TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS [AKA: TRANS-EUROPA EXPRESS]

Trans-Europe Express is Kraftwerk's first absolute masterpiece in the electronic format. Stark, minimalist, and haunting, with tracks verging on Goth-electronic (The Hall of Mirrors and Showroom Dummies in particular), the band present an impeccably produced and striking proto-cyberpunk sound which would have a massive impact on dance music, industrial music, electro-rock and everything in between. Put it this way: take every major user of synthesisers in rock music who emerged since this album came out. Remove all the synth wizards who went a deliberately retro-route to recapture the sounds of the 1970s. Remove all of them who took a slick, commercial, MTV-pop approach to synths of the sort that was inexplicably popular in the 1980s. The guys you have left - the Gary Numans, the Trent Reznors, the M83s and so on? More or less all of them have been influenced by this album to one extent or another. It might not be prog the way traditionalists define it, but I know genius when I see it.