Wednesday, March 06, 2019

Neu!: Neu! 2 (1973)

This is the sometimes-maligned second record from Neu! As Wikipedia notes:
Side 2 of the record caused consternation at the time. Neu! had quite simply run out of money to finish recording the album, so the second side consists entirely of their previously released single "Neuschnee/Super", manipulated at various playback speeds on a record player, or mangled in a cassette recorder. Critics at the time dismissed this as a cheap gimmick and a rip-off. While it was indeed an experiment born of desperation and necessity, it was entirely in keeping with Neu's pop art aesthetics, taking a "ready-made" sound object and re-presenting it with a series of stylized manipulations, and also quite in keeping with the way Neu's music deconstructed and pared down the form of rock music. Dinger subsequently pointed to side 2 as being a prototype of the now ubiquitous multiple remixes which typically accompany any pop single release. [source]
Of course, I like both sides very much. 

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