Kraut rock: truely great, or jokishly bad?

Custos is - strike me blue - OTM! Jokishly Great - check out "Cosmic Jokers", even they agreed! In what bizarro circles are Kraftwerk still considered a joke though? (and btw it's "fahren" not "fun" tho it is a "pun"). Faust doesn't actually do much for me, Can are often great (I'll take Malcolm over Damo though), Amon Duul I are terrifically ramshackle, Neu! are untouchable, Kraftwerk the mechanic divine. I always thought Red Krayola were American!

Funny thing is, bands like Can, Neu and Faust, to me, are all caught in the middle of this divide, and have somehow emerged as the most well known krautrock bands.

Kraftwerk are/were not a joke.

As far as krautrock in general I think it's a mixed bag. I tend to prefer the more proto new-wave stuff (obviously kraftwerk, neu, cluster, harmonia, etc.) to the more proggy stuff like amon duul, guru guru, popol vuh (some good stuff before they went new age tho), Ash Ra Tempel, etc. Like someone said, I think Can and to a lesser extent Faust kind of straddle these two aspects of kraut rock.

the few albums i can tolerate him on are red krayola's first and second (parable of arable land, and god bless...), one 12" i have on Rough Trade called "Micro Chips and Fish" and that's about it. i have one 80s record called black snakes that his voice bugs the shit out of me, and i picked up a Pere Ubu with him singing on it and immidiately put it back on the shelf.

and to answer the question of is krautrock great or a big fat joke: i think of it the same as i see modern day electronic dance music. both genres are (were) made by a bunch of kids hopped up on drugs (german hippies vs ravers) making tripped out music to trip out on. it's as great as it is jokish. there are the winners and there are the losers.

I agree with ya, for the most part.

So, where do Cosmic Jokers fit in all this?

Ha, I would have even given Rolling Stone more credit than that. Source?

Not as good as Walter Carlos.

But that review would've been the one published when the record came out. Nobody would've known at the time that Walter had made some changes in his life.

A very perceptive comment. I guess my leanings are generally in the "later" camp than the "early" camp. Letzte Tage-Letzte Naechte, Phaedra, Sowiesoso, After the Heat are all great albums to me, whereas say Affenstunde or Electronic Meditation = zzzzzzz. I'm not much into Kraftwerk, but say The Men Machines or Autobahn okay I can deal with those. The pylon albums? Er...keine danke.

Also, what happened to kraut rock? What's happening musically in Germany now? Other then David Hasselhoff of course.

strangely enough, i've had a Walter Carlos LP *yanked* off eBay for a violation of "The Trust of The Carlos Family" (or something like this...)

Tim F et al to thread!

It still seems odd to think of Kraftwerk as a joke (they were sometimes very funny but thats not what you meant I think). Beck Hansen dressing up in a video has about as much bearing in this context as Weird Al dressing up - he's a less significant figure musically than Ralf Hutter anyway.

Goes without saying, I'd have thought.

Still not as good as the cover of Headache (the one with a guy who had his head blown off by a shot gun)

Plus, Stereolab = yes.

I never understood the appeal of the robot music of Kraftwerk. Autobahn is ok background music but not more. An amazingly monotonous and boring track. The Model is their only song (of those I know) I like.

By Faust I only know Faust IV which isn't typical for them I guess but I like it.

Amon Düül II's Yeti was hopefully the last album I bought based on rave reviews. That is the kind of krautrock which anticipated most of the prog-rock shite of the seventies.

I never got into Can neither. Though I love the atmosphere and rhythm of Animal Waves where they cover world music territory.

strangely enough, i've had a Walter Carlos LP *yanked* off eBay for a violation of "The Trust of The Carlos Family" (or something like this...)

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout, except it 'twas the Bearman, not you.