Oh boy…where do you start with an artist like Florian Schneider, of Kraftwerk? Sadly he has died at 73. It’s not hyperbole when you say that Florian and Kraftwerk may not be household names like some, but without Kraftwerk you probably wouldn’t have new wave and new romantics, electro-pop, house, techno and all those influenced after.
Hip-hop probably wouldn’t have moved from breaks novelty records without Planet Rock. Electronics probably would still be seen as a sort of novelty, rather than seriously influencing the likes of David Bowie, OMD, Duran Duran, Gary Numan, Pete Shelley, John Foxx/Ultravox, Visage and the new romantics. And thus the many people they influenced after, like Muse, Killers, Arcade Fire, Bjork, U2, and many more rock/punk acts too many to list who wouldn’t have touched a synthesiser without Kraftwerk showing it could be soulful, musical and cool.
So I am posting the Kraftwerk track that first came to mind – Kometenmelodie which is pre-Autobahn and is just at that point where the radical 60’s funk and flute of Organisation and early Kraftwerk gave way to electronics and space themes. It’s also a really beautiful melody about the Kahoutek comet that was visiting then…very new wave, a song about a comet!
Oh and no Florian/Kraftwerk, no ‘Low’ trilogy era Bowie. Think about that for a second…how many people were influenced by that era Bowie? But he was only there in Berlin because of Florian and co. Thus he recorded this tribute to them and Florian:
To say the next podcast will include nods to Kraftwerk and Florian is an understatement.
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