Having built up both their reputation and their increasing musical range over earlier releases, the members of KMFDM brought it all together on the brilliant Naïve, one of industrial/electronic body music's key albums and a great blast of entertainment from start to finish. The self-referential qualities evident from earlier songs like "More and Faster" came to the fore with the brief "Welcome," literally doing just that for new listeners, and from there KMFDM does everything from four-to-the-floor beats to Wagnerian epic metal and back again. What's especially impressive about Naïve is that for all the genre-hopping, it's all still clearly the work of one band -- but one so ridiculously good that everything they touch pretty much turns to gold. The title track is especially fantastic, a disco anthem for a generation grown up on feedback as much as acid pulse, with a catchy-as-hell lead female vocal matched by the expected distortion on En Esch's own drawl and the whole thing slamming forward without pause. As good as that it is, though, there's no question which song is the total standout -- "Liebeslied." Outrageously interpolating Carl Orff's noted vocal piece Carmina Burana into a bombastic explosion of mechanical rhythms, orchestral hits, and an increasing amount of hero guitar feedback slabs, not to mention the husked, desperate lead vocals, it's a jawdropping masterpiece that demands and gets total surrender. Regrettably, sample clearance issues meant later versions of the album had edited versions of this and other songs -- be sure to look for the original Wax Trax! (as opposed to Wax Trax!/TVT) pressings. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
Naïve is industrial rock group KMFDM's fifth album, released in 1990. The album was out of print for over a decade due to copyright infringement: the seventh track, "Liebeslied", used unauthorized samples from a recording of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. A common misbelief is that the album was pulled immediately after its release; in actuality, it had been out for three years before it was recalled. Copies today are rare and considered collector's items, often fetching high prices at auction. The album was recorded in Hamburg, Germany.
All of the other tracks on the album, except for the original mixes of "Die Now-Live Later" and "Go to Hell" were subsequently available on other discs. The album was re-released as Naïve/Hell to Go, with some songs remixed, in 1994.
A digitally remastered reissue of Naïve was released on November 21, 2006, along with Money and Angst. It was reissued with an edited version of the track "Liebeslied" without the offending sample. It also features the remixes that initially appeared on 1994's Naïve/Hell To Go album.
The remastered version of "Liebeslied", according to the CD booklet, is "Different from the original only in that the 'O Fortuna' samples have been removed. No other elements of the song have been altered". However, if you compare the original version to the reissued edit, the original is around 30 seconds longer. This is due to the sections of the song where the 'O Fortuna' samples should be being shortened.
The album begins with a greeting, similar to the one at the start of Hau Ruck.
