''Trans-Europe Express'' () is the sixth studio album by German band

Kraftwerk Kraftwerk (, ) is a Germany, German Electronic music, electronic band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk was among the first successful a ...

. Recorded in 1976 in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

, Germany, the album was released in March 1977 on Kling Klang Records. It saw the group refine their melodic electronic style, with a focus on sequenced rhythms,

minimalism In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

, and occasionally manipulated vocals. The themes include celebrations of the titular European railway service and Europe as a whole, and meditations on the disparities between reality and appearance. ''Trans-Europe Express'' charted at 119 on the American charts and was ranked number 30 in ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...

''s 1977

Pazz & Jop Pazz & Jop was an annual poll of top musical releases, compiled by American newspaper ''The Village Voice'' and created by music critic Robert Christgau. It published lists of the year's top releases for 1971 and, after Christgau's two-year abse ...

critics' poll. Two singles were released: " Trans-Europe Express" and "Showroom Dummies". The album has been re-released in several formats and continues to receive acclaim as one of the best albums of the 1970s and of all time. In 2014, the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' called it "the most important pop album of the last 40 years".

Background

After the release and tour for the album '' Radio-Activity'', Kraftwerk continued to move further away from their earlier

krautrock Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It originated among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electron ...

style of improvised instrumental music, refining their work more into the format of melodic electronic songs. During the tour for ''Radio-Activity'', the band began to make performance rules such as not to be drunk on stage or at parties.

Karl Bartos Karl Bartos (born 31 May 1952) is a German musician and composer known for his contributions to the electronic band Kraftwerk. Career Karlheinz Bartos was born on 31 May 1952 in Marktschellenberg, Germany, named after his grandfathers Karl a ...

wrote about these rules, stating that "it's not easy to turn knobs on a synthesizer if you are drunk or full of drugs. ... We always tried to keep very aware of what we were doing while acting in public." During this tour, early melodies that would later evolve into the song "Showroom Dummies" were being performed. In mid-1976, Kraftwerk began to work on the album which was then called ''Europe Endless''. Paul Alessandrini suggested that Kraftwerk write a song about the

Trans Europ Express The Trans Europ Express, or Trans-Europe Express (TEE), was an international first-class railway service in western and central Europe that was founded in 1957 and ceased in 1995. At the height of its operations, in 1974, the TEE network compri ...

to reflect their electronic music style.

Ralf Hütter Ralf Hütter (born 20 August 1946) is a German musician and composer best known as the lead singer and keyboardist of Kraftwerk, which he founded with Florian Schneider in 1970, and became the only consistent member of the band (although he brief ...

and

Florian Schneider Florian Schneider-Esleben (7 April 194721 April 2020) was a German musician. He is best known as one of the founding members and leaders of the electronic band Kraftwerk, performing his role with the band until his departure in 2008. Early li ...

met with musicians

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer, songwriter and actor. Regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, pa ...

and

Iggy Pop James Newell Osterberg Jr. (born April 21, 1947), known professionally as Iggy Pop, is an American singer, musician, songwriter, actor and radio broadcaster. He was the vocalist and lyricist of proto-punk band the Stooges, who were formed in 1 ...

prior to the recording, which influenced song lyrics. Maxime Schmitt encouraged the group to record a French language version of the song "Showroom Dummies", which led the group to later record several songs in French. The album was recorded at

Kling Klang Studio Kling Klang (also spelled as Klingklang) is the private music studio of the band Kraftwerk. The name is taken from the first song on the '' Kraftwerk 2'' album. The studio was originally located at Mintropstraße 16 in Düsseldorf, Germany, near ...

. Artistic control over the songs was strictly in the hands of members Hütter and Schneider, with Bartos and

Wolfgang Flür Wolfgang Flür (born 17 July 1947) is a German musician, best known for playing percussion in the electronic group Kraftwerk from 1973 to 1987. Flür claims that he invented the electric drums the group used throughout the 1970s. However, pat ...

contributing sequenced electronic

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

. Kraftwerk went to railway bridges to listen to the sounds the train would actually produce. The group found the sound the train made was not danceable and changed it slightly.

