A concept
album exploring themes of broadcast communications, Radio-Activity marked
Kraftwerk's return to more obtuse territory, extensively utilizing static,
oscillators, and even Cage-like moments of silence to approximate the sense of
radio transmission; a pivotal record in the group's continuing development, the
title track -- the first they ever recorded in English -- is their most fully
realized electro-pop effort to date, while "The Voice of Energy"
precipitates the robot voice so crucial to their subsequent work.
While many
forward-thinking musicians like ELO, ELP, and Roxy Music were experimenting
with the latest synthesizers and studio effects, Kraftwerk turned time
backwards with songs that used old technology like white noise generators,
oscillators and tone generators. They sang bilingually of the romance of
listening to the radio in the catchy, pulsing “Airwaves” and of world
communication (which would have been shortwave radio in the ’30’s) in “The
News,” with its building up of multiple, muffled, announcer voices. They sang
of the wonders of “Radioactivity” (as well as radio activity) with a subtle
wink to the dangers of radiation that would threaten in years to come. (So
subtle that later live performances of the song had a more explicit
anti-nuclear message.)
