasses much else of contemporary releases.
Highly recommended.