Recording

An important piece of new equipment used on the album was the Synthanorma Sequenzer, a customized 32-step 16-channel analog sequencer made for the band by Matten & Wiechers. This allowed the construction of more elaborate sequenced synthesizer lines, which are featured prominently in the tracks "Franz Schubert" and "Endless Endless", and liberated the player from the chore of playing repetitive keyboard patterns. Whereas '' Radio-Activity'' had featured a mixture of German and English lyrics throughout the album, ''Trans-Europe Express'' went further and was mixed as two entirely separate versions, one sung in English, the other in German. At the recommendation of Maxime Schmitt, a French version of the song "Showroom Dummies", titled "Les Mannequins", was also recorded. "Les Mannequins" was the group's first song in French and would influence decisions to record songs in French on later albums. After recording the album in Düsseldorf, Hütter and Schneider visited Los Angeles to mix the tracks at the Record Plant Studio. Elements of the mixing sessions that were done in Los Angeles were dropped from the album, including the use of more upfront vocals in order to do more mixing in Düsseldorf and

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

later.

Artwork

The artwork for the album cover of ''Trans-Europe Express'' was originally going to be a monochrome picture of the group reflected in a series of mirrors. This idea was dropped for a photo by New York-based celebrity photographer Maurice Seymour, with the group dressed in suits to resemble

mannequins A mannequin (sometimes spelled as manikin and also called a dummy, lay figure, or dress form) is a doll, often articulated, used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, window dressers and others, especially to display or fit clothing and show off ...

. J. Stara's image of the group was taken in Paris and is a highly retouched photo-montage of Kraftwerk from their shoulders up again posed as mannequins which are shown on the cover of the English version of the album. On the inside sleeve, a color collage of the group sitting at a small cafe table designed by

Emil Schult Emil Schult (born 10 October 1946) is a German painter, poet and audio-visual artist. Biography After studying Sinology in Münster, Schult joined the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf in 1969 to study Fine Arts in the printmaking class of Diet ...

was used. The photo for this scene was from the session by Maurice Seymour, taken on the group's American tour. Other photos were taken by Schult that show the group laughing and smiling. These were not used for the album's release.

Composition

Wolfgang Flür has stated Kraftwerk were influenced by the music of the

Weimar Germany The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...

era: "we were children who were born straight after

World War Two World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilisi ...

... we had no musical or pop culture of our own... there was the war, and before the war we had only the German folk music. In the 1920s or 1930s melodies were developed and these became culture that we worked from". Karl Bartos also spoke of post-war influence as the group thought that they "had this development in the 1920s which was very, very strong and was audio visual. We had the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the , was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined Decorative arts, crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., ...

school before the war and then after the war we had tremendous people like

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...

and the development of the classical and the electronic classical. This was very strong and it all happened very close to Düsseldorf in Cologne and all the great composers at that time came there." Paul Alessandrini is credited for helping contribute to the album's concept. Alessandrini told Hütter and Schneider that "with the kind of music you do, which is kind of like an electronic

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

, railway stations and trains are very important in your universe, you should do a song about the Trans Europe Express". Kraftwerk believed critics in the United Kingdom and the United States associated them with

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

, with tracks such as "Autobahn" inextricably linked with the Nazis who built the high-speed roads in the 1930s and 1940s. At the same time, the band were keen to move away from their German heritage towards a new sense of European identity and felt that the Trans-Europe Express could be used to symbolize this.

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

referred to ''Trans-Europe Express'' as a

concept album A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Som ...

with two different themes. The first being the disparities between reality and image, represented by the songs "Hall of Mirrors" and "Showroom Dummies", and the others about the glorification of Europe. ''

Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New Yor ...

'' described the album as "a sonic poem to Europe". The musical style of ''Trans-Europe Express'' was described by AllMusic as melodic themes which are "repeated often and occasionally interwoven over deliberate, chugging beats, sometimes with manipulated vocals" and "minimalism, mechanized rhythms, and crafted, catchy melodies". The music has been categorized as

electronic pop Electropop is a popular music fusion genre combining elements of the electronic and pop styles. It has been described as a variant of synth-pop with emphasis on a hard electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a revi ...

synth-pop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a music genre that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s b ...

, and

experimental pop Experimental pop is pop music that cannot be categorized within traditional musical boundaries or which attempts to push elements of existing popular forms into new areas. It may incorporate experimental music, experimental techniques such as m ...

