OFF: Neu! 2

[John McIntyre]

>From: HERBERT119 at DELPHI.COM

>already bought it (Neu! 2). I've bought a lot of records, but
>this is a first. The first side plays just fine, no troubles.
>Side 2 is another story. Now this is a regular 33 1/3 record.
>And yet there is "Neuschnee 78", "Super 16" and "Super 78". The
>"78"s play at hyper-speed and my phonograph does not have a 78
>setting. "Super 16" is extremely slow. This is all on the
>regular 33 speed. From what I can gather from the German liner
>notes (though it's a British release), these are single
>versions of these songs. But why put them on a 33 record?? I'm
>totally confused. And then there's "Cassetto" and "Hallo
>Excentrico" that also play at wrong speeds, but are not
>labelled such. I'm really disappointed, as this sounds like a
>good album otherwise.

It is my understanding that Neu ran out of either time or budget after
completing the first side of the album.  So they filled out the second
side by playing songs from the first side back at different speeds; i.e.;
"Neuschnee 78" does not mean it is meant to be played at 78 rpm, rather
it is "Neuschnee" (from the first side) played back at 78 rpm.  If you
did play it at 78 rpm it might well sound like the song on the first
side.  (I haven't tried it and there may well be some other factors
involved.)

Fortunately, they only resorted to this gimmick on _Neu 2_.

John McIntyre
Physics - Astronomy Domine Dept
Michigan State University
mcintyre at pa.msu.edu