Kraftwerk

i love kraftwerk

i have never heard electric cafe, rev just sold me on listening to it right now.

i like CW, TEE, and radioactivity a bunch. TMM is aight. autobahn is classic, but as a standalone track, other album cuts dont do much for me.

the first time I heard Kraftwerk was during a lesson in my last year of primary school where we played various pieces of music and made to dance to them, Showroom Dummies was one of the pieces of music. (was this on the nation curriculum? this would have been around 1995/6. I don't think that my teacher just decided to play us Kraftwerk on their own initiative because I remember trying to look at their lesson notes because I wanted to know what the music was, and it looked like some outside thing + referred specifically to that track)

I guess if school kids up and down the country were being made to dance to Kraftwerk in the mid 90s there would be some evidence of other people reminiscing about this on the internet, but I can't find anything, so maybe it was just us?
I did find some youtubes of school children covering Kraftwerk songs though:

Radioactivity https://youtu.be/PyuUzsx38SM

Die Roboter https://youtu.be/ZYKl1-Rdj_k

Das Model https://youtu.be/3fa9ZUI1x1M

acoustic covers of Kraftwerk songs by 10 year old catalan kids is my new favourite genre of music, I think

Oh no, oh no, you do not diss side 2 of Autobahn around me! Those are FIGHTIN' WORDS! Love songs about comets! Florian making electric bird noises with an electronic flute! The gother than goth, scarier than a Dr Who incidental music interlude midnight klang!

But yeah, I know. Calling something "dated" slides into precarious territory, because making that a complaint requires being familiar enough with the fashions of a particular period to know what's on-trend, ahead-of-trend and behind-trend. I've got caught on the wrong side of that argument before. I was born literally the month that Kraftwerk officially formed (or at least, the month that Organisation officially broke up) - the same month that the Beatles broke up, so what a time to be alive! (even if just squalling and shitting myself in a Brutalist New Town in Essex). Ha. I wasn't a fan through most of the period they were active - I was a child during their classic era and discovered ~pop music~ as an obsession during their long 80s hiatus. (I wish I knew what it was that tipped me over into obsession! But I never seem to know what it is that trips that switch in my brain.)

(The first Kraftwerk song I ever *loved* was Ruckzuck, because of Newton's Apple. Electric Cafe permeated into pop culture as an avatar of self parody and of course:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHZR9SA5pOg

So it's partly an awareness of context... But also dependent on what particular context one is tuned into?

Like, I have a conceptual framework that I have already slotted Kraftwerk into; the "similar music" that I would Spotify Hipster Boyfriend someone for Kraftwerk would be, like: Can, NEU!, Cluster, Harmonia, La Düsseldorf. German music of the 70s. But, then, the Kraftwerk ~fandom~ on Tumblr, they seem to place them within a context of: New Order, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Depeche Mode, Japan, Gary Numan. Which, to them, makes musical sense, but to me seems totally ahistorical, like, these are British bands of the 80s, whose success came 5 to 10 years after Kraftwerk! I see why they're doing it, but it makes no sense! And it's clear that there's another contextual framework within which to arrange Kraftwerk, which is, as you say, Rev, Afrika Bambaataa, Juan Atkins, Chicago House, Detroit Techno, but it's not a cultural context I'm as familiar with, so *I* can't instinctually assess whether it's 'ahistorical' or accurate, the way I can when I say "why are you placing a Duran Duran record from 1983 alongside a Kraftwerk record from 1974?"

But it's also something that twitches a kind of... it really depends on the context of who is making that comparison, and why? That it is different when it's A) an African-American DJ or producer saying "wow, we heard these crazy Germans with their grid-like music and it was so funky, so we made our own version inspired by that!" and B) when it's a white person trying to claim that Kraftwerk invented Techno because they can't conceive of African-Americans inventing an entire massive genre of music, and want to assign the credit to white Europeans in a kind of genre land-grab? Even as I'm aware that I have probably fallen into this kind of thinking? And that goes double when it's Wolfgang Flür saying it, which evinces a kind of "Fuck off, Flür" response. But I guess "Fuck off, Flür" is a response I have often, especially when he's unfavourably comparing Ralf Hütter's sex appeal to his own. So.

I need to stop typing now.

Also I just find it kind of curious or nonsensical to call tracks "tossed-off experiments" or "failed experiments".