. Hütter has commented on the minimalist nature of the album, stating that "If we can convey an idea with one or two notes, it is better than to play a hundred or so notes". The first side of ''Trans-Europe Express'' has three songs. The song "Hall of Mirrors" has been described as containing deadpan vocals with lyrics that speculate how stars look at themselves in a looking glass. Hütter and Schneider have described the song as autobiographical. The third track "Showroom Dummies" was described by AllMusic as "bouncily melodic in a way that most of ''Trans-Europe Express'' isn't" and with lyrics which are "slightly paranoid". The idea for the song came from Flür and Bartos being compared to showroom dummies in a British concert review. Some versions of the song contain a spoken introduction starting with a count-in of "eins zwei drei vier" as a parody of the band

Ramones The Ramones were an American punk rock band formed in the New York City neighborhood Forest Hills, Queens in 1974. Known for helping establish the punk movement in the United States and elsewhere, the Ramones are often recognized as one of th ...

who started some songs with a quick count-in of "one two three four". The second side of ''Trans-Europe Express'' is a suite with "Trans-Europe Express" continuing through to "Metal on Metal" and "Franz Schubert" before closing with a brief reiteration of the main theme from "Europe Endless". AllMusic described the musical elements of the suite as having a haunting theme with "deadpan chanting of the title phrase" which is "slowly layered over that rhythmic base in much the same way that the earlier "

Autobahn The (; German , ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track'. Much of t ...

" was constructed". The song's lyrics reference the album ''

Station to Station ''Station to Station'' is the tenth studio album by the English musician David Bowie, released on 23 January 1976 through RCA Records. Regarded as one of his most significant works, the album was the vehicle for Bowie's performance perso ...

'' and meeting with musicians

and

. Hütter and Schneider had previously met up with Bowie in Germany and were flattered by the attention they received from him. Ralf Hütter was interested in Bowie's work as he had been working with Iggy Pop, who was the former lead singer of

The Stooges The Stooges or Iggy and the Stooges, originally billed as the Psychedelic Stooges, were an American rock band formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1967 by singer Iggy Pop, guitarist Ron Asheton, drummer Scott Asheton, and bassist Dave Alexande ...

; one of Hütter's favorite groups.

Release

''Trans-Europe Express'' was originally released in March 1977. With the help of Günther Fröhling, Kraftwerk made a promotional

music video A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...

for the song " Trans-Europe Express". The video features the group wearing long coats on a train trip from Düsseldorf to nearby

Duisburg Duisburg (; , ) is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine (Lower Rhine) and the Ruhr (river), Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruh ...

. Photo stills from this video were later used on the single sleeve for "Showroom Dummies". Fröhling would work with Kraftwerk again on their album '' The Man-Machine'' doing the photography for the album cover. To promote the album to the press in France, EMI Records hired a train with old-fashioned carriages from the 1930s to travel from Paris to

Rheims Reims ( ; ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French department of Marne, and the 12th most populous city in France. The city lies northeast of Paris on the Vesle river, a tributary of the Aisne. Founded by ...

while the songs from the album were played over the train's announcement system for the critics. In October 2009, a

remastered A remaster is a change in the sound or image quality of previously created forms of media, whether Mastering (audio), audiophonic, Cinematography, cinematic, or Videography, videographic. The resulting product is said to be remastered. The term ...

edition of the album was released by

EMI EMI Group Limited (formerly EMI Group plc until 2007; originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At t ...

in Germany,

Mute Records Mute Records is a British independent record label owned and founded in 1978 by Daniel Miller (music producer), Daniel Miller. It has featured several prominent musical acts on its roster such as Depeche Mode, Erasure (duo), Erasure, Einstürze ...

in the European Union and

Astralwerks Astralwerks (or Astralwerks Records) is an American record label primarily focused on electronic music that is now owned by Universal Music Group. Its material is distributed via Capitol Music Group in the United States. The label was founded in ...

in the United States. This re-release was available on compact disc, digital download, and vinyl and features a different album cover from previous versions of the album. This new version features a black background with a white

train in the center. The track listing on the 2009 re-release amends the titles of the songs to match the original German release. This change has "Metal on Metal" being credited for two minutes of the music with the remainder being a track titled "Abzug" (English: "Departure").

Critical reception

Initial reviews for ''Trans-Europe Express'' were positive. Music critic

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became a ...

