1978's 'The Man Machine' is Kraftwerk's most focused, and strongest album to date. Although short, clocking in at just over thirty minutes, the six tracks that comprise 'The Man Machine' are of high quality and filler-free. The album can easily be listened to straight through several times without boring the listener.

The album kicks off powerfully with 'The Robots'. It's pulsating bassline, machine-like rhythms and heavily processed vocals set the tone for the rest of the album. I actually prefer this version of 'The Robots' to the one on Kraftwerk's 1991 release 'The Mix'. I find 'The Man Machine' version to be a lot more robotic than 'The Mix''s more human, organic reworking.

Next is the first of the two almost completely instrumental tracks on `The Man Machine', `Spacelab'. `Spacelab''s weightless, dreamy synth lines say more to the listener than any vocals could ever describe. The only vocals that enter the mix are the vocoded words "Space-lab". A very relaxing, beautiful track.

Third up is the other vocally minimal track on the album, the dystopian `Metropolis'. This track is the most ominous of all of the tracks on `The Man Machine', perhaps the most ominous of all of Kraftwerk's songs (`Radioactivity' would be a close second). Likely drawing from Fritz Lang's 1926 masterpiece of the same title, `Metropolis' invokes the listener with the feeling that this futuristic city may not be the utopia we would all like it to be.

`The Model', the album's fourth track is a strange, somewhat poppy, but very catchy song. The lyrics are very simple and the synth sounds are very dated, but that is what is so charming about this song. "Charming" could very easily describe the appeal of all of Kraftwerk's work, as a matter of fact.

`Neon Lights'. Soothing, vocally minimal, long, experimental. Perfectly positioned in the track listing, `Neon Lights' helps to hold the album together. It is the perfect transition between the poppy `The Model' and the animatronic title track.

The closing track on the album is the title track, `The Man Machine.' It's toy-like staccato synth line and "pop-hiss" drums that run throughout the song sound as if they were played by automatons. The vocals are a stark contrast to the synth lines as they are warm, smooth and reverberating. This is one of the best tracks on the album, it is so much different in structure than the other songs, yet has many musical similarities. A great way to end the album.

Overall, `The Man Machine' is my favourite Kraftwerk album. Every song is focused and contributes in it's own way to the one overall feel of the album. If you want to get into Kraftwerk, I would suggest buying `The Mix' as I did. It is a bit of a greatest hits album, as well as a reworking of older Kraftwerk favourites. It is a good overview of Kraftwerk's career thusfar, even though they haven't done much since '86. But if you want some solid, vintage Kraftwerk, definitely pick up `The Man Machine.'

"The Man Machine" was my first exposure to Kraftwerk back in the late 70's, and in the remaster, the work sounds that much better. Nice to see it raised on such a pedestal. Although I have the original vinyl, I haven't compared the two side-by-side, but the remaster is powerful, clear and clean, which does the music great justice. There is so much clean detail - like the subtle breathiness of the single-word vocal in "Spacelab", or the clean staccato beat at the start of "The Man Machine", and the detail of the sounds in it.

Not having the direct comparison of new to old, I'll stick to the tracks, which are especially informative when comparing to Kraftwerk's "Computer World" (1981) - very different compilations. "The Man Machine" is like a "working man's" (actually, "working robots") compilation compared to "Computer World". If you liked the latter, you'll like this even better if you like simplicity. "The Man Machine" is analogous to the imaginative liner notes (actually photos), which show the four Kraftwerk mannequins going off to a day of work (arriving promptly at 7:59 to their recording studio). It's practical and hard-hitting in most spots, interleaved with the "experiences" of the day. Brilliant - and so much different than the also brilliant "Computer World". You will not find anything like "Numbers" or "It's More Fun to Compute" (from the latter CD) here. In comparison, "The Man Machine" world is quaint and familiar, rather than being edgy.

Track 1 (The Robots) "We are programmed just to do, anything you want us to". The PERFECT intro to this compilation. The track just brilliantly gives the feeling of marching forward, somewhat in a plodding but well-defined way that you might imagine a robot would do. A lot of vocoder here, and the remaster picks up all the very fine subtlety - the breathiness and echo. Just great.

Track 2 (Spacelab) Starts with the sound of a door closing. Perhaps the door to the studio? Now, the robots go to work - making sounds quite unlike the first track! This track is far more fluid and spacious. The melody is mostly uplifting, but with a few melancholy lines - both feelings are carried in a smooth melody which overlays a very staccato beat.

Track 3: (Metropolis) The start sounds like the power is coming up, over the sound of a "beating heart" of the city, which smoothly transitions to another smooth melody - something you might attribute to smooth movement. Feels like you're watching the goings-on of a Fritz Lang style art-deco city through the eyes of "the robots".

Track 4: (The Model) The robots hit the night club. Another smooth, charming melody - sounds like the Kraftwerk "robot" equivalent to Robert Palmer's "Simply Irresistible".

