Neu!

The great Krautrock of the early 1970's is perhaps a genre that I haven't dedicated enough time/space to, don't really know why, a lot of great records came out of that scene.....a lot of very good, challenging music is documented on some sprawling comp series that I ought to get around to posting, but for today, let us focus on one of the true greats of the genre, NEU!

Formed in 1971 in Dusseldorf Germany with a couple displaced members of Kraftwerk, their first release, "NEU!", is something of a masterwork of the formula, some fabulous tracks such as "Negativeland" (from which the band Negativeland, whom I've also GOT to get around to, took their name) and "Hallogallo", this album sold next to nothing at the time, but is, today, regarded as something of a classic in Krautrock circles....very highly recommended.

The second album, the imaginatively entitled "NEU! 2" is a good one as well, and features some of the very earliest musical "remix" experiments. The band had enough material for only about half an album, and filled in the rest with manipulated versions of their previously recorded single "Super", giving us "Super 16", a slowed down version of the song, and "Super 78", a sped up version of the same.....look, it seems trival today BUT these boyos earn points for innovation, we take remix technology as a given these days, sometimes it "works" and sometimes not, but is was a hell of an idea at the time, and they deserve credit.

The band took on a couple of new members and released argueably thier best effort "NEU! '75", in, yep, 1975....."Hero" is a fine example of the genre, but the album as a whole is a four-star effort, no question worth the time/effort.

"NEU! 4" was a fairly awful album of earlier outtakes, released in the 1990's, I'll put it up since I have one, but, really, not much to recommend it. Also far from great is the 1990's release "NEU! Live in Dusseldorf 1972", again if you must, it's here, but the essentials are the first three discs by a huge margin, these latter day releases are for the serious fan, who probably already has them, actually.....

"NEU! '86" takes the tracks on "NEU! 4" and cleans them up a bit, it's really kind of interesting, certainly a better effort than the sloppy "4".....if you are  Krautrock junkie, most likely ALL of these are familar to you, if you are dabbling, I recommend the first three discs highly, if this is your cup of  hemlock, then checkout the other releases.......

So, do I have any Krautrock fans in the house? I like a lot of this stuff, notably the band Krokodile, I have a few comp series, as I said they are failry extensive ("Music For Your Mind" is the one I can think of the title to right now).....let me know, is there an audience for this stuff here? As I always say, this may not be the world's greatest blog (It MIGHT be the wost, but that is another issue), but I hope, always, that I acheive my true goal, which is bringing a diverse variety of rock n roll genres to some ears that may not have heard them before. Comments, as always, are greatly apprecited.

NEU!-01 Hallogallo/02 Sonderangebot/03 Weissensee/04 Im Gluck/05 Negativeland/06 Lieber Honig

NEU! 2-01 Fur Immer/02 Spitzenqualitat/03 Gedenkeminute/04 Lila Engle/05 Nueschnee 78/06 Super 16/07 Nueschnee/08 Cassetto/09 Super 78/10 Hallo Excentrico/11 Super

NEU! '75-01 Isi/02 Seeland/03 Leb Wohl/04 Hero/05 E-Musik/06 After Eight

NEU! 4-01 Nazionale/02 Crazy/03 Flying Dutchman/04 Shone Welle (Nice Wave)/05 Wave Naturelle/06 Good Life (Random-Rough)/07 86 Commercial Trash/08 Flying Dutch II/09 Danzing/10 Quick Wave Machinelle/11 Bush Drum/12 La Bomba (Stop Aparthijd World Wide)/13 Good Life/14 Elanoizan

NEU! '72 Live! In Dusseldorf-01 6 May '72 Part 1/02 Silence/03 6 May 1972

NEU! '86-01 Intro (Hayden Slo Mo)/02 Danzing/03 Crazy/04 Drive (Grundfunken)/05 La Bomba (Stop Aparthijd World Wide)/06 Elanoizan/07 Wave Mother/08 Paradise Walk/09 Euphoria/10 Vier 1-2/11 Good Life/12 November/13 KD

Little different, little different, try for the variety......links in a short while, hope ya like it, I know some won't, I am probably one of the very very few people who is a fan of, say, the Sex Pistols, AND Orange Goblin, AND Le Tigre, and NEU!.....that is the point here, not to pigeonhole ourselves