A blog about the german electronic band Kraftwerk.
Kraftwerk is one of the best-known German bands in the world. The group was formed in Dusseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider.
They have sold over 35 million records worldwide and have won awards for their live performances.
The group’s music was influenced by a variety of genres, including electronic, ambient and pop music.
The band’s lyrics are often written in both English and German, which allows them to reach a wider audience than other artists who only sing in their native language.
In the early days of rock ‘n’ roll, many bands were formed out of convenience – musicians who had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives but needed some kind of an outlet for their creativity found themselves playing together on stage and recording songs together in studios. In 1972, four students at Dusseldorf’s Robert Schumann Hochschule für Musik (now known as Folkwang) decided that it would be fun to form a band after graduation; they named themselves Kraftwerk (German for “power plant”).
I’m not sure if this is true but according to lore, when they were trying to
Kraftwerk (German: [ˈkʁaftvɛʁk], “power station”) is a German electronic band formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970 in Düsseldorf. Widely considered as innovators and pioneers of electronic music,[1][2] they were among the first successful acts to popularize the genre. The group began as part of West Germany’s experimental krautrock scene in the early 1970s before fully embracing electronic instrumentation, including synthesizers, drum machines, and vocoders.
Kraftwerk’s signature sound combines driving, repetitive rhythms with catchy melodies, mainly following a Western classical style of harmony, with a minimalistic and strictly electronic instrumentation. The group’s simplified lyrics are at times sung through a vocoder or generated by computer-speech software.
Kraftwerk were one of the first groups to popularize electronic music and are considered pioneers in the field.[3][4][5] In 2011, the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[6][7]
German electronic band
German electronic music band, founded in 1994 in Frankfurt am Main. The group’s continuous members are founders Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider, who are joined by Fritz Hilpert and Henning Schmitz. According to The Observer, “Kraftwerk is to pop music what Einstein is to physics.”
The British newspaper The Guardian wrote in 2008: “The most influential band of the last 30 years”. In 2004, Rolling Stone placed Kraftwerk number 36 on their list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”. In 2005, Q magazine placed Kraftwerk at number 7 on its list of the “50 Bands That Changed the World!”.
Kraftwerk was formed in 1970 by Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütter. The pair had originally performed together as part of a quintet known as Organisation. This ensemble released one album, Tone Float (1969), issued on RCA Records in the UK, before disbanding in 1970.
Hütter, who left the band for eight months, keyboards and electronics; Schneider was primarily responsible for the flute and vocoder parts.
On 1 September 2017, it was announced that Kraftwerk would perform concerts in China for the
Kraftwerk (German: [ˈkʁaftvɛɐ̯k], power station) is a German electronic music band formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970 in Düsseldorf. In the 1970s, they were among the first successful pop acts to popularize electronic music. The group began as part of West Germany’s experimental krautrock scene in the early 1970s before fully embracing electronic instrumentation, including synthesizers, drum machines, and vocoders.
While remaining purely electronic in nature, their early recordings were mainly explorations of progressive rock that showed clear influence from the psychedelic rock of Pink Floyd and Can. Following the release of Autobahn (1974), a successful single that sold over a million copies worldwide, Kraftwerk began to move away from their previous avant-garde sound and appeal more towards pop audiences. Their style was adopted by the mainstream pop music industry as the basis of electropop, techno and other genres. Although this shift was controversial among fans of their earlier work, Kraftwerk persisted in exploring this new musical style for several decades throughout their career.
Kraftwerk’s innovative use of electronic instruments and synthesizers during the 1970s
Kraftwerk is a German electronic band formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970 in Düsseldorf. In the 1970s, they were among the first successful pop acts to popularize electronic music and are considered to be innovators and pioneers of the genre. The band was fronted by both Hütter and Schneider until Schneider’s departure in 2008. Following the releases of Kraftwerk 1 and 2, Stefan Pfaffe was added on drums before their first tour in 1971, with Wolfgang Flür joining as percussionist in 1973, Karl Bartos as percussionist/songwriter in 1974, and Ulrich Walter on synthesizers in 1975.
The group’s critically acclaimed album Trans-Europe Express was released in 1977. The following year, the band released The Man-Machine. Their breakthrough hit “Autobahn” reached number eleven on the UK Singles Chart. In 1979, they released their seminal album The Man Machine; the single “The Model” peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart in early 1982. Following the release of Tour de France Soundtracks in 2003, Walter left the group and was replaced by Fritz Hilpert.
Kraftwerk’s lyrics often focus on themes such as technology
Kraftwerk, the German electronic band whose music inspired generations of techno and pop artists and was so influential that they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2015, is suing the makers of a computer game for copyright infringement.
The case, filed in New York on Wednesday, alleges that a song called “I Was a Robot” by a fictional band called “Kraftwerk-Rocker” in the game Rock Band 3 infringes upon two Kraftwerk songs “Computerwelt” and “Computer Liebe.” Legal representatives for Kraftwerk did not respond to requests for comment, but the suit contends that the game’s developers copied “the compositional elements and sounds of Kraftwerk’s renowned masterpiece ‘Computer Liebe’ in virtually its entirety” for the song “I Was a Robot.”
Kraftwerk is seeking $800,000 in damages from Harmonix Music Systems Inc., MTV Networks and Electronic Arts Inc., who are named as defendants in the suit. The complaint alleges that Harmonix made an unauthorized use of Kraftwerk’s work.
Kraftwerk (German for power plant) is an electronic band founded by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Their innovative music was a cornerstone of the development of synthpop and electronic music genres.
Kraftwerk were formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970 as part of the early Krautrock scene. The duo had originally performed together in the experimental band Organisation, before dissolving that group to form Kraftwerk.
The core line-up of Kraftwerk during the 1970s also included drummer Andreas Hohmann and guitarist Michael Rother; these musicians would later work together as Neu!. Until 1975, they were joined by Wolfgang Flür on percussion.
Aside from English, Kraftwerk’s lyrics also display a fondness for wordplay, with songs such as “Metall auf Metall” (“Metal on metal”), “Heimcomputer” (“Home computer”), “Radioland”, “Tour de France”, and “Boing Boom Tschak” demonstrating this trait. The song “Trans-Europe Express” is reminiscent of a rail journey. “Die Roboter” (“The Robots”) is a tribute to artificial lifeforms