Music Experts all over the world rank Kraftwerk internationally as the most influential music group of all time. No other band has given so much to pop und rock culture. Kraftwerk's beats laid the foundations for club music: for hip-hop, synth-pop, techno, house and disco. The sounds they invented have been sampled by hundreds of artists, from Madonna to R.E.M, from Missy Elliott to Fergie. Coldplay and Jay-Z have had hits with their elegant melodies and their image has influenced David Bowie, Daft Punk and Kanye West. By the way, Kraftwerk is the only band in the world that has held two concerts at the same time in different places. They simply send their robots to a second identical concert. Some didn't even notice at first that the robots from Kraftwerk were playing the concert. In 1997, the New York Times called Kraftwerk the "Beatles of electronic dance music". In 2021, Kraftwerk became the first and only German band to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Kraftwerk has always clearly and consciously differentiated itself from other rock and pop bands. The name alone indicates the main theme of their songs, modern technology and its relationship to people. Their image can best be described with the album title "Die Mensch-Maschine" (The Human Machine). Kraftwerk opposed the cult of personalities and stars with the concept of depersonalization
My roommate in the mid-70s was an avant-garde music nut; he introduced me to K'werk's "Autobahn" album -- great go-to-sleep music! New, updated, improved band very interesting; up-to-date lyrics very meaningful and "nostalgic" -- Harrisburg! Who remembers 3 Mile Island besides this band and emergency preparedness crews?
When Kraftwerk began to create music, they had a clear imagination how it should sound. The problem was there were no instruments to play it. So they made their own equipment. So influencal !
Fun fact: Rammstein's song "Radio" is a big homage to Kraftwerk - their official video features a similar radio antenna sequence, Flake's bridge melody is very Kraftwerk-like and they also use the Kraftwerk typical vocoder voice awards the end! :-D
Saw them 2 weeks ago. Of the hundreds, maybe thousands, of gigs and concerts I've been to, that was the best I've ever seen! Sound and visuals were next level brilliant.
Thank you for another Kraftwerk reaction. This clip comes from Minimum Maximum, a live CD/DVD. Worth to buy and watch with a good surround set, it's mixed so well. Besides Tangerine Dream (No Man's Land is one of my favourites), you could also listen to Klaus Schultze (the Big In Japan concert is on YT).
Great was the concert of Kraftwerk in Japan, after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima and they performed this piece and of course supplemented the text with Fukushima to the applause of the Japanese audience- Because of the energy crisis and the Ukraine war, nuclear power is getting an upswing even in Germany who wanted to shut down all power plants.People still believe that nuclear power is cheap and environmentally friendly. Long live lobbying
hi from germany my first synthesizer music was clockwork orange I am not shure it that was before or after but I loved classic music later ,classic as all music gives a push in all directions there was always something that made a new style if it was chalsten as I had my first amiga I heard first technical beats and though hmm I like it and then it became techno you never know where music flows
Bowie and Kraftwerk didn't have much to do with each other. "Autobahn" and "radioactivity" had been in existence long before Bowie's time in Berlin. This live recording is not that old. It used to be a song not against radioactivity but for it. Only after the nuclear accident in Chernobyl did they change the text to "stop radioactivity".
That's not entirely true. For David Bowie Kraftwerk was an interesting new sound.David Bowie knew the people of Kraftwerk before he moved to Berlin and they often met when David Bowie was on tour in Germany war.so Bowie once told how he drove with an old Mercedes on the highway and played the song "Autobahn". Through Kraftwerk, David Bowie began to incorporate synties into the music and also changed his outfit. Also, the original of "radioactivity" was not a song for die nuklear power more A little ironic reflection of the then contemporary technology, as so summarizes all records of Kraftwerk
@@westfale520 That's right, Kraftwerk have influenced and inspired many musicians. But at the time you didn't really know that they were so well known internationally.
This version is not good. Too much from modern music. The old version from the LP, more than fourty years old, was more original, more direct, more Kraftwerk.
Me as a German I have to say it again: Their German accent is terrible. But musically they are genius, aren't they?! To be honest - where would electronic music be today without the influence of Kraftwerk?
No other nation has such pathological feelings of inferiority as the Germans. accents are something really wonderful and bring a lot of charm and color, also to the english language. Nico or Marlene Dietrich would not be who they were! Her accent in music / acting was just very much loved. In Germany, anyone who speaks English must speak oxford english. But just the Oxford English speaks only a very small population. So they learn that the Germans, like the french or the Japanese, also south african or americans, don't speak Oxford. And take it as an enrichment!
