Placing Kraftwerk neatly into a genre box is easy enough, but keeping them in said box…not so much.  When pressed to define their music, we quickly find we should get a couple more boxes.  Perhaps a geodesic dome would be more appropriate, given the compound facets on the surface of Kraftwerk.

The Kraftwerk product is clearly electronic music, but when accounting for when and how they were electronic musicians, a larger, and much more innovative and experimental story comes to light.   Our two main culprits in the sum of Kraftwerk’s image and ingenuity, Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider, are classically trained musicians who chose to express themselves in any way other than traditional methods.

Early Kraftwerk found synthesizer technology to be young and much of the commercial offering was still monstrous and highly technical, requiring skills approaching engineer caliber.  Hütter and Schneider approached the technology with zeal and seemed to be at odds with the stereotypical musician of the time.  Their enthusiasm for all sorts of electronic gadgetry and invention became part of their image.  Amplifying their engineer image, they wore suits and maintained businesslike grooming standards during performance.  This was also very much different from the ‘70s trend for musicians.

One of the defining characteristics of Kraftwerk was the air of “moving on” they projected to their countrymen.  It seems post World-War II Germany was trying very hard not to look back and Kraftwerk gave its generation the message, “fine… look back, make your own interpretation; don’t look back, ignore the past; call it what is was or not, but let’s not wallow in it and then let’s move on.”

Another Kraftwerk characteristic to consider is the palette of timbre and technique they offered the world.  They weren’t the first to work in electronic music, but they were certainly pioneers in application of its tools and methods.  Consider the composition of the song Autobahn and then imagine the song performed on traditional instruments of the period rather than the electronic inventions of Moog, Arp, EMS, and Kraftwerk.

(The Balanescu Quartet – Autobahn, 1992)

Kraftwerk released the Autobahn album in 1974, which marked the beginning of their transition to more organized and less avant-garde or experimental music. (Kraftwerk, and the Electronic revolution, 2010)  Kraftwerk music prior to Autobahn was less structured, lacking form and melody.  There was still nobody in the main stream doing what Kraftwerk was with music in 1974.  Listening to songs from the year-end top 100 for 1974, one can catch a hint of synthesizer here and there, but nothing on the scale of the electronics in Kraftwerk.

 

1975 brought the Radio Activity album in which Kraftwerk further cemented their transition to electronic pop music and left behind the purely experimental.  They were still experimenting, but now had their own studio, called Kling Klang, where the final product of their experiments was more structured.  The studio became the experiment as much as any specific device.  Kraftwerk was now experimenting with the production process more than ever before.

Beginning with Autobahn (the road), then with Radio Activity (radio and nuclear technology), Kraftwerk established themes for their albums.  Concept albums were the norm through the ‘80s with the train of Trans-Europe Express, the robots of The Man-Machine, and the subject-titled Computer World.  During these albums the music became increasingly polished and structured, yet uniquely marked with the Kraftwerk signature sound, which still carried the leading edge of electronic music.  By the time Computer World came around, Kraftwerk took the Kling Klang studio on the road with them and their innovations expanded to become sensory encompassing events with synchronized visual displays playing into the themes of each song. (Bussy, 2004)

As a listener, I cannot believe I did not discover Kraftwerk sooner in my life.  I am completely enthralled with their music.  When I hear certain passages, I immediately identify them with music from other artists, which came later, and the lightbulb clicks on.  Most of everything I like about electronic music has roots in Kraftwerk.

As an industry professional, I want to take a cue for innovation and creativity from Kraftwerk.