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The Robots

"The Robots"
Kraftwerk - Die Roboter Cover.jpg
Cover for the original German release
Single by Kraftwerk
from the album The Man-Machine
A-side "Die Roboter" (German title)
B-side "Spacelab"
Released 1978
Format 7" single
Genre Electronic, synthpop
Length 4:20 (single edit)
3:42 (UK single edit)
6:11 (album version)
Label Kling Klang (EMI) 1C-006-32941 (Ger)
Capitol CL15981 (UK)
Songwriter(s) Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Karl Bartos
Producer(s) Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider
Kraftwerk singles chronology
"Showroom Dummies"
(1977)
"The Robots"
(1978)
"Neon Lights"
(1978)
"The Robots"
Single by Kraftwerk
from the album The Mix
A-side "Die Roboter" (German title)
B-side "Robotnik/Robotronik"
Released May 1991
Format 7" single, 12" single, CD single
Genre Electronic
Length 3:47 (single edit)
8:58 (album version)
Label Kling Klang, EMI
Songwriter(s) Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Karl Bartos
Producer(s) Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider
Kraftwerk singles chronology
"The Telephone Call"
(1987)
"The Robots"
(1991)
"Radioactivity (1991 re-release)"
(1991)

"The Robots" (originally Die Roboter) is a single by the influential German electronic music pioneers, Kraftwerk, released in 1978. The single and its B-side, "Spacelab", both appeared on the band's seventh album, The Man-Machine. However, the songs as they appear on the single were scaled down into shorter versions.

The lyrics reference the revolutionary technique of robotics, and how humans can use them as they wish. The Russian lines "Я твой слуга" (Ya tvoy sluga, I'm your servant) and "Я твой работник" (Ya tvoy rabotnik, I'm your worker) (also on the rear sleeve of the album) during the intro and again during its repetition at the bridge are spoken in a pitched down voice, the main lyrics ("We're charging our batteries and now we're full of energy...") are "sung" through a vocoder. Wolfgang Flür, a member of Kraftwerk at the time of the single's release, later wrote Ich war ein Roboter (I Was a Robot in English), with his title referencing the lyrics of "The Robots". The book, published in 2003, has been described as a "controversial and uncompromising autobiography of Kraftwerk", more because the other members of the band tried to censor its publication than anything else. The lyrics were also referenced in the title of a BBC Radio 4 documentary, Kraftwerk: We Are the Robots, broadcast for the first time on Thursday November 22, 2007. The documentary focused on the band's place as "part of a new generation of young West Germans, living in the shadow of the Cold War, who identified with the need to recapture a German cultural identity distinct from that of Britain and America."


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