The Mix

Product Information

What exactly caused this to happen is mostly unknown, even though you can easily pinpoint it to obvious conflicts within the group and a feeling of exhaustion hanging over them. It featured re-recorded versions of a selection of songs which had originally appeared on the albums Autobahn through Electric Café. While Andrew Harrison of Select awarded the album five stars out of five, his opinion was that "Hütter and Schneider threw themselves into techno as if they'd invented it (which they had), but updating Kraftwerk was always rather pointless, as their music has never dated at all". All the remixes are just more boring versions of great tracks with some slight changes in the melody. Tom Ewing of Pitchfork cited the new versions of " Autobahn" and " Radioactivity" as highlights, adding that, "unlike most mix albums of the period this one had a purpose: these more physical and propulsive versions have fed into Kraftwerk's live set ever since".

This proved to be an ongoing task, as new upgrades and equipment were continually made available in the years following the album project. These are the versions of these tracks that the boys play live the most, because they are way more danceable and kinetic, and even though the mysterious robotic atmosphere of their originals disappears along the way, the songwriting and tight melodicism stays very much intact.

Because of licensing restrictions imposed by Warner Music Group, this version has only been made available in the US and Canada as a part of The Catalogue box set. The Robots: The added layers of accompaniment in this version sacrifice the dark atmosphere of the original, in favor of something that makes you want to join the robots in their mechanical dance.

It’s got nothing on the version from Die Mensch-Maschine, but it’s still one of the group’s signature compositions. Metal on Metal: Kraftwerk further modified the famous percussion noises in this track to make them even more danceable than the original, chopping them up for more energy. Accept the 90s twist for what it is and settle in for an hour or so of synthesizer heaven next time you're stuck on the M1 - or, indeed, the autobahn. I was pleased to find that, although the extended remixes smack more of the early 90s period (with all the acid synth bass and drum machine blip-blops one might expect) in which they were created rather than the 70s era which people tend to remember them for, the tunes I remembered still survived fairly intact and the CD fulfilled its purpose of making me want to hear more, if in the music's original form next time.

Hütter stated in interviews that he regarded The Mix as a type of live album, as it captured the results of the band's continual digital improvisations in their Kling Klang studio. The intro and other sound effects are redone to match up with the beat, which is another welcome change. Also, there is just a certain charm in them updating their classics to a style that they themselves helped start. Strangely enough, however, this album was the last project for Kraftwerk before they fully turned into a legacy act for the next twelve years, with almost no new original music released, but a lot of tours and live-appearances. Despite no new, original recorded material or live tours outside of Europe, Ralf Hütter didn't want Kraftwerk to appear defunct to the public.