Kraftwerk

No compilation listing ‘the most influential artists of all time’ would be complete without Kraftwerk. Their tightly constructed, genre defining and highly experimental electronic-pop still resonates today through house music, electro, techno and the Warp label etc. In fact it’s impossible to gauge how big their impact is. It’s hard to believe that Germany, a nation currently so out of touch with groundbreaking music (e.g. the unerring and unhealthy infatuation with David Hasselhoff) could spawn such pioneers.

Original Kraftwerk members Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütte met at college in Düsseldorf in 1970 and formed an act under the name of Organisation. Following the release of their album ‘Tone Float’ they disbanded and re-named themselves Kraftwerk (German for ‘Power Station’). Locked away in their own ‘Kling Klang’ studio for the next year, they started to construct new drum machines and experimented with innovative synthesisers to create a unique electronic sound. Their debut album ‘Kraftwerk 1’ surfaced in 1971 and was greeted with equal amounts praise and confusion. ‘Kraftwerk 2’ followed a year later and relied entirely on electronic instruments, something that baffled many listeners at the time. By the time their third LP ‘Ralf and Florian’ was released their music was evolving into something even more experimental and unique than their earlier recordings – critics loved the album, yet the vast majority public failed to buy into it.   

This all changed in 1974 with the release of the seminal ‘Autobahn’, which was a global smash and propelled them into the mainstream. Importantly Kraftwerk fully embraced the idea of fusing pop melodies with their electronic noises to create an infectious sound that appealed to record buyers. The concept album ‘Radio-Activity’ followed in 1975 and explored the theme of radio communication – the album was released in both a German-language and English version. Bizarrely 1977’s ‘Trans-Europe Express’ delved into the theme of train travel. On the back of the massive single ‘The Model’, their seventh album and perhaps their most experimental to date, ‘Man Machine’ emerged in 1978. The album was almost completely bereft of human input, sounding aptly like a man-machine throughout, hence the lyrics “We are the robots”.  Despite their prolific early years, compilations aside, the band only released three albums of the next twenty years - ‘Computer World’ in 1981, ‘Electric Café’ in 1986 and ‘Expo 2000’ in late 1999. After 34 years Kraftwerk are still going strong today.