Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Pop's most thoroughly fluorescent green single?

On this day of reinvention -- "Honey, I shrank the newspaper" -- I have been listening to KRAFTWERK, the German band writer Simon Witter called "pop's most ruthlessly modern group."
ROUTE 1 apprentice ANNIKA and I listened to "COMPUTER WORLD," the band's 1981 release, as I drove her to and from dance class last night.
"It so thoroughly anticipated the electronic dance music that followed," Witter wrote, "that of all of Kraftwerk's albums, it sounds the most dated."
The "Computer World" single, "POCKET CALCULATOR," seemed almost too futuristic when I purchased a 7-inch of it (pictured) from the TOWER RECORDS at Christown Mall in PHOENIX back in my high school days.
The store clerk actually argued with me:
"Are you *sure* you want this?"
Then, with its clear plastic sleeve and fluorescent green vinyl, the single seemed like an artifact from the future.
Now, of course, we see it as a rather quaint relic of the past.

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