I mean, one of my favourite Kraftwerk interviews in 1977, they ask Ralf or Florian if their music was "experimental", and I'm not sure which of them replies, but their answer was: ALL MUSIC IS EXPERIMENTAL

So, y'know, Ralf or Florian OTM.

I love the Radioactivity LP, yes it's experimental but everything fits so well together. There's this current of naive optimism running through their work (trains bringing Europe together, computers in our homes will beam us into the future etc.) that I find incredibly charming, on Radioactivity it feels almost romantic - "When airwaves swing/Distant voices sing". Reminds me of this Brautigan short story where he compares his love to electricity coming to a rural area in the 1930s.

I first heard them on the radio when I was about 9 and "Trans-Europe Express" was getting some airplay. Though of course they sounded extremely singular, if we're talking associations with other artists, oddly enough I think I connected them with Steely Dan at the time, because "FM (No Static at All)" was on the radio at the same moment and both records sounded clean, precise, and immaculate in an unprecedented way to my ears. Also there was a haunting quality to the both the chanty part of the TEE vocal and Steely Dan's refrain, "the girls don't seem to care..."

Because Kraftwerk was so alien sounding I don't think I ever thought of them as a real band who might be dividing parts among themselves or trading off licks... (although at 9 I didn't even really understand how conventional bands worked). However the tag "minimalist" that Branwell stresses is something I can relate to because it does describe how I've always heard Kraftwerk - nothing extraneous, no embellishments, very complete in itself.

I have almost certainly listened to Electric Cafe more than any of the others, and that's because I like the beats and whenever I put it on I feel my mind open up to new rhythmic possibilities. I guess it did sound vaguely three years retro when it came out in late '86 but as others have said, after time passes no one cares anymore. In fact I probably listened to EC the most in the early '90s when electro grooves were totally out of fashion. Branwell's critiques/explanations upthread are really interesting though and all of that makes me look at Kraftwerk's trajectory in a different way.

To probably state the obvious there's almost always a winking ambivalence if not outright irony to Krafterk's supposed techno optimism. Especially on Radio-Activity where the use of radio for propaganda purposes is literally telegraphed by the cover, not to mention radioactivity in the air being not all that great. Airwaves and Ohm Sweet Ohm are beautiful songs though.

They're funny guys.

the "similar music" that I would Spotify Hipster Boyfriend someone for Kraftwerk would be, like: Can, NEU!, Cluster, Harmonia, La Düsseldorf. German music of the 70s. But, then, the Kraftwerk ~fandom~ on Tumblr, they seem to place them within a context of: New Order, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Depeche Mode, Japan, Gary Numan. Which, to them, makes musical sense, but to me seems totally ahistorical,

agree that the former makes sense, the latter is bizarre

The former makes perfect sense, but the latter isn't bizarre at all. It really isn't that hard to draw a line from Kraftwerk to early Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark or early The Human League. Japan, Gary Numan and Ultravox were more part of the Roxy Music/Bowie circa Station To Station/Low lineage.

it's the blind men describing the elephant

early Human League def, yeah that makes sense Turrican

Well, the clue is in the fact that I said "Tumblr fandom". It's mostly young people, crate-digging (or whatever the MP3 and GIF equivalent is) an "80s aesthetic" and see that Kraftwerk fit what they think of as an "80s aesthetic" in suits and skinny ties, early computer graphics, neon, etc. Not realising that Kraftwerk fit that aesthetic because they *invented* it, while the other bands are their aesthetic children or at least nieces/nephews through the Eno/Low Bowie branch.

While - y'know, I'm in my 40s and that's the general age group of ILM - so I can *remember* New Order, OMD, Depeche Mode as bands and events I lived through. But Kraftwerk... I cannot remember a time before Kraftwerk. All of their albums were in place by the time I discovered music. So someone in their 40s, remembering the 80s is going to remember that Kraftwerk were a hallowed influence, but they were not "of the 80s". While a kid today would assign Kraftwerk to "80s aesthetic" because "70s aesthetic" means flares and stuff that looks and sounds nothing like Kraftwerk.

