Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider founded Kraftwerk in Düsseldorf in 1970, out of an earlier group, Organisation, and an art-school milieu that also produced Neu!’s Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother, both briefly members of an early Kraftwerk lineup before leaving to form their own group in 1971. Kraftwerk’s classic quartet — Hütter, Schneider, and electronic percussionists Wolfgang Flür (from 1973) and Karl Bartos (from 1975) — built a run of concept albums voicing the machine culture of postwar Germany directly through synthesizers and vocoder: Autobahn (1974), a Top 5 US hit; Radio-Activity (1975); Trans-Europe Express (1977); The Man-Machine (1978); and Computer World (1981), which produced the single “The Model.” Recording and performing as uniform-clad “robots” onstage as early as 1978, the group treated its own image as part of the composition. Its steady, minimal electronic pulse became a direct source for Detroit techno’s Belleville Three and for early hip-hop (notably Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock”), and its influence runs through synth-pop, house, and electronic music broadly.
Works in the Library
Kraftwerk, Conny Plank ALBUM 1974
Kraftwerk's 1974 breakthrough album, its title track a US Top 5 hit that established the group's electronic concept-album approach.
TIME
Kraftwerk ALBUM 1978
Kraftwerk's 1978 album on the figure of the human as machine.
Kraftwerk ALBUM 1975
Kraftwerk's 1975 concept album built around radio and radioactivity.
Kraftwerk ALBUM 1973
Kraftwerk's 1973 third album, the group's first to feature the vocoder and a step toward its classic electronic sound.
