Cum On Feel The NEU!
Given the longevity and sheer breadth of their influence, Neu is the veritable Kevin Bacon of the music world; a band can hardly move more than a few degrees in any direction before the Kraftwerk scions surface in the musical lineage. The band’s rocky existence endured several breakups and reunions, with cuts of new material resulting every couple turns. With the whole of their work comprising a scant three studio albums, the ‘70s Krautrockers, with their spare melodies and pulsing rhythms, have still inspired everyone from David Bowie to LCD Soundsystem to Sonic Youth to Stereolab and a whole lot of other folks in between.
The European imprint Gronland Records recently released the Neu! Vinyl Box set, including the three official studio albums, a maxi single, Neu! stencil, T-shirt, picturebook, and most notably, the previously unreleased NEU! ’86. Recorded through 1985 and 1986, the fourth studio album was recently re-worked and re-mastered by Michael Rother, the surviving member of the group. With NEU! ’86 arriving a full 35 years since their last effort, Jon and I checked in to see if Rother’s handiwork would be in step with the cultural zeitgeist, or a strange relic best left to the past. - K.B.
We asked two of our music writers to listen to the box set and hash it out for us.
Kimberly Bellware: What this kind of evoked for me is a sound of the "future," as interpreted by someone at the 1960s World Fair or something -- a very retro sounding version of 'futuristic'. A safe kind of excitement...
Jon Graef: In what way? I like that. To me, with the live songs, NEU's connection to proto-punk became much, much clearer. There's a rawness there that easily anticipates The Stooges, which is something I didn't really get from their '70s output.
KB: Like "Fly Dutch II"? I get The Stooges nods in places.
JG: That’s a good one.
KB: But doesn't that one seem a little retro-futurist sounding to you? Like it's the score they'd use for a film about space from the '60s?
JG: Not even that. To me, the problem is the '86 material is that it sounds very much like a band trying to play musical catch-up. "Crazy" sounds like a Trey Parker-produced parody of New Wave that would go over a montage spoof. The vocal screams even sound like Cartman!
KB: Haha, notes of "What Would Brian Boitano Do?"
JG: Precisely.
KB: So you think that, in an effort to sound up-to-date, they landed square in the middle?
JG: The Apartheid song is also odd, in that it sounds like Yeasayer, but it's obviously trying to capture the tenure of the Paul Simon-times
KB: “La Bomba [Stop Apartheid World Wide]"
JG: Right, “La Bomba.”
KB: Yeah, the South African influence, "You Can Call Me Al"-era Paul Simon. It's pretty all over the map.
JG: It is...I hated the first few songs.
KB: Just the space-y drifting of it?
JG: If "Danzing" is supposed to be a parody of a new wave song from a John Hughes film, it's not funny, and if it's trying to be in step with the times, then it's even worse.
KB: “Crazy” feels weak...like a song a newly-formed garage band would try to kick out. It's a sort of clumsy greatest hits; I didn't feel a lot of cohesion.
JG: That's it. It's a greatest hits for an album that never was.
KB: But more like they were trying to capture everything they could with a too-wide net. Now, as far as whether or not that was a good idea...
JG: I don't think so. They were so ahead of the plot! You can still here the motorik beat on records released this year (Broken Social Scene's "Sentimental X's" is a good example of the motorik beat.)
KB: Maybe that's a bit of info I wasn't aware of ... are you saying that it is widely known that Rother meant for this to be like a greatest hits?
JG: More like this sounds like a relic of 1986.
KB: "Record store day! New Neu stuff!...(most of them are dead though)."
JG: Right.
KB: I figured it'd be like what a "Beach Boys" release would be nowadays, since so few of the original members are around/would be involved. Or better said, like a new GnR (with less disaster?).
JG: I'll give NEU! '86 this: It's better than Chinese Democracy.
KB: Haha, that's true.
JG: But yeah, NEU! 86 sounds like a band already out-of-step with the times...an avant-garde band for some reason making a stab at contemporary relevance when they had no reason to do so.
KB: Agreed; part of the reason their original stuff works so well is that it benefits from having the right context; Neu was a good embodiment of European experimental music in the '70s. It's supposed to sound that way--and succeeds--because it's a product of its time. What was that awful Sylvester Stallone movie where he's sent to the future and is a complete anachronism? Demolition Man. NEU! '86 is like the Demolition Man of records!
JG: There were so many times I pictured Sprockets rocking out to this thinking he was listening to A Flock of Seagulls. In fairness, I think there's some salvageable stuff here, "Elanozian" in particular.
KB: Yeah, it's not without its bright spots. But as an album, it suffers from a pretty schizophrenic construction.
JG: Exactly! They stop the new wave crap and start picking themselves apart again, which usually results in interesting material, if not exactly song-structured and hummable. I think if Rother lopped off the second half of this record and sold it as an EP, he could possibly have something here. Otherwise? He should have left a lot of this stuff in the vault.
KB: It was like he was so desperate to bring it out he stuck it together any which-way he could to less than pleasing effect. Which raises an interesting question: Does "the world needs to hear it!" trump general craft and composition of a record?
JG: Hmm...
KB:It’s maybe not a great comparison, but look at A.I. Lots of stuff was taken, in a manner of speaking, off the cutting room floor--Spielberg had to sift through and put together what remained of Kubrick's ideas and concepts in order to complete the "last" Stanley Kubrick movie, even though it might have been kinder to just keep it put away, unfinished and unseen. Because the final product really wasn't the best representation of what it should or could have been.
JG: That's a good question. To me, I think that there has to be an element of the original creative vision, even if it's not executed by the original members. I do see a lot of that in A.I. despite the touches of Spielberg schmaltz. I don't hear any of that in NEU! '86. I guess it would be like Kubrick made a Porky's-style 80s sex comedy, and for some reason footage of this existed.
JG: And his estate said, "hey, some of this footage is well directed, maybe we could re-cut and re-release it."
KB: Because, come on, it's Kubrick! But also... why does this need to exit?
JG: You took the words right out of my mouth.
KB: Answer: It probably shouldn't.
JG: There's still going to be Kubrickian touches, but, on the other hand, it's still going to be a film about douchey dudes checking out chicks in a peephole.
KB: Sounds like we have a consensus.
JG: We definitely do...
And there you have it. Though the Numero Group-styled packaging is awfully enticing for casual fans, particularly those who haven't picked up the first three albums yet, there aren't enough new goods here to justify a wholesale purchase. The live songs are essential for context, especially for those listeners who pick up on the band's rooting of punk. But three songs and a handful of interesting outtakes do not a great box set make. Maybe the re-configured NEU! 86 would bring completists a sense of pleasure--but based on the quality of the songwriting, it would have to be a masochistic one at best. -- J.G.