White overalls and the year 2000 — La Düsseldorf’s biggest album. Viva is La Düsseldorf’s most successful and best-loved record, the one that gave Klaus Dinger’s post-Neu! band their signature songs. Released in 1978, it carries the driving motorik pulse of their debut into punchier, more personal and new-wave-tinged territory, all ringing guitars, synth washes and shouty, do-it-yourself vocals.

The short version

The second album by La Düsseldorf, self-produced by Klaus Dinger and released in 1978 on Radar; six tracks, around forty minutes, all written by Dinger. It was the band’s most successful release, home to their biggest single, the instrumental Rheinita, and their most famous song, the twenty-minute Cha Cha 2000. Built around the Dinger brothers, Klaus and Thomas, with Hans Lampe, it takes the motorik sound of their debut in a punchier, more personal, new-wave-tinged direction. Warm, energetic and full of character, it is the commercial peak of one of Krautrock’s most influential later bands.

The commercial peak

Coming after their acclaimed debut, Viva became La Düsseldorf’s biggest and most popular album, and the one that produced their best-known music. Klaus Dinger wrote everything and produced it himself, once again joined by his brother Thomas and by Hans Lampe, the trio that had grown out of Neu!. If the debut celebrated the city, Viva feels more personal, with Dinger himself often the subject: his stage uniform in White Overalls, his feelings about money in Geld, and his hopes for the future in Cha Cha 2000. The band had by now adopted matching white overalls as a look, home-made cut-and-paste cover art and a proud, do-it-yourself attitude that pointed straight toward punk and new wave. Yet the driving motorik heart of the music remained, and the album balances that propulsive pulse with a new pop directness.

The sound

Driving, warm, punchy Krautrock, its steady motorik beat now shot through with new-wave and post-punk energy. The automotive four-to-the-floor pulse Dinger had made his trademark still powers the music, layered with ringing guitars, washes of synthesizer and his shouty, chanted, sometimes joyous vocals. Compared with the debut, Viva is more song-based and personal, with several shorter, punkier numbers alongside the long motorik grooves, and a rougher, do-it-yourself edge. But it can also turn gentle and reflective, opening up into melodic, almost pastoral passages that reveal the romantic streak beneath Dinger’s raise-a-finger attitude. The result is a fuller, more varied and more immediate record than its predecessor, hypnotic and propulsive one moment, tender and hopeful the next, and always unmistakably the work of a singular musical personality.

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The songs

The title track Viva opens the album as a fuzzed-out, foot-stomping anthem, sung partly in French, and leads straight into the jittery, punky White Overalls, a tribute to the band’s matching stage uniforms. The clear highlight for many is Rheinita, a gorgeous, reflective instrumental that became their most successful single, gliding along like a melodic river journey. A brief interlude of birdsong, Vögel, gives way to the angry, infectious groove of Geld, meaning money. The album closes with its centrepiece, the twenty-minute Cha Cha 2000, which filled the whole of the original second side: a two-part epic that swings from pounding motorik adrenaline into a delicate, hopeful piano coda, and became the band’s most famous song.

Reception and legacy

Viva is regarded as La Düsseldorf’s most successful and popular album, and a highlight of late Krautrock. Admirers praise its motorik drive, its punchy new-wave energy and above all its two signature tracks, the beautiful Rheinita and the epic Cha Cha 2000, which the band would stretch out even further in concert. Some feel the album is a touch more haphazard and song-based than the more consistent debut, but its bigger commercial success and its two beloved songs give it a special place in the band’s story. Included on influential lists of essential Krautrock, and part of a three-album run that sold over a million copies, it remains a joyous, characterful record and, for many, the best entry point into La Düsseldorf.

The verdict

La Düsseldorf’s most successful album and a joyous highlight of late Krautrock — driving, warm, motorik-powered music with punchy new-wave energy and real personality. Come to it for the beautiful instrumental Rheinita, the epic Cha Cha 2000 and the punky rush of the shorter songs, rather than for polish or restraint. Play Rheinita and Cha Cha 2000. Then the debut for their most consistent statement, Individuellos for their later, more ambient sound, and Neu! for the band it all grew from. Warm, hypnotic and bursting with character — Dinger at his most popular.

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