(1981)
Kraftwerk's last great accomplishment (not counting 'the Mix'), an album that Juan Atkins (one of the inventors of techno, his partner Derrick May unforgettably described techno as 'like Kraftwerk and Parliament stuck in a lift') admits having been a huge influence on him, listening from the outer suburbs of Detroit.
Not that every Kraftwerk album isn't full of signature tunes but this record has the best ones, their delivery is liquid and it's a huge step forward technologically. It sounds like they are rising to meet the new
challenges of Japan's prodigious electropop upstarts (and electronic innovators in their own right) Yellow Magic Orchestra, not to mention the many synth-pop followers who learned their trade through Kraftwerk albums and at this time were dominating the charts.