This thread kept making me thinking about the idea of living through a band / music in a personal context versus only experiencing a band in a historical context. (This doesn't have to be a function of just age, it could be cultural, dependent on the country you live in, your demographic, etc.) How does the difference between discovering a band through archeology, or experiencing it through personal memories affect how one approaches that music. Like, the difference between hearing albums as they came out, and living the "progression" in realtime versus getting a giant data dump of "this band's entire discography" all at once. But then I just started reading Retromania this morning and I'd rather stab myself in the eye with a spork than ever start that thread. So.

I didn't want to come back to EC, but Josefa's post brought it back to mind again. But also thinking about Radio-Activity (sorry, I've been lazy with my hyphen, which is, technically part of the English title). Both of those albums having been singled out time and again in this thread as being "not as good as the others" for some people.

EC is all groove and no concept. Radio-Activity is all concept and very little groove. So, depending on what you're wanting out of Kraftwerk, one of those albums is more likely to be the one that doesn't satisfy you.

The lyrics or slogans (lots of Kraftwerk songs don't have lyrics, but they have a repeated slogan which helps you know what the song is about - be that "Spaaaaaace Laaaaaab" or "It's more fun to compute!") on EC are just ... unsatisfying. The songs aren't really about anything. A missed phone call. Sex Object is... I don't think we ever resolved on that thread what the hell Sex Object was about because we kept getting digressed into robot sex.

Radio-activity is just so rich conceptually in its symbolism and its metaphors and its silly puns. (Radioactivity isn't about atoms, it's about pop, on the radio. But Radio Stars, that's not about pop on the radio, that's about pulsars and quasars. Who wrote a song about pulsars and quasars and actual literal radio stars? Come here. I love you. Marry me. Just marry me because you are the absolute spacerock best.) But despite the jaunty melodies and the lovely bittersweet tunes, there are no bangers on it.

I know I've bitched about this before on another thread, but this is what I really dislike yet again about the new versions of old songs. They took all the ambivalence and ambiguity out of Radioactivity. That it was such a rich and ambivalent song and it could be about pop, it could be about nuclear power, but it was ambivalent about both. And they just ripped all of that beautiful ambiguity out, and NOPE, now it's about NUCLEAR POWER and that's BAD, kids. I hate what they've done to that song so much it hurts.

Sometimes songs get relevance thrust upon them.

Again, I agree with Branwell about the way they perform the classic songs now, esp "Radioactivity". The "Stop-Radioactivity" context goes back to The Mix, so it's basically spent longer in that incarnation than in the original, form. I think it worked as a one-off remix but sort of has become the default. By the mid-2000s they added a preamble about "death and skin cancer" which is basically into Chumbawamba-stating-the-bleeding-obvious territory. Not cool.

agreed, any sort of political or moral message in Kraftwerk seems off. but I do like the added thump that Radioactivity gets. I find the original a bit dull, honestly

Business, numbers, money, people
Business, numbers, money, people
Computer world
Computer world

^ best lyric they ever wrote.

Creepy intro to 'Radioactivity' is dope live. Heard a recording of one show they did in '98 where they (often) had 'Airwaves' in the setlist at the time and even that started off with a deeper much more menacing tone on the vocoder voice, pretty off with the rest of the track but very powerful and exciting. The live version of 'Numbers' back then was often a lot slower with more pitch-bending and other fx on the voices too. Always interesting to hear how the tracks have changed over time especially since they started doing the entire LP renditions in recent years. I'm still amazed they (hardly unreasonably) loved DJ Rolando's mix of 'Expo 2000' so much they adopted it for the TDF sets and still include it today.

Business, numbers, money, people
Business, numbers, money, people
Computer world
Computer world

^ best lyric they ever wrote.

― everything, Wednesday, September 23, 2015 8:14 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The lyrics to that track are superior in German, I think.

And if there's not a direct line from that to "Genetic Engineering" OMD, I say wo.

yeah, Computer World is one of the cases where the German being much more explicit provides a different context for the song which makes it way, way better.

I'm sure I've told this story before (if not on ILX then elsewhere) about Computer World was the first Kraftwerk album that anyone ever sat me down and made me listen to in full. In about 1989? And I HAAAAAAAAAAATED IT. I thought it was absolutely terrible, and the person who recommended it to me was mystified as to why I hadn't liked it because it seemed so completely something I'd like.

