Wir sind die Roboter!

October 30, 2015 8:09 AM

We've previously talked about the Langley School Music Project, Dondero High School's Pop Concerts, PS22's choir, and Chapel Hill's Chorus Project. Now we have first graders at the Grundschule Am Lemmchen in Mainz Mombach singing, playing, and acting out Kraftwerk's iconic single Roboter. [SLYT, if you ignore my links to previous school music groups.]
posted by naturalog (10 comments total)

Children certainly make good raw material for pop music production, but I would like to hear them too. I miss the disorder of an actual child group rhythm here.
posted by idiopath at 8:44 AM on October 30, 2015

Wonderful!!
posted by njohnson23 at 8:58 AM on October 30, 2015

I grudgingly concede that is SLIGHTLY cuter than the real Kraftwerk.
posted by ernielundquist at 9:02 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

The children were more lively than the incarnation of Kraftwerk I saw in 2014. I thoroughly enjoyed both. Aside from the topic, when I saw Kraftwerk at the Paramount in Seattle the entire audience appeared seated and barely moving.

Except one audience member, standing in front of his balcony seat and wildly flailing his arms as he danced with abandon.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 9:18 AM on October 30, 2015 [6 favorites]

I miss the disorder of an actual child group rhythm here.

I don't know what the particular intention was for this performance, but given the overall rigidity, it struck me as a full-on protest song. Small unformed people forced into institutionalized robotic lockstep by the powers that be.
posted by philip-random at 9:27 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

Aside from the topic, when I saw Kraftwerk at the Paramount in Seattle the entire audience appeared seated and barely moving.

I saw their 3D show right about a month ago. It was in an opera house and there were ushers circulating, shushing people and telling them to put their cell phones away.

Very much a sit quietly and watch thing. (But of course, the couple next to me, whom I will generously assume were drunk, didn't tweak to that, so I was treated to an endless stream of chatter and hot takes punctuated by their flashlight app shining directly into my face. I am still working through my bitterness about that.)
posted by ernielundquist at 10:39 AM on October 30, 2015

Tricky track to cover well.

(Easier to make a fan-vid for.)
posted by progosk at 11:06 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

Even Karl Bartos thought it was cute! Und das war so süß!
posted by droplet at 5:26 PM on October 30, 2015

Am I the only one who noticed the robot at the end who has made obvious breasts on his/her robot costume and tweaks his/her nipple at the very end of the song?
posted by evilcupcakes at 8:23 AM on October 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

I noticed the robo-boobs (roboobs?) but didn't notice the nipple tweak.
posted by naturalog at 1:29 PM on November 2, 2015