Tour de France

Tour de France Soundtracks is the tenth studio album by the German electronic group Kraftwerk, released in August 2003. In October 2009 it was re-released under the title, Tour de France. The album is not to be confused with their 1983 single of the same name, though the theme and cover artwork of both releases are nearly identical. 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 announcement of the release caused much anticipation, as it had been 17 years since the group had put out a full album of new studio material since 1986's Electric Café (also known as Techno Pop)
Unusually for a Kraftwerk album it did not have separate German and international vocal mixes, but was released only in one version, with a mix of French, German and English. The lyrics were co-written by Ralf Hatter 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, located in DÃ¼sseldorf, Germany; HÃ¼tter and Schneider working with Fritz Hilpert and Henning Schmitz. This four piece line-up then took the album on an extensive world tour in 2004. On the tour, they performed the music from four laptop computers running sequencing, sampling and synthesizer software, also controlling and synchronised with large video displays. In 2005, Kraftwerk released Minimum-Maximum, with separate audio and video releases featuring songs performed at various venues during the 2004 tour.
A short jingle was supplied to the television broadcaster Eurosport for use in their coverage of the 2003 Tour de France.
A newly remastered edition of the album was released by EMI Records, Mute Records and Astralwerks Records on CD and digital download in October/November 2009, with heavyweight vinyl editions released in November/December 2009.