Kraftwerk

Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider started out as a Düsseldorf duo before growing into a quartet with Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos, and along the way they turned from krautrock experimentalists into the founding kings of electronic music. Their venerated 1970s run, including Autobahn, Trans-Europe Express and The Man-Machine, changed the toolkit of popular music itself. Custom-built instruments and a hermetic studio practice at Kling Klang made them legends who rarely spoke to the press, which only deepened the myth. In a rare 1981 interview, unearthed decades later from Electronics & Music Maker, Hütter admitted the obsessive math behind their sound: "We spend a month on the sound and five minutes on the chord changes." Karl Bartos, who joined for the classic run and studied percussion at the Rhineland State Conservatory, later pointed to something simpler behind the band's uncanny image: all four members stood six feet tall. "We were all alike," he said. "No one was very short, no one was a giant... we could all have exchanged clothes." Behind the man-machine facade, the band was not always harmonious. Wolfgang Flür recalled the human cost of the group's escalating minimalism: "The more we developed, the more the robots developed in ourselves. It was when the human attitude went." He said Hütter and Schneider drifted from the studio in later years, chasing a new obsession with bicycles instead. "Cycling was the end of Kraftwerk," Flür said.

At a glance

Active

1970–present

From

Düsseldorf, Germany

Records in the issues

4 (1970–1978), 1 of them a Start here pick

Original label

Philips

Listening guide track

“The Model”

Listen

In the German Krautrock listening guide: “The Model”

In the issues

• 002
  Detroit Techno

  An influence · 1981-1995

  Detroit Techno is a music scene from Detroit/Belleville, Michigan, USA, 1981–1995. Its principal artists include Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson. This issue covers 10 essential albums and 14 dated events.

• 007
  German Krautrock

  Principal · 1968-1975

  German Krautrock is a music scene from West Germany (Düsseldorf, Cologne, Berlin), 1968–1975. Its principal artists include Kraftwerk, Can, Neu! and Tangerine Dream. This issue covers 10 essential albums and 12 dated events.

Records

• Kraftwerk

  1970 · Go deeper in German Krautrock

  Original release: Philips · 6305 058 · 12″ Vinyl · Germany 1970

  The debut is free-form experimental rock, guitar, bass, drums, organ and flute run through tape echo and electronics, made before the classic quartet existed and before Kraftwerk had anything close to the sound they'd become known for.

• 

  Autobahn

  1974 · Start here in German Krautrock

  Kraftwerk's full embrace of electronic instrumentation arrived here, the 22-minute title track became an unlikely hit in edited form, and the album reached number 5 on the Billboard chart. Engineered by Conny Plank, the record set the template for the band's "robot pop" direction and led straight into their chaotic 1975 American tour. Fifty years on from its release, it stands as the record that introduced electronic music to pop charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

  Listen on Spotify
• 

  Trans-Europe Express

  1977 · For the obsessed in German Krautrock

  A concept album about train travel that perfected Kraftwerk's minimalist electronic pop. Afrika Bambaataa later sampled it for "Planet Rock," helping birth electro-funk and giving hip-hop one of its foundational electronic textures. Wolfgang Flür later marveled at how far that influence spread: "Oh it's everywhere," he said.

  Listen on Spotify
• 

  The Man-Machine

  1978 · For the obsessed in German Krautrock

  With its constructivist cover art showing the quartet in matching red shirts and black ties, and its streamlined production, the album fixed Kraftwerk's visual and sonic template for good. It included the future hit "The Model." Karl Bartos later explained the thinking behind the image: all four members stood the same height, six feet tall, so "no one was very short, no one was a giant... we could all have exchanged clothes."

  Listen on Spotify

Family tree

Bands that shared members with Kraftwerk, and who.

• Neu!1971–1975
  Eberhard Kranemann, Klaus Dinger
• Organisation1969–1970
  Florian Schneider, Ralf Hütter

Places

• Kling Klang Studio
  Düsseldorf · 1970-present · German Krautrock

  Kraftwerk's private studio where they developed their revolutionary electronic sound in complete isolation, creating albums from Autobahn through Electric Café with custom-built instruments and total creative control.

• Conny's Studio (Conny Plank Studio)
  Cologne · 1969-1987 · German Krautrock

  Producer Conny Plank's studio where he recorded Neu!, Cluster, Harmonia, and early Kraftwerk, becoming the sonic architect of krautrock's experimental production techniques.

• Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
  Düsseldorf · 1960s-1970s · German Krautrock

  The art academy where Joseph Beuys taught and where Kraftwerk members studied, fostering the conceptual art approach that would define their robotic, minimalist aesthetic.

• Creamcheese Club
  Düsseldorf · 1968-1972 · German Krautrock

  A key venue for the Düsseldorf underground scene where Kraftwerk and other experimental acts performed in the early 1970s, connecting visual artists and musicians.

Voices

Quotations from the issues, each matched word for word against the source it links to.

Terms

Motorik

A steady, driving 4/4 drumbeat associated with German krautrock, pioneered by Can's Jaki Liebezeit and Neu!'s Klaus Dinger.