Kraftwerk
Computer World
- Released
- 1981
- Format
- Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo
- Label
- Warner Bros. Records · HS 3549
motorikkrautrockkraftwerk
Electronic ElectroSynth-pop
View on Discogs ↗ Related titles
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Kraftwerk Die Mensch·Maschine Die Mensch-Maschine is the predecessor — Computer World applies the same robot-as-human logic specifically to the emerging world of personal computing and information networks. -
Kraftwerk The Robots The Robots and Computer World are the two faces of the same Kraftwerk argument — machine consciousness as a description of what the musician already is. -
Plastikman Musik Dan the Automator (half of Handsome Boy Modeling School, who built Endtroducing in his studio) cited Kraftwerk as one of his two formative influences — Computer World is the likely specific record.
Computer World appeared in 1981, and it is the most prophetic of the three Kraftwerk records here. “Computer Love,” “It’s More Fun to Compute,” “Home Computer” — the album describes a world of networked personal computing that did not yet exist as a mass experience, using musical methods (sequencer patterns, digital synthesis, metronomic pulse) that were themselves products of the same technological shift the lyrics were describing.
Dan the Automator — who is half of Handsome Boy Modeling School and in whose San Francisco home studio DJ Shadow built Endtroducing — cited Kraftwerk and old-school hip-hop as his two formative influences. Kraftwerk is literally the bridge between techno and hip-hop, the secret unifier of both lineages. Computer World is the most accessible point of entry into that claim.