Track 5: (Neon Lights) Nostalgic. The start is so simple, and a bit melancholy. Day passes into night in the robot world, but here (as in "the Model") we have human vocals. The musical lines are so simple, even though they layer as the song proceeds. The synth

That comes in at 2:00 in the song mimics the lyric - "shimmering neon lights". The slow tempo, crossed with the smooth melody and staccato beat gives a peaceful feeling in this seemingly "cold" robot world.

Track 6: (The Man Machine) Just in case you were forgetting where you were from hearing the last two tracks, we're now back to the working, robot world. Seems like the complement to track 1 in many ways - simple clean musical lines, with "sound effects" in many spots that are used as musical lines, overlayed in the usual brilliant Kraftwerk way.

To conclude - I can't help to re-iterate the vast difference between this compilation, and "Computer World". I'm leaning toward the latter as the "better" compilation, but both are beyond 5 stars, so it doesn't matter - if you are into Electronica, you must have both.

As in the rest of the remastered Kraftwerk series, this album has been given the full remastering treatment. If you are familiar with previous both German and US CD versions you will remember the hiss and the flat sound overall. This did not prevent enjoying the techno pioneers but it was even back then not great. The first idea of how it should sound came with the live Minimum Maximum album. Now, this is an enormous improvement: not just is there no hiss butu also the sound has an amplitude it never had. Listen to The Robots and you will be knocked out by the modernikty of the sound: the highs and the basses are incredible and belie the age of this recording. Even if you have it you must get it again. The people at Kling Klang have done a psctacular job.

Although most people, and by that i mean kraftwerk fans, would state that 'computer wordld' and 'trans europe express' are kraftwerk best albums, I find this one by far the better one. Not one bad song (ok only six songs I know), and with metropolis, spacelab, the model and the man machine 4 of the best ever kraftwerk songs... brilliant...

If some well-meaning sadist were to pin me in a corner and demand to know what my favorite Kraftwerk album of all time was, I would pause for about 5 seconds, and finally sigh, MAN-MACHINE. This would almost be as difficult as asking me what my favorite abum would be by the likes of Tangerine Dream...Vangelis...Jonn Serrie...Jean-Michel Jarre...Pink Floyd...YES...Genesis...PFM...Constance Demby...Michael Stearns...ELP...King Crimson...Jade Warrior...and on and on. But...I can recall when this album was released and immediately being hooked. Not by the dance beats, necessarily (although we were in the heyday of disco back then, and I was eating up the latest releases by Donna Summer [for Giorgio Moroder & Harald Faltermeyer's electronics] and underground club bands like Voyage), but by the damn-near HUMAN-NESS of the tracks. It's like the boys were trying to meld 2 distinct universes together: the steely, cold, mechanical landscapes explored on TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS, and the warm, engaging washes of electronic keyboards on the likes of tracks like "Morgenspaziergang" and "Ananas Symphonie"(<--one of my all-time favorite tracks of theirs, from RALF & FLORIAN). Let their be no doubt: For those who, like me, absolutely love the allure of electronic dance music on a dance floor crammed full of fun-loving warm bodies being bathed in shimmering strobes and pulsating colored spotlights, this is the album to play, start to finish. The first 3 tracks give strong hints of the techno/rave craze to come. The last 3, though (which made up side 2 of the LP) are the ones that really took me. "The Model" was probably their strongest bid for Top 40 fame, and if I recall correctly, in some locales, they succeeded. The song is very radio-friendly and infectious, in spite of their insipid lyrics (and let's call a spade a spade: Kraftwerk will never be remembered for their heavy, meaningful lyrics...but hey, who cares? This is not Joni Mitchell/Michael Franks/Duncan Sheik territory we're in here.). The next 2 tracks, "Neon Lights" and the title track are the ones I love most, and especially "Neon Lights." Clocking in at 9 minutes, this is, hands-down, the most pleasant, enchanting, and ultimately WONDROUS dance song Kraftwerk has ever done, IMO. When I d.j. at dances from time to time, I love to drag this track out just to see how people react to it...invariably someone will come up to me and ask, "Who IS this?" in a nice way. I cannot give this song enough praise...when it breaks into the crystal-clear, glimmering synth break at the close of the vocal section, the jam session that follows is simply delightful. If Kraftwerk were ever to do another live album, my fantasy would be to hear them do an extended version of this, maybe the length of the original "Autobahn," allowing for all possible electronic improvisation on it. Wouldn't that be great? And finally, the hypnotic groove of the title track with the finely-crafted vocoder singing is simply a masterpiece in itself. Should anyone wonder what a good album would be to start out with, were he/she curious about Kraftwerk, this album would get my recommendation in a heartbeat. Getting to see the boys in Lincoln, Nebraska back in 1975 when they were on tour with Pavlov's Dog was a treat for the eyes and ears I will never forget. I just hope they will remain with us as long as humanly possible and accept the gratitude and love of us, their legion of fans, for all these years of incredible music they've shared with us. A final request to all German electronic music fans: If anyone knows where a CD of Fuhrs & Frohling's AMMERLAND is available, please Email me.