Tour de France Soundtracks

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Professional reviews
Tour de France Soundtracks

Studio album by Kraftwerk
Released	4 August 2003 (Europe) August 19, 2003 (US)
Recorded	2003
Genre	Electro
Length	55:57
Label	EMI Astralwerks
Producer(s)	Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider
All Music Guide link BBC (Favourable) link Pitchfork (7.0/10) 11 Aug 03 Rolling Stone 4 Sep 03 The Star (Favourable) link
Kraftwerk chronology
Expo 2000 (1999–2001)	Tour de France Soundtracks (2003)	Minimum-Maximum (2005)

Tour de France Soundtracks is a 2003 album by Kraftwerk. The album was recorded for the 100th anniversary of the first Tour de France bicycle race, although it missed its original release date during the actual Tour. The cover art is similar to that of their 1983 single "Tour de France".

Unusually for a Kraftwerk album it did not have separate German and international vocal mixes, but was released only in one version, sung predominantly in French — appropriate, considering the subject matter. The lyrics were co-written by Ralf Hütter and Maxime Schmitt — who had previously been manager of the Capitol label at Pathé-Marconi (part of the EMI group, the company that distributed Kraftwerk's music in France) and had been involved with the band since the mid-1970s.

It was recorded by the band in their Kling Klang studio, Düsseldorf, Hütter and Schneider working with Fritz Hilpert and Henning Schmitz. This 4-piece line-up then took the album on an extensive world tour. On the tour, they performed the music from 4 laptop computers running sequencing, sampling and synthesizer software, also controlling and synchronised with large video displays.

A short ‘jingle’ was supplied to the television broadcaster Eurosport for use in their coverage of the 2003 Tour de France.

1 Track listing
2 Singles Released
3 External link
4 Sample

[edit] Track listing

"Prologue" – 0:31 (Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Fritz Hilpert)
"Tour de France (Étape 1)" – 4:27 (Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Fritz Hilpert, Maxime Schmitt)
"Tour de France (Étape 2)" – 6:41 (Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Fritz Hilpert, Maxime Schmitt)
"Tour de France (Étape 3)" – 3:56 (Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Fritz Hilpert, Maxime Schmitt)
"Chrono" – 3:19 (Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Fritz Hilpert, Maxime Schmitt)
"Vitamin" – 8:09 (Ralf Hütter, Fritz Hilpert)
"Aéro Dynamik" – 5:04 (Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Fritz Hilpert, Maxime Schmitt)
"Titanium" – 3:21 (Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Fritz Hilpert, Maxime Schmitt)
"Elektro-Kardiogramm" – 5:16 (Ralf Hütter, Fritz Hilpert)
"La Forme" – 8:41 (Ralf Hütter, Maxime Schmitt)
"Regénération" – 1:16 (Ralf Hütter, Maxime Schmitt)
"Tour de France" – 5:12 (Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Maxime Schmitt, Karl Bartos)

Note: The Japanese CD release of this album also contains the video of the single "Tour de France 2003" as a bonus track.

[edit] Singles Released

Note: all track versions on these singles were different to the album versions of the songs

Tour de France '03 July 2003

"Tour de France '03 (Version 1)"
"Tour de France '03 (Version 2)"
"Tour de France '03 (Version 3)"
"Tour de France '03 (Long Version)"

Aerodynamik March 2004

"Aerodynamik (Kling Klang Radio Mix)"
"Aerodynamik (Kling Klang Dynamix)"
"Aerodynamik (Alex Gopher / Etienne de Crecy Dynamik Mix)"
"Aerodynamik (François K. Aero Mix)"

[edit] External link

Tour de France Soundtracks promotional advert

[edit] Sample

"Regénération" promo mix excerpt (file info) — play in browser (beta)
- Pre-release promotional CDs of the album had a different and extended version of "La Forme"/"Regénération", where the first track gradually faded into the second; the final versions of these on the official release have a more abrupt cut from one to the other, shortening "Regénération" to almost half its original length.
- Problems listening to the file? See media help.