Can – I Want More

Taken from TOTP2 (BBC2) on Tuesday 19 March 2002, originally shown on TOTP (BBC1) on Thursday 26 August 1976.

“I Want More” – Single by Can from the album Flow Motion.
B-side “… And More”
Released: 1976
Songwriters; Can, Peter Gilmour.

Composed by the band’s four stalwarts – keyboardist Irmin Schmidt, percussionist Jaki Liebezeit, guitarist Michael Karoli, and bassist Holger Czukay – “I Want More” combines elements of rock with funk and a sprinkling of disco glitter.

It was the band’s only hit single in the UK, peaking at #26, which led to an appearance on Top of the Pops where Holger Czukay mimed a performance on double bass.

You have to admire Can. Here was a band that seemed to delight in defying expectations, pushing musical boundaries, and producing songs that occasionally made listeners wonder if they’d tuned in to a broadcast from some parallel universe. And yet, in 1976 with “I Want More,” they somehow managed to stumble upon that rarest of beasts: a genuine hit record.

The song later appeared on Flow Motion, Can’s 1976 album that was not exactly embraced by the purists. Fans and critics alike, accustomed to Can’s more experimental leanings, were somewhat baffled by the band’s new direction. The incorporation of disco elements – a genre rock fans in the mid-’70s often viewed with the same enthusiasm reserved for, say, a tax audit – did not go down well. Over time, listeners have come to view Flow Motion more favorably.