Electronic Music entry

Kraftwerk is the mechanical gears of the machine that is electronic music, as we know it today. Their revolutionary approach to music creation and production brought the electronic sound into the mainstream. Autobahn, which is their signature and breakthrough album, was considered by the group to be the re-launch of their sound, a point zero to restart from. The group from this point on was known for their concept albums. Though it wasn’t a hugely successful record from the start it has grown to be widely recognized as a great record.

The music and sound of the group is robotic, somewhat repetitive yet melodic and progressive. The use of new ground breaking electronic musical instruments help form the sound of each record. The album after Autobahn was Radio Activity it was another concept album but it was considered a relative flop because it didn’t receive the acclaim and commercial success of Auto-Bahn. The album after was Trans-European Express, which was more successful than Radio Activity but was still unable to capture the commercial breakthrough and recognition that Autobahn did was and is, rated very high from critics and hailed as one of the greatest albums in electronic music. It had chart reaching singles like the title track “Trans-Europe Express” and “Numbers”. The follow up was The Man Machine, which was a more pop album. It stayed on the US Charts for 42 weeks and the song “The Model” reached #1 in the UK. This album was much more robotic and almost void of the presence of humanity in the vocals and music in general.

Kraftwerk was a huge influence to many that followed, and helped drive many advances in electronic music. Brian Eno and David Bowie worked with the group and were definitely inspired by the electronic sound to infuse it into their own.

When I listen to Kraftwerk, not only do I hear incredible electronic music, I hear traces of what I hear today in electronic music. I hear the synths, the drums, the pads and many other things we hear everyday but were ground breaking, and innovated by this group.