With the recent Kraftwerk show at Coachella I thought I would talk about them from the perspective of somebody who can bridge you back a bit to talk about what an enormous legacy they had. I remember that 70s/80s era and I remember hearing them for the first time in the 80s.
So imagine you’re back in the 70s. It’s a time of exuberance, bravado and swagger in music. It’s a time of Robert Plant, Donna Summer and Freddie Mercury. It’s a time of triple-necked guitars, wizard costumes and mind-altering substances. You’ve got these iconic performers and the showmanship is off the charts with raw talent. The songs are about love, sex, regret, hate and having a good time, and in other cases about political and social concerns. A wonderful time for popular music and there are legendary things going on.
But here comes Kraftwerk and what they do is a complete 180° versus everyone else. They’re doing things that have zero in common with what’s going on in the big musical leagues. Conventional showmanship with unbuttoned shirts and spectacular virtuoso moves? No, they are mimicking mannequins and robots. The singing? Intentionally monotonous on many tracks. The album covers sometimes make them look like wax figures from a long time ago. They are way out of step with most of the rest of the time period.
Let’s talk about the music itself. The choice of instruments was something again that was usually way out of step. Walls of guitar amplifiers and enormous drum sets? Not quite. Huge horn sections or disco string orchestras? Nope. Kraftwerk famously used children’s toys like Speak and Spells and obscure gear. But some of the vibe reminds me of the home organs of the 1950s-1960s. By the 1980s these home organs were not the most stylish of instruments. Home organs sounded like a relic of a generation who had retired. Home organs were something that no one under the age of 50 wanted. Finally, Kraftwerk’s songs were about pocket calculators or bicycling in the Pyrenees. Huh? So putting this all together, at the time listening to a Kraftwerk record was really different from listening to anything that was around. I have to admit, at some times I wondered if some of their earlier music was made with tongue in cheek or as some kind of a joke. (I’m pretty sure that was my first reaction to one of their earlier LPs.) It doesn’t matter either way but again, that was different for the time.
Anyhow, the rest is history as they say. People were so struck by Kraftwerk that it ended up inspiring and influencing just an uncountable number of artists over the years. Even today, one of my top listening albums for car drives is Computer World. Given how fast music changes and technology changes, it’s extra surprising that this LP seems timeless and relevant. For me it’s still fresh and engaging so many years later. So hats off to you to Kraftwerk for going in a completely new direction and in a way as a brave move artistically. Kraftwerk opened the door to so many music developments, and inspired so many artists (myself included). So thank you Kraftwerk.
Kraftwerk and me?
If I had to pick one of my songs that was the most like Kraftwerk, I’d pick one of my earliest releases. The song is Interplanetary Weather Report. It’s got that very mechanical Kraftwerk vibe. Also the topic, which is (ahem) a Weather Report, would be something that I imagined would be mundane some day. In a few hundred years when humanity had spread throughout the solar system, maybe people would tune into the Interplanetary Weather Report. What would that sound like? I also have a robot as a character in the song, which would fit right at home with Kraftwerk.
Post Script – I have to mention another musical group, Art of Noise, that came some time after Kraftwerk. But in a similar way Art of Noise was a pivotal music group. Once again Art of Noise just totally ripped up the playbook and created an LP that had never been heard before. Art of Noise did this with sampling on the Fairlight while Kraftwerk did it (mostly) with synths (yes they later moved into samplers quite a bit). Anyway I would put Kraftwerk and Art of Noise down as two of some of the most influential electronic groups in earlier electronic music. Just like Kraftwerk, when you heard Art of Noise the first time there was just nothing to compare it to.