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Tour De France Soundtracks | 
 enlarge | Artist: Kraftwerk
Label: EMI
Category: Music
List Price: £15.99
Buy New: £7.50
You Save: £8.49 (53%)
New (40) Used (8) from £7.50
Rating:  43 reviews
Sales Rank: 31132
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 91708
UPC: 724359170824
EAN: 0724359170824
ASIN: B0000A4G4N
Release Date: August 4, 2003
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW PRODUCT Factory Sealed - Ships via Airmail from the USA - Fast Average 4 to 8 workdays delivery time - Excellent customer service - Buy with confidence!
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| Tracks:
| • | Prologue | | • | Tour De France (Etape 1) | | • | Tour De France (Etape 2) | | • | Tour De France (Etape 3) | | • | Chrono | | • | Vitamin | | • | Aero Dynamik | | • | Titanium | | • | Elektro Kardiogramm | | • | La Forme | | • | Regeneration | | • | Tour De France |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
With Kraftwerk now rumoured to be far more fascinated by bicycles than keyboards, it's perhaps not surprising that Tour De France Soundtracks is the group's first album for 12 years. Continuing to explore the theme of movement, men and machines that spawned the marvellous Autobahn, Trans-Europe Express and 1983's landmark single "Tour De France", Soundtracks is basically an expanded version of the latter, right down to the cover art. Having inspired house, trance and techno, it seems fair that Kraftwerk should borrow something in return. Commencing with three segueing versions of the title track, Soundtracks opens with a fine 15-minute dose of tranquil minimalist trance before seamlessly gliding through various sonic soundscapes with a metronome-like rhythm. Mellifluous keyboard lines evoke the sense of motion while melodies weave and swirl. "Elektro Kardiogramm" goes as far as containing heartbeat and breathing effects while "Vitamin", the album's peak, could be described as the Pyrenean stage with its deep grooves and dizzying synth hooks. The sound of groundbreakers building bridges, Tour De France Soundtracks may not prove as hugely influential as Kraftwerk's early music, but it is nevertheless a winning return. --Christopher Barrett
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| Customer Reviews: Read 38 more reviews...
 Nipple to the bottle March 19, 2008
Mr. A. Pomeroy (Wiltshire, England)
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is a sad record. Kraftwerk released almost no new music from 1986 right until 2003, during which time the media assumed that the band was obsessively working on a perfectionist masterpiece. The reality is that Kraftwerk ran out of ideas in 1981, coasted on technique for their 1986 LP Electric Cafe, and spent the next seventeen years going to the cinema, shopping, talking on the telephone, living their lives like normal people. Tour De France Soundtracks is the aural equivalent of an old university friend who you have not seen for a long time. You ask him what he has been up to, and he shrugs and says that the years passed quickly and he cannot remember. You realise that you are the same as him, you have achieved less in twenty years than you used to achieve in a single day, back when you were young. You have more money now, but nothing to spend it on.
The record gets off to a poor start. "Prologue", "Etappe" and "Chrono" are really parts of one long track, which I shall call Fred. Fred has a melody that seems uncomfortably close to "Computer World", but it's no Jack Kennedy. In fact the whole composition is a dead loss. It's pleasant, but tedious; the overall sound is very smooth and dull. There isn't enough musical material to fill all those minutes. The production is no more advanced than typical dance pop music, and it is years behind Squarepusher. There was a time when Kraftwerk could rely on their electronic production skills to patch over a lack of musical ideas, but Tour De France Soundtracks has none of that. The drums are perfunctory and the electronic beeps could have been squeezed out by anybody. There are some phased strings here and there, but the Kraftwerk sound has been diluted to nothing.
"Vitamin" is an improvement. It's a simple and hypnotic four-minute pop single. Unfortunately it is eight minutes long, it seems to stop half-way through and start again from the beginning. If I wanted to listen to "Vitamin" twice in a row, which I do not, I would play the track twice. I don't need Kraftwerk to do it for me.
"Aero Dynamik / Titanium" are one long track, which sounds like a pygmy version of "Pocket Calculator". It's the most Kraftwerk-sounding song on the record, on account of a strings noise that reminds me of the last half of "Trans Europe Express", but on a musical level it's just filler. "Elektro Kardiagramm" is a five-minute slog that does nothing and goes nowhere. It sounds like one of those finger-clicking 1920s-style swing songs. I would love to have been present when the record company executives were presented with it. You can't hum it, you can't dance to it, it's not clever, it doesn't make you think, it's not extreme or shocking, it doesn't advance music, it's a copy and paste nothing. "La Forme / Regeneration" is pleasant, but it would not seem out of place on the soundtrack of a second-hand PlayStation game from 1996.
"Tour De France" is a return to form. It's the best song on the album. It sounds like a sweeping bicycle race through some mountains. The production is elaborate and charming. It has a catchy tune. Mind you, I would have preferred less heavy breathing. I felt that when I first heard the song, about ten years ago; it's actually from 1983. By which I mean that the audio recording is the original 1983 release of "Tour De France". It's a testament to Kraftwerk's potential for greatness that a twenty-year-old song could be re-released on an LP in 2003 without sounding hopelessly dated. I can't imagine Paul Hardcastle performing the same trick. On the other hand, "Tour De France" just goes to highlight how far Kraftwerk have fallen. There are as many ideas in this song as there are on the rest of the record, and they are condensed down to five minutes.