, in a review for ''

'', wrote that the album's "textural effects sound like parodies by some cosmic schoolboy of every lush synthesizer surge that's ever stuck in your gullet—yet also work the way those surges are supposed to work". ''Trans-Europe Express'' placed at number 30 in ''The Village Voices 1977

critics' poll. Modern reception has been very favorable. ''Trans-Europe Express'' has the highest possible ratings from publications including

, '' Drowned in Sound'', ''

Mojo Mojo may refer to: * Mojo (African-American culture), a magical charm bag used in Hoodoo Arts, entertainment and media Film and television * ''Mojo'' (2017 film), a 2017 Indian Kannada drama film written and directed by Sreesha Belakvaadi * '' ...

'', ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' and ''

''. Steve Huey of AllMusic wrote that the album "is often cited as perhaps the archetypal (and most accessible) Kraftwerk album ... Overall, ''Trans-Europe Express'' offers the best blend of minimalism, mechanized rhythms, and crafted, catchy melodies in the group's catalog". '' Q'', in a 1995 review, wrote that the album "changed the face of American dance music" and was "one of the most compelling beats of this or any other era". In 2009, ''Drowned in Sound''s Chris Power stated that "''Trans-Europe Express'' is all at once antique, timeless, retro and contemporary. Its status as modern electronic music's birth certificate is well-earned, but its hallowed reputation should never be allowed to disguise its true value and power as a work of art. Nor should it obscure a longevity that, 32 years on, we might as well start calling by its real name: immortality". ''Trans-Europe Express'' has also appeared on top album lists from a variety of sources. In 2001, TV network

VH1 VH1 (originally an initialism for Video Hits One) is an American basic cable television network that launched on January 1, 1985, and is currently owned by the MTV Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global's networks division based in New Y ...

placed ''Trans-Europe Express'' at number 56 on their list of "100 Greatest Albums (of Rock & Roll) of All Time". In 2002, ''Slant Magazine'' placed the album at number one on their list of the greatest electronic albums of the 20th century. In 2003, ''Rolling Stone'' placed the album at number 253 on their list of "

The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is a recurring opinion survey and music ranking of the finest albums in history, compiled by the American magazine ''Rolling Stone''. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and indu ...

", with the ranking dropping to number 256 in a 2012 revision and climbing to number 238 in the 2020 reboot of the list.

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

placed the album at number 71 on their list of the 100 greatest albums. In 2004, the online music website ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...

'' listed ''Trans-Europe Express'' as 6th best album of the 1970s, stating that "the day will soon come, if it hasn't already, that ''Trans-Europe Express'' joins the ranks of ''

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' (often referred to simply as ''Sgt. Pepper'') is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Released on 26May 1967, ''Sgt. Pepper'' is regarded by musicologists as an early concept ...

'' and '' Exile on Main St.'' as a record that simply cannot be written about". 2014, pop music critic Randall Roberts wrote in the

that the record was the most important of the last forty years.

Legacy

Sal Cinquemani of ''

'' described the album's influence as "unprecedented, reaching as wide as rock (

Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon-on-Thames, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Gre ...

's ''

Kid A ''Kid A'' is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released on 2 October 2000 by Parlophone. It was recorded with their producer, Nigel Godrich, in Paris, Copenhagen, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. Departing from their ...

''), hip-hop (

Afrika Bambaataa Lance Taylor (born April 17, 1957), also known as Afrika Bambaataa (), is a retired American DJ, rapper, and record producer. He is notable for releasing a series of genre-defining electro tracks in the 1980s that influenced the development of ...

's classic ' Planet Rock',

Jay Dee James Dewitt Yancey (February 7, 1974 – February 10, 2006), better known by the stage names J Dilla and Jay Dee, was an American record producer, composer and rapper. He emerged from the mid-1990s underground hip hop scene in Detroit, Michiga ...

's recent 'Big Booty Express') and pop (

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone ( ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Referred to as the "Queen of Pop", she has been recognized for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, ...

Drowned World Tour The Drowned World Tour (billed as Drowned World Tour 2001) was the fifth concert tour by American singer Madonna, launched in support of her seventh and eighth studio albums, '' Ray of Light'' (1998) and ''Music'' (2000). It began on June 9, 20 ...

, which incorporated samples of 'Metal on Metal')". In the late 1970s, the album influenced

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of music that emerged in late 1977 in the wake of punk rock. Post-punk musicians departed from punk's fundamental elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a broader, more experiment ...

band

Joy Division Joy Division were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Salford in 1976. The group consisted of vocalist, guitarist and lyricist Ian Curtis, guitarist and keyboardist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris (musici ...

