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Trans-Europe Express (Trans Europa Express) is the sixth studio album by German electronic music band Kraftwerk.

Production
After the release and tour for the album Radio-Activity, Kraftwerk found themselves separated from their earlier Krautrock style. 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 wrote that 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 evole into the song "Showroom Dummies" were being performed. In mid-1976, Kraftwerk began to work on the album which currently had the title "Europe Endless". The album was recorded at Kling Klang Studio in Düsseldorf. Artistic control over the songs was strictly in the hands of members Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider while Bartos and Wolfgang Flür contributions were confined to percussion. Kraftwerk went to train bridges to listen to the sounds the train would actually produce. The group found the sound the train made was not dancable and changed it slightly. At the reccomendation of Maxime Schmitt, a French version of the song "Show Room Dummies" titled "Les Mannequins" was recorded. "Les Mannequins" was the group's first song in French and would influence descisions to record future songs in the language on later albums. Further mixing of the album was done when Hütter and Schneider visited Los Angeles to mix some of the music 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 later.

The artwork for the album cover of Trans Europa Express was originally going to be a monochrome picture of the group reflected in a series of mirrors. This idea was dropped for photo by Maurice Seymour with the group dressed in suits to look like they are mannequins. J. Stara's photograph of the group was taken in Paris that features Kraftwerk at from their shoulders up in suits. The American release of the album has the two photos reversed with the inside color image on the album cover, while the black and white photo is on the inside sleeve. On the inside sleeve, a color collage of the group sitting at a small table on the inside sleeve was designed by Emil Schult. The photos for these collage were taken on the group's American tour. Other photos taken show the group laughing and smiling were not used for the album.

Style
Steve Huey of Allmusic refered to Trans-Europe Express as a concept album with two different themes. The first being the disparities between reality and image with the songs "Hall of Mirrors" and "Showroom Dummies" and the others about the glorification of Europe. Karl Bartos described Kraftwerk's influence from Weimar Germany era, stating that they were "children who were born straight after World War Two. So, we had no musical or pop culture of our own, there was nothing behind us 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". Kraftwerk found their reception in England or America was putting the group in the field of Nazi Germany. The group desired to make a new symbol for the European community by using the synonym of Trans Europe Express.

Paul Alessandrini is credited for helping to 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, railway stations and trains are very important in your universe, you should do a song about the Trans Europe Express". The musical style of Trans Europe Express was described by Huey 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". Hütter stated that the group's music is minimalist, 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. "Hall of Mirrors" contains deadpan vocals with lyrics that speculate how stars look at themselves in a looking glass. Hütter and Schneider have described the song as auto-biographical. The third track "Show Room Dummies" was described by Stewart Mason of Allmusic as "bouncily melodic in a way that most of Trans-Europe Express isn't" and that the lyrics were "slightly paranoid". The idea of the song came from a UK concert review, where a critic wrote that Flür and Bartos looked like showroom dummies. Some versions of the song contain a spoken introduction starting with a countdown of "ein zwei drei vier" as a parody of band The Ramones who started some songs with a countdown of "one two three four".

The second side of the Trans-Europe Express is a 19 minute suite with "Trans-Europe Express" and continuing through to "Metal on Metal" and "Franz Schubert" before closeing with a brief reiteration of the main theme from "Europe Endless". The song "Trans-Europe Express". Mason describes the songs musical elements, which include "both a haunting synth theme and the deadpan chanting of the title phrase, are slowly layered over that rhythmic base in much the same way that the earlier "Autobahn" was constructed". The song's lyrics reference traveling Station to Station to meeting with Iggy Pop and David Bowie. Hütter and Schneider had previously met up with Bowie in Germany and were flattered with 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; one of Hütter's favorite groups.

Release
Trans-Europe Express was originally released on May 1977. With the help of Günther Fröhling, Kraftwerk made a promotional music video for the song "Trans-Europe Express". The video features the group wearing long coats on a train trip from Düsseldorf to nearby Duisburg. Photo stills from this video were later used on the single for "Showroom Dummies". Fröhling would work Kraftwerk again on their album The Man-Machine 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 while the album was played for them.

Trans-Europe Express sold better in the United States than Kraftwerk's previous album Radio-Activity by charting higher on the Billboard Top LPs & Tapes chart, peaking at number 117. "Trans-Europe Express" and "Showroom Dummies" were released as singles from the album. "Trans-Europe Express" charted in 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 February 6 1982, staying in the charts for seven weeks and peaking at number 49. The single for "Showroom Dummies" entered the charts on February 20 1982, staying in the charts for five weeks and peaking at number 25.

Critical reception
Contemporary reviews for the Trans Europe Express were positive. Music critic Robert Christgau gave the album an A- rating, stating 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 also charted in the Village Voice's 1977 Pazz & Jop critics poll, placing at number 30.

This milestone Kraftwerk album has appeared on numerous reputable 'best ever' pop/rock lists, including:


 * 1) 1 in Slant Magazine's 25 Greatest Electronic Albums of the 20th Century.
 * 2) 253 in industry magazine Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". (2002)
 * 3) 36 in music magazine NME's "100 Greatest Albums of All Time". (2003)
 * 4) 71 in Channel 4's (UK) "The 100 Greatest Albums". (2004)
 * 5) 56 in TV network VH1's "100 Greatest Albums (of Rock & Roll) of All Time". (2001)
 * 6) 6 in Pitchfork Media's Top 100 Albums of The 1970s.

Personnel

 * Karl Bartos – electronic percussion
 * Wolfgang Flür – electronic percussion
 * Ralf Hütter – electronics, voices, producer
 * Florian Schneider – electronics, voices, producer
 * Peter Bollig – engineer
 * Bill Haverson – engineer
 * Thomas Kuckuck – engineer
 * Maurice Seymour – photography
 * J.Stara – photography
 * Maurice Seymour – photography
 * Johann Zambryski – artwork