Originally published at: Radioactive Tubular Girls: mashup of Kraftwerk, Mike Oldfield and Duran Duran | Boing Boing
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That was nicely sinister; and the visuals took me back to the good old days, when I expected to die in a radioactive fireball before I got laid. There is still time.
By Beschizza’s Law (“mashups of n bands are n^2 as good as any one of the originals”), that’s at least 9 times as good.
It’s on infinite repeat as I mop my kitchen…
I hope that BoingBoing might post our Kraftwerk homage video - but I guess they haven’t stumbled upon it since we posted it a few months ago. Until that day comes, here it is:
That video has a “Bad Case of the Mondays”.
That is charming.
This is a good mashup. But that’s not important right now.
What is important is that several years ago, I came to the conclusion that Radio-Activity is the most Kraftwerkian record that Kraftwerk ever made. It happened right on the edge of the band’s transition from its earlier hardcore experimental Krautrocky messings about to its later crazy-assed electronic pop years where it seemed like every single track they produced spawned a whole new genre of music. As such, Radio-Activity encompasses elements of both of those worlds, and even though it is a fragile, tentative-sounding record in many ways (imo), I consider it to be the most “pure” Kraftwerk record there is. In my mind, it is one of the most important records of the last century.
(That being said, the band’s very fine 2003 record Tour de France Soundtracks remains my favorite.)
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
OK, yes, that was indeed superb. (For me, it was definitely the Tubular Bells element that elevated it above being ‘just’ another mash-up.)
Anyway, in the light of the equally excellent Puppetwerk posted earlier, I will never pass up the opportunity to link to my favourite Kraftwerk tribute:
That was just…breathtaking!
So well put; “fragile” is right on the money.
And I absolutely agree with its importance. There are bands from the late 70s and 80s that I don’t think would’ve existed without Radio-Activity. (OMD comes to mind… see “Radio Waves” vs “Airwaves”.)
Do I smell a Dead Milkmen reference?
Isn’t that the way everyone does the hokey-pokey?
Duran Duran never stopped being good either
I’d never seen this, but it has now become my favorite Kraftwerk tribute, as well.
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