; bassist

Peter Hook Peter Hook (born 13 February 1956) is an English musician. He was the bassist and co-founder of the post-punk band Joy Division and its successor New Order. He often used the bass as a lead instrument, playing melodies on the high strings wi ...

related: "We were introduced to Kraftwerk by inger

Ian Curtis Ian Kevin Curtis (15 July 1956 – 18 May 1980) was an English singer, songwriter and musician. He was the lead singer, lyricist and occasional guitarist of the band Joy Division, with whom he released the albums ''Unknown Pleasures'' (197 ...

, who insisted we play ''Trans Europe Express'' before we went on stage every time. The tape was played at the venue over the PA system, to be heard by everyone. The first time was Pips Manchester club well known for its 'Bowie Room' Ian got thrown out for kicking glass around the dance floor in time to the track. It took us ages of pleading to get him back in." Drummer Stephen Morris also confirmed that Joy Division "used to play ''Trans-Europe Express'' before we went on stage, to get us into the zone. It worked because it gets up a lot of momentum. ''Trans-Europe Express'' just seemed to express an optimism even if people see it as machine music". Morris also said: "It reminds me of ''

Cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, casino, hotel, restaurant, or nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or drinking, ...

'', the film, with all of the 1920s singing. ... When you get that marriage between humans and machines, and you get it right, it's fantastic. I have to say it's my favourite Kraftwerk album." In the mid-1980s,

Siouxsie and the Banshees Siouxsie and the Banshees ( ) were a British Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1976 by vocalist Siouxsie Sioux and bass guitarist Steven Severin. Post-punk pioneers, they were widely influential, both over their contemporaries and later ...

' rendition of "The Hall of Mirrors", on their album '' Through the Looking Glass'', was one of the few cover versions that Ralf Hütter hailed in glowing terms as "extraordinary".

Accolades

Commercial performance

''Trans-Europe Express'' charted higher in the United States than Kraftwerk's previous album '' Radio-Activity'' by peaking at number 117 on the ''Billboard'' Top LPs & Tapes chart. "Trans-Europe Express" and "Showroom Dummies" were released as singles from the album. "Trans-Europe Express" charted on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in 1977 where it peaked at number 67. ''Trans-Europe Express'' began charting in the United Kingdom in the 1980s. The album entered the charts on 6 February 1982, staying in the charts for seven weeks and peaking at number 49. The re-released single for "Showroom Dummies" (a remix with additional drums) entered the charts on 20 February 1982, staying on the charts for five weeks and peaking at number 25.

Track listing

Notes * While "Abzug" (English meaning "trigger" or "departure") appeared originally as a separate track on all pressings of ''Trans Europa Express'', later releases of ''Trans-Europe Express'' combined "Abzug" and "Metal on Metal" together under the latter track's title, at a running time of 6:52. On both 2009 reissues of ''Trans Europa Express'' and ''Trans-Europe Express'', however, "Abzug" is presented as a separate track.

Personnel

Adapted from ''Trans-Europe Express'' liner notes.

Kraftwerk

–

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound produ ...

synthesizers A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

, Vako Orchestron, synthanorma-sequenzer, electronics, producer *

– voice,

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''vo''ice and en''coder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder wa ...

votrax Votrax International, Inc. (originally the Vocal division of Federal Screw Works), or just Votrax, was a speech synthesis company located in the Detroit, Michigan area from 1971 to 1996. It began as a division of Federal Screw Works from 1971 to 1 ...

, synthesizer, electronics, producer *

– electronic percussion *

– electronic percussion

Technical

* Peter Bollig –

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

* Bill Halverson – engineer (The Record Plant, Hollywood) * Thomas Kuckuck – engineer (Rüssl Studio, Hamburg)

Design

* Maurice Seymour –

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

* J. Stara – photography * Günther Fröhling – photography (2009 remaster only) * Ink Studios – typographic design * Johann Zambryski – artwork reconstruction (2009 remaster)

Charts

Weekly charts

Certifications

References

Footnotes Works cited * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

* *''Trans Europe Express'' on

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...

listen
*

br>official website
{{Authority control 1977 albums Kling Klang Studio albums 1970s concept albums EMI Records albums Kraftwerk albums 1970s German-language albums Experimental pop albums Albums about trains