Raising Musical Awareness – Radio-Activity

I’ve always found it strange how things become popular.  There are certain people, movies, photographs etc that somehow manage to bury themselves deep within our cultural fabric.  Well, at least our pop cultural fabric.  They become iconic.

However, for every Pierre Trudeau there is a Joe Clark.  For every John Lennon, a Ringo Starr (I do love Ringo, but you get the point).  The same goes for music albums.

In this feature (hey - maybe I’ll make a little series depending on how much fun I have writing this one) I won’t be talking about Dark Side of the Moon, Sgt. Pepper’s, OK Computer, or Thriller.  This is for the Ringos…

Now Kraftwerk is by no means an unsuccessful, unpopular band.  They were electronic pioneers.  Don’t believe me?  They released an entire album dedicated to computers in 1981.  Now that is forward thinking.  It even has a song about pocket calculators!

But Radio-Activity is Kraftwerk’s forgotten baby.  It’s like Pepsi Blue - nobody talks about it anymore, but it’s still awesome.  However, upon listening to the album it is easy to understand why it doesn’t get the same love that other Kraftwerk releases do.  It’s weird.  And for something to be weird by Kraftwerk standards it has to be pretty weird.

The album revolves around the double-meaning behind the word Radio-Activity.  Is it activity on the radio, or is it ionized particles melting your torso?  I don’t think the band even knows. 

But wordplay isn’t the main attraction here.  The reason for listening to this album is its sound.  It is otherworldly.  This is the band at the pinnacle of their experimentation with melody and song form.  Hell, five or six of the “songs” on this album could hardly be classified as songs at all.  Take the album’s sixth track, News, for example.  Is it a song?  Maybe not.  But is it interesting, hypnotizing, and slightly unnerving?  I’d say so.

And that’s the way it is with this album.  Not everything is great, but everything is interesting.  There are certain tracks that are downright unpleasant to listen to, yet they are all rescued by a sense of invention and avant-garde challenge.  Radio-Activity is in the air for you and me…

Listening Recommendations: At night, through a pair of headphones, before imminent nuclear holocaust.