Overall I am curious about this album. It cannot have taken very long to make. The music and the production are both very simple. It's like one of those extended remix singles that bands used to put out in the 1990s. "Vitamin" is decent, but the rest is completely disposable. It doesn't work as nostalgia; it doesn't work as a ground-breaking new direction in electronic dance pop; it doesn't work as a catchy fun record of pop tunes; it's not even very danceable.
 Team Kraftwerk February 29, 2008
D. Kerr (Belfast)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In 1997, when Kraftwerk surpisingly announced they would play Tribal Gathering, a lot of hype circulated around the band. No-one was really sure if this was a 'prologue' to a new album. It proved not to be the case. More rumours said that the band had submitted an albums worth of material to it's record label, material that was rejected for release. And so in 1999, when Expo2000 surfaced, rather quietly this side of the pond I may say, it seemed as if it was all coming together...the Expo single / jingle hinted at the shape of things to come, the etereal tones and synthetic voices, minimal, neat, compact.
When TDF Soundtracks eventually arrived, and I heard it, I felt as if Electric Cafe was only yesterday. Of course Electric Cafe is totally different, but the sound of TDF Soundtracks was instantly recognisable as Krafwerk.
The opening 'suite' of 'Etape 1' - 'Chrono' is, as has been said before, repetitive. Is that not the point? Though there are subtle differences throughout, repetition is the point, and achingly minimal it is, with a classic Kraftwerk melody to meld it all together. (Those who crave a more concise version should seek the 'Minimum Maximum' cd).
Vitamin, Aerodynamic and Titanium are a lesson to all the pretenders. Sonically awesome, these tracks provide a solid middle ground to the album, the tones, delays, reverbs, and precision showing Hutter and Schneider have lost none of their edge.
Electro Kardiogamm shows the 'funky' edge to the band, and is an instant classic, even with its starkly minimal structure.
La Forme and Regeneration are beautiful pieces breathing a bit of life into the machine that has become somewhat exhausted after the mid section of the album. Once again, instantly recognisable as Kraftwerk.
A reworked Tour de France rounds things off nicely, bringing everything back full circle.
I believe this ranks among the best of Kraftwerk's output, obviously TEE, Man Machine and Computer World were groundbreaking, but i hope this does not become as overlooked as Radioactivity or Electric Cafe.
Sonically - Achingly beautiful.
Inspiring. June 23, 2007
M. A. Harwood
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you follow the Tour, this really is the soundtrack to it. The music depicts various aspects of the event and evokes feelings that cyclists and fans of cycling know.
The Prologue somehow sets the scene with just a few notes, then the three Etape variations combine the competitors' efforts with the broader picture, particularly the media circus. A fresh melodic fragment leads into Chrono, where a sense of urgency prevails. Vitamin is the hard slog; the human body is an impersonal machine that runs on a list of chemicals. There is a feeling of release as we speed through Aerodynamik into Titanium, then there's the deadpan machine humour of Elektokardiogramm.
La Forme could have been called La Gruppette, as the pressure has eased a little. Regeneration sounds shapeless at first, but it makes sense as a time of recovery.
Placing the single at the end was an inspired idea: it comes across as celebratory, joyful even: imagine that, from Kraftwerk!
A seriously addictive work-out... August 18, 2005
nicjaytee (London)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Innovators from the far left out-field who've managed to keep up there with the best for 30 years, Kraftwerk are a unique and often bizarre proposition. And here's another example why... take a fairly odd idea - "musical to cycle to" - put it through 11 iterations, stand back and see what happens. First off is their 1983 "Tour de France (CD Single)" featuring three excellent interpretations of their ridiculously catchy original tune, including some quite wonderfully integrated sound bytes of heavy breathing a buzzing derailleur gears. Then 20 years later there's this, their "Tour de France Soundtracks" album with its superb first three tracks (Tour de France Etapes 1, 2 & 3) which while some way away from their predecessors pick up on several of their chord sequences to become perfectly complementary, equally irresistible extensions of them, followed by it's final track, titled - yes you've guessed it - "Tour de France", that's a further excellent reworking of the original concept. And then, if that's not enough, mix it all up even more with their "Tour de France 03 (CD Single)" featuring four more, subtly different, versions of the first three tracks from the "Soundtracks" album.Too much I hear you say... well possibly not. As you may by now suspect these guys are dedicated "velo-men" who know a bit about how to keep your legs turning, and if you put the whole 11 tracks together and hit the "shuffle" button you'll see why because you've got just about the best possible accompaniment to a serious blast on the pedals. A mesmerically addictive, wholly harmonious sequence of brain etchingly good back-beats & chord sequences that'll keep you cycling, jogging, driving or just chilling out for almost an hour before hitting, as you will, the replay button. And if you're not convinced, buy any one of these superb records for starters and then see if you can resist getting the rest.
Like it. April 3, 2005
T. J. Stickland (UK)
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
The first time I listened to this the first five tracks brought tears of joy to my eyes. This was house music. But with an idea behind it. The paralles between the music and the rythmn and repetition of the stages. I like it. The tune (which some complain is repeated) gets treated slightly differently with each Etape. It's gradually dismantled until it finally ends up with a classic Krawfwerk sequence that could be best described as organised noise. Great stuff.Similarly, I loved "Aerodynamik". The words to this are wonderful. Kraftwerk as good as they've ever been. The album tails off a bit towards the end for me. The first half is worth 5 stars. The last bit is not.
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