Having listened a couple of dozen times to TDF03, I’m ready to express my opinion: First of all, my overall impression on the album as a whole is, as Homer Simpson would put it “Boring!” – there’s a definite lack of melodies, themes are recycled once too often, most instrumental parts don’t have the depth and sheer musical brilliance of the “fugues” that abounded in previous KW albums. The track layout doesn’t help either, because the worst tracks are located at the beginning and at the end (excluding the original TDF, of course) resulting in an almost unbearably lengthy "Side A", and to a very poor album closure. I find particularly annoying the use of extremely inexpressive robot voices, as in most part of Tour de France or La Forme etc. – BTW I always loved KW’s robotic voices and found them very expressive and generally very fit to the sound of their tracks. In this album they seem to use a toneless robot voice (often accompanied by a second, echoing one) as a mean to avoid putting a melody to the lyrics. Nevertheless, some tracks are quite worthy and I will admit that some are real growers. Tour De France Etape 1-2-3 + Chrono : Basically, a single track diluted to its maximum extent and even further. Etape 2 is by far the most enjoyable, especially because it dumps that inexpressive robot voice in favour of an almost human vocoded singing. It could easily have been a very good 7 minute track – I admit that when I hear that “Radio Tour - Information” for the 10th time of so I hit the “skip” button on my remote. Vitamin: Very good – the backing is quite original, the melodies are nice and appropriate, the lyrics are very Kraftwerkian and have that little bit of irony we expect from our beloved four. Aero-Dynamik + Titanium: Good and funny – very “airy” as a whole and with some exciting sounds. Elektro-Kardiogramm: Very good – the sort of song you would expect from those who gave you man-machine and electric cafe. I love these “human” sounds mixed with modern ones (that’s what KW always did best). La Forme + Regeneration: Almost embarrassing. These tracks start with an appalling theme played with a cheesy retro sound and evolve, so to speak, in a boring repetition of words (*these* robotic voices make their reappearance) without any musical subtlety whatsoever. These tracks have a role, however: they fill up ten minutes of CD space and make the final “Tour De France” seem even more enjoyable than it is... All in all, I suspect this will be an album that everyone will buy but that very few will listen many times to. My half euro, Luca