Power Up

A teenager scans a Hip Hop CD at a music store to listen to a few songs while another teenager waits to listen to the latest Industrial songs on the CD he has. Two different people with two different musical preferences, but what they don’t realize, is that both bands are just styles of music that may have never come about if it wasn’t for an Electronic band from Germany called Kraftwerk (German for Power Plant). A band that is often labeled as the fathers of Kraut Rock (German music). Is this possible for such broad styles in music to be linked together by a single band? The answer is yes, and what will be answered and explained further in this report is the fact that Kraftwerk had influences on even more styles of music. How such a small band that rarely had a single make it in the Top 40 (UK Billboards at http://web.bham.ac.uk/busbykg/kraftwerk/) could make such a big impact on the world of music? This can only be answered by examining what influences were involved in giving these band members their creativity. With this creativity, we’ll be able to see how their music affected later artist as well as today’s artists in the music industry.

The Bit

The story begins in Dusseldorf, Germany, 1968. Two students at the music Conservatoire; Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider, met and formed the band Kraftwerk after leaving from a failing band called Organisation. Both students had had ideas for creating a unique sound prior to forming Organisation and wanted to release these ideas through Kraftwerk. They wanted a purely electronic sound with no known musical instruments like the guitar or drums. They gathered ideas from their major influences like

composers John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen (Gray, Louise “Kraftwerk” (ex: afrika

Bambaataa) New Internationalist, July ’99 Issue 314, page 33) who used electronic computer sounds blended in their music. John Cage was known for creating the “prepared Piano”, a system of muting the strings and rearranges an ordinary piano into a percussion orchestra (Tomkins, Calvin (1965) The Bride And The Bachelors. John Cage page 87). Stockhausen used the natural elements of electricity and electro magnetic waves to cause feedback sounds and distort music going into a speaker, which to many was the first in creating the synthesizer (Roads, Curtis (1985) Composers And The Computer. Interview with George Lewis page 81). This ability of changing an instrument or rearranging the sound to create a new one would come through in Kraftwerks development of synthesizers and electric drums. These two composers would be the major steppingstone for Krafwerks beginnings as well as other bands and musical styles to come.

The Byte

In 1970 Kraftwerk released their first album and had gained respect among fellow German musicians and as well as artist in the local area. The bands unique style put them in the ranks of groups like Can and Tangerine Dream, who were also considered to be very experimental bands at that time (Sunset Strip “Kraftwerk & Organisation” (Kraftwerk, The Early Years ’68-’70), available from: http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/8880/h68.html). With the coaxing of fans and encouraging support from friend Emil Schult, an electric-violinist, Kraftwerk was able to establish their own imagery that they could not find before (Icepalace, Allan

“Influences” http://homepage.ntlworld.com/allan.icepalace/influences/influences.html).

They began to perform in plastic suits and having visual features of mannequins. They even had gone as far as not appearing on stage at all and having mannequins or robots take their place on stage. This bizarre theatrics upset music critics as well as the steady beats, computer beeps and having very little singing. The band didn’t let this deter this from moving ahead in their music. Florian had stated what their music meant to them in a 1975 interview: “We are part of an Industrial generation. We grew up very impressive by these machinery rhythms that we used in our music, the mechanical aspects of life. Technology is no enemy to us. We use technology as it is. We have to accept all these things as they are in the world today.”(Triad Magazine (June 1975) Interview with Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider). The soon had their roots planted and had released two more albums through their own studio called KlingKlang and released several singles like “Autobahn”, “Man Machine”, and “Trans-Europe Express”. The band collected two more members, Karl Bantos and Wollfgang Flur, who helped complete the sound Ralf and Florian were looking for. Their sound became so popular that they were signed onto Capital Records and began releasing their music in the United States. This is where they became the band to influence other artists and help originate the styles of music we see today.

