World album of the day (#352): Trans-Europe Express - Music

albummaster

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Today's world album of the day

Trans-Europe Express by Kraftwerk (View album | Buy this album)

Year: 1977.
Country:

Overall rank: 294
Average rating: 80/100 (from 245 votes).

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Tracks:
1. Europe Endless
2. The Hall Of Mirrors
3. Showroom Dummies
4. Trans-Europe Express
5. Metal On Metal
6. Franz Schubert
7. Endless Endless

About world album of the day: The BestEverAlbums.com world album of the day is the album appearing most prominently in member charts in the previous 24 hours, but not including albums from Australia, Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom or United States. If an album, or artist, has previously been selected within a x day period, the next highest album is picked instead (and so on) to ensure a bit of variety. A full history of world album of the day can be viewed here.

alelsupreme

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drakonium

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inB4revolver

revolver94

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drakonium wrote:

inB4revolver

Ah yes, so it seems...

One of the reasons I like this album so much is the juxtaposition of different themes. Songs like "The Hall of Mirrors" and "Showroom Dummies" provide great social commentary, but the rest of the songs are not. Rather, they are a celebration of beautiful things that the group appreciated - Europe and transportation, particularly. It seems most albums with "interesting" lyrics focus on being pessimistic or clever, anything but expressing joy for what the world is.

The music is great, too, of course. Whether the celebratory nature of songs like "Europe Endless", or the cool, slick sounds of "Trans-Europe Express", the songs take you somewhere else completely, and let you stay there comfortably in for sometime while gently moving you along through the environment created by the songs, much like the transportation they so admire.

I'd argue that this is the best continental album of all time.

yourself

revolver94 wrote:

Ah yes, so it seems...

One of the reasons I like this album so much is the juxtaposition of different themes. Songs like "The Hall of Mirrors" and "Showroom Dummies" provide great social commentary, but the rest of the songs are not. Rather, they are a celebration of beautiful things that the group appreciated - Europe and transportation, particularly. It seems most albums with "interesting" lyrics focus on being pessimistic or clever, anything but expressing joy for what the world is.

The music is great, too, of course. Whether the celebratory nature of songs like "Europe Endless", or the cool, slick sounds of "Trans-Europe Express", the songs take you somewhere else completely, and let you stay there comfortably in for sometime while gently moving you along through the environment created by the songs, much like the transportation they so admire.

I'd argue that this is the best continental album of all time.

I always thought the lyrics on stuff like "Europe Endless" were meant to be a bit sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek rather than strait up optimism. As if they were quietly laughing at that idealistic vision of europe/technology/the future just as much as they were blatantly expressing it.

Either way its a great album. I think the quality does drop off slightly by the time we get to the last few tracks (Metal on Metal, Franz Schubert, Endless).

alelsupreme

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Age: 28

yourself wrote:

Either way its a great album. I think the quality does drop off slightly by the time we get to the last few tracks (Metal on Metal, Franz Schubert, Endless).

This. I'd love if they ordered it so TEE-MTM-Abzug ended the album.
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nf0603

Masterpiece!!! Still sounds fresh today