Kraftwerk - The Model b/w The Man Machine (1978)

Kraftwerk (German pronunciation: "power station") is a German electronic music band formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970 in Düsseldorf. In the 1970s, they were among the first successful pop acts to popularize electronic music and are widely considered to be innovators and pioneers of the genre. The band was fronted by both Hütter and Schneider until Schneider's departure in 2008.
"The Robots" (originally Die Roboter) is a single by the influential German electronic music pioneers, Kraftwerk, released in 1978. The single and its The Man Machine, 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."

Tracklist

A - The Model  (3:38)
      Written-By – Emil Schult, Karl Bartos, Ralf Hütter 

B - The Man Machine  (5:28)
      Written-By – Karl Bartos, Ralf Hütter 

Credits
Producer – Florian Schneider, Ralf Hutter
Music By – Bartos, Hutter
Performer – Florian, Karl, Ralf, Wolfgang

Notes
Release: 1978
Genre: Electronic
Style: Synth-pop
Label: Capitol Records

(from the LP "The Man Machine" SW-11728) 

Catalog# 5C 006-85673