The truth being, that in 1989, I was working on a giant project to digitise and computerise fingerprint records for the criminal justice system. And realising that I hated that record, because I just felt like "this shit is MY JOB! That I HATE! I don't want to hear songs about it!" But now, I'm like... "wow, that record was so prescient in predicting in 1981, things that would be happening in 1989." and also "Yes! Here are songs about my life as a data analyst, Ralfie and Flori, you know how I feel, ILU ILU ILU!" because I'm a lot more reconciled to my profession than I was then.

Yeah, that's not so far off for me, except that it was more that other people were "lol this is your life isn't it? You computer people are all like THIS right?"

This was not true at the time, but hey! All you people that do internet/twitter/facebook - This is YOUR life now lol isn't it?

(Which isn't true either, but hey.)

3D show was amazing. The most genuine fun I've experienced at a show in a while.

so what kind of German accent *is* it that pronounces "für dich und mich" as "for dish und mish"?

Is that what they mean by their Düsseldorf accent making them sound as comical as Brummies?

i thought it was a pretty great show -- one of the highlights was actually the extensive tour de france section, a record that's never really been in my regular rotation. my only complaint would be that i thought the sound was a bit quiet...but then, my ears are kinda scorched from playing too many shows. oh, and a totally ratchet group of ladies behind us who were shushed a couple times, then left halfway through. i don't think they knew why they were there. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i feel pretty fortunate to have seen kraftwerk (2015), michael rother, and roedelius all live! i was thinking about that while walking out of the show, probably looked like this :)))))))))))

http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/c75efb58c1249076bea1bc6481805f586d710430/c=46-0-755-533&r=x513&c=680x510/local/-/media/2015/10/06/DetroitFreePress/DetroitFreePress/635797297958699315-kraftwerk72.jpg

http://www.freep.com/picture-gallery/entertainment/2015/10/06/kraftwerk-at-mocad-with-derrick-may-kevin-saunderson-juan-atkins/73449996/

hell yeah

I saw them in Boston last weekend, they were terrific. Granted, I'm not sure they weren't just surfing Facebook or something, but it all looked and sounded great.

This one has sound (and Ralf being adorable but I didn't say that):

https://instagram.com/p/8e80asC7ML/

at work but double hell yeah

New. Music. From. Florian.

http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/28760/1/kraftwerk-s-co-founder-made-this-track-to-save-the-oceans

That is all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXa9tXcMhXQ

http://www.amimono.tokyo/#!%E3%82%AF%E3%83%A9%E3%83%95%E3%83%88%E3%83%AF%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AF%20%E3%82%BB%E3%83%BC%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC/zoom/o1ymj/dataItem-ik628o391

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/0d5114_81db68b678194db9b7021713c338528d.jpg/v1/fill/w_1020,h_946,al_c,q_90/0d5114_81db68b678194db9b7021713c338528d.jpg

#!%E3%82%AF%E3%83%A9%E3%83%95%E3%83%88%E3%83%AF%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AF%20%E3%82%BB%E3%83%BC%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC

Is that the knitting pattern?

URL encoded utf8 by the look of it. It's a Japanese website and the path is in Japanese. If you look there are groups of 3 bytes all starting with e3, each of these groups is a character.

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/30af/index.htm for instance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AmMnFk3imI

Great video.

Would it have killed them to film Florian more. :(

wow, that is the highest quality transfer I have ever seen of the 1981 TV live special. if anyone comes across the rest of that in the same HD quality, please post back here, you can finally even see the shape of the switches & all their gear clearly

not HD, in fact terrible quality, but someone heard my prayer and filmed Florian chatting about synthesisers for 10 minutes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBs0lx0ghgo

http://dangerousminds.net/home/dangerou/dangerousminds.net/html/content/uploads/images/made/chrootcontent/uploads/images/MTQwMjM4MzE0OTA4MTY1MzUy_465_302_int.jpg
https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidsanborn/sets/72157660043445738/

good tim jonze interview with ralf here:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jun/15/kraftwerk-ralf-hutter-music-about-intensity-the-rest-is-just-noise

We meet on the eve of the general election, and so, to break the ice, I tell him how, ever since the leaders debates in 2010, pictures of UK politicians stood sombrely at lecterns have come to be labelled by online wits as the “worst Kraftwerk gig ever”. Curious, Hütter looks at a picture on my phone of a besuited Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and David Cameron, and nods in agreement: “Because there’s only three of them,” he says. “One missing.”

looooool

oh my god no that cannot be real