The Program

By the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s, most American bands had heard and were greatly influenced by Kraftwerk. One of these people was Afrika Bambaataa. Often recognized

as the godfather of hip-hop, he began mixing styles of soul, funk, rock, jazz and reggae

into his music (Mitchell, Gail “Afrika Bambaataa” in Billboard,8/10/02,Vol.114 Issue 32). But it wasn’t until the release of his “Planet Rock”, a song that sampled Kraftwerks “Trans-Europe-Express”, that gave this artist his recognition as well as give Hip-Hop its true form or sampling, steady rhythms and consistent electric beats (Baker, Arthur & Afrika Bambaataa “And We Danced” 3/24/99). Other artists were touched by the style of Kraftwerk and this began the creation of various forms of styles we see now. Some include Techno and Dance, with its heavy steady beats and rhythms as well as the use of synthesizers, and Industrial, which was a harsher form of Electronica that used heavy metal guitar sounds and synthesizers ( Strauss, Neil “A Brief History of Electronica” Rolling Stone, 8/21/97 Issue 767 p50 ). But by the mid ‘80’s Electronica had bled into the New Wave sounds of groups like Flock of Seagulls, Gary Neuman (Tubeway Army), Depeche Mode, and Human league. This didn’t stop artist from asking Kraftwerk to help them on their music. Artist like David Bowie and Janet Jackson had at one time asked to work with the band but Kraftwerk declined the offers. (Icepalace, Allan “Influences” http://homepage.ntlworld.com/allan.icepalace/influences/influences.html). As the ‘80’s were coming to an end the bands spark had died and they disbanded, but this did not stop the influence on the future. By the ‘90’s, bands like Ministry and numerous hip-hop artists were still mentioning how influential Kraftwerk was to their music. In fact the bands music was even sampled in the Simpson’s cartoon as well as used in Michael

Jackson’s “Bad” album (Soleil Lapierre. “The Kraftwerk Influence” October 14, 2002 available from http://www.cuug.ab.ca/~lapierrs/creative/kraftwerk/). Although the band

had broke up and only released a re-mix LP by the mid ‘90’s they had collected on their accomplishments as being fathers of many musical concepts like, Disco, Synth Pop(this included Ministry and Front 242), House, Techno, Jungle, Ambient, and numerous others that would spread this list out to a couple of pages (Strauss, Neil “A Brief History of Electronica” Rolling Stone, 8/21/97 Issue 767 p50).The band may have faded out but they left the strongest mark known in music history.

Power Down

As an old 20^th century ends and we merge into the 21^st century, the former members of Kraftwerk continue their efforts to test the limits in the art of music as well as keep the influential sound going into newer bands. Ralf and Florian have never claimed the band is of no more but rather put on the shelf as they go their separate ways and try new avenues of sound. The members are now working on solo albums as well as collaborating with new bands that try to keep the Electronic element as well as the Kraut Rock alive and well. To most critics this is a dead cause and Electronic music has been dubbed as monotonies and boring. This would come as a surprise to devoted fans since it still holds a strong tie to Industrial and Techno music being played at most clubs. It also helped Afrika Bambaataa’s single “Planet Rock” reach No.3 on the dance charts, which was the only song to put this artist in the public eye (Baker, Arthur & Afrika Bambaataa “And We Danced” 3/24/99 available from: http://www.andwedanced.com/1982/proc582.htm).

Even with this recognition Ralf Hutter of Kraftwerk had this to say about their success:

“We we’re very lucky, at the time there were electronic music concerts, happenings, the Fluxus group etc. It was very normal, we played on the same circuit, the galleries. When

we began we didn’t have any engagements in the traditional music world, we were engaged in the artistic world, galleries, universities, etc.” (Sunset Strip “Kraftwerk & Organisation” (Kraftwerk, The Early Years ’68-’70), available from: http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/8880/h68.html). But to many artists, like James Dashow, the electronic element meant much more: “By today’s standards their studio would be next to nothing. But I remember one day puttering around in there, and I began to hear musical possibilities. I began to put together little electronic music etudes.” (Roads, Curtis (1985) Composers And The Computer. Interview with Dashow page 29). As new artist form and older ones reflect on their accomplishments, they all at one point can thank directly or indirectly the way Kraftwerk inspired them to carry the torch of the artistic creativity in music. They may hope to one day inspire a future artist in creating a style in music not yet known and even controversial to the critics in the music industry. Either way, the impact a band could have on music, can form decades or even centuries of music ahead of it’s time.