Ordinarily I think I'm okay with people making music however they want - but maybe it's like what people sometimes say to crime victims: "see how you feel when it happens to you"

I caught myself having one of those reactions this week after reading some article somewhere about Kraftwerk working on a new album. I feel like that has the potential to tarnish the legacy - and I value their "catalogue" enough personally to actually have feelings on it, and then to question whether or not I'm justified in having that reaction.

It's only Hutter now, so I find myself questioning "is this really Kraftwerk"? When I think about their two studio releases from the past twenty years or so, The Mix and Tour de France, they are both retreads of prior work and so my expectations are not as high. I feel like they had enough of a legacy to allow for that retrospection, but I can't help but feel that you need "Ralf und Florian" at the minimum (maximum?) for it to really be Kraftwerk. The core albums may be strong enough to resist; I doubt there will be many more latter-day works, and who knows, new stuff might be good.

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Games without front ears / born without ears