Kraftwerk

Germany, 1969–now

Dusseldorf group who built an electronic pop form around synthesizers, drum machines and sequenced rhythm on albums including Autobahn and Trans-Europe Express, a model taken up widely in synth-pop, hip-hop and techno.

MusicRoots documents 2 artists who influenced Kraftwerk and 43 artists Kraftwerk influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Kraftwerk?

• Karlheinz Stockhausen — Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider studied under Stockhausen at Darmstadt; his tape and electronic methods were their foundation.
• The Beach Boys — Hütter has named the Beach Boys among the group's major influences, and their harmony is what sits on top of the motorik pulse in 'Autobahn'.

Which artists did Kraftwerk influence?

• Massive Attack — Kraftwerk's electronic pulse is part of the machine side of Massive Attack's sound.
• Rammstein — Kraftwerk's pioneering German electronic music was a role model for Rammstein — founder Richard Kruspe has cited his love of Kraftwerk as formative.
• Laibach — Laibach's electronic, mechanised sound draws on the German electronic tradition of Kraftwerk.
• Soft Cell — The machine half. Two people and a synthesizer making a pop record was Kraftwerk's demonstration before it was anyone's format.
• Robert Miles — The machine underneath. What separated 'Children' from the piano house around it was that the pulse never wavered while the melody did all the moving.
• Space — Marouani had heard early Kraftwerk LPs and was fascinated by their synthesizers — the minimalist electronic pulse under 'Magic Fly'.
• Scooter — As a German electronic act, Scooter descends from Kraftwerk's foundational man-machine electronics — the national forebears of their synthesized dance sound.
• David Bowie — Bowie's Berlin Trilogy ('Low', 'Heroes', 'Lodger') was directly triggered by hearing Kraftwerk's 'Autobahn' on tour.
• Brian Eno — Eno cited Kraftwerk's systematic approach to timbre and texture as a key influence on his ambient and production work.
• Cabaret Voltaire — Cabaret Voltaire cited Kraftwerk's rhythmic machine music as a direct model for their tape-loop and synthesizer experiments.
• Joy Division — Kraftwerk's cold, mechanised rhythms were central to Joy Division's industrial atmosphere and use of drum machines.
• New Order — New Order's turn to electronic dance music was explicitly driven by their admiration for Kraftwerk's rhythmic precision.
• Moby — Kraftwerk's electronic pop is the acknowledged foundation of the techno tradition in which Moby's early rave records were made.
• Daft Punk — Kraftwerk's man-machine aesthetic — robot personas included — is the acknowledged foundation of Daft Punk's whole concept.
• Alphaville — Kraftwerk's synthesizer pop was the German foundation on which Alphaville's fully electronic sound was built.
• Depeche Mode — Martin Gore has named Kraftwerk the band that showed them pop could be made entirely of synthesizers.
• Juan Atkins — Atkins has named Kraftwerk the spark of techno — 'they were so clean, so precise, so mechanical: that's what I wanted'.
• Derrick May — May's own definition of techno names its parents: 'like George Clinton and Kraftwerk stuck in an elevator'.
• Jeff Mills — Mills has named Kraftwerk his conceptual model — machine precision as artistic identity.
• Underworld — Hyde and Smith have named Kraftwerk the foundation of their electronic conversion — the machine romance under Born Slippy.
• Orbital — The Hartnolls have named Kraftwerk their first electronic love — the melodic machine tradition under 'Chime'.
• Autechre — Booth and Brown came up through electro — the body-popping culture built directly on Kraftwerk's beat.
• Neu! — Rother and Dinger played in Kraftwerk itself in 1971 before splitting off to found Neu! — the most direct lineage in krautrock.
• Stereolab — Kraftwerk's electronic pop is among the machine-music influences woven into Stereolab's sound.
• Eurythmics — Lennox and Stewart took their electronic idea to Conny Plank's studio — Kraftwerk's own producer; Stewart described the duo's sound as 'Kraftwerk meets African tribal meets Booker T and the MGs'.
• Simple Minds — Empires and Dance (1980) was built on the industrial-electronic rhythms of Kraftwerk, Neu! and Cabaret Voltaire — the krautrock turn from punk.
• Pet Shop Boys — Kraftwerk's electronic pop is the acknowledged architecture beneath the Pet Shop Boys' machine songcraft.
• Ultravox — Kraftwerk's electronic pop was the acknowledged machine foundation beneath Ultravox's synth-driven turn on Systems of Romance and Vienna.
• The Human League — The Human League built themselves on Kraftwerk — the electronic pop blueprint the Sheffield band took as their founding creed.
• Ryuichi Sakamoto — Kraftwerk's machine-precise electronic pop was the other pole of Sakamoto's music alongside Debussy, and the direct model for Yellow Magic Orchestra's technopop.
• Yellow Magic Orchestra — YMO built technopop on Kraftwerk — the man-machine template the Tokyo trio localized and accelerated.
• Tubeway Army — Kraftwerk's machine pop gave Numan the synthesizer language of 'Are Friends Electric?'.
• Devo — Devo's mechanised rhythm comes out of the same electronic experiment as Kraftwerk's, set against punk instead of against the autobahn.
• Soulsonic Force — 'Planet Rock' borrowed the melody of Kraftwerk's 'Trans-Europe Express' and the rhythm of 'Numbers', founding electro on their electronic sound.
• Fearless Four — Their electro single 'Rockin' It' drew on Kraftwerk's synthesizer sound.
• Newcleus — Newcleus named Kraftwerk a chief influence and openly borrowed rhythms from them for their electro sound.
• Franz Ferdinand — Kraftwerk's electronic pulse is part of the danceable machine-rhythm Franz Ferdinand built into their guitar pop.
• Röyksopp — Kraftwerk's melodic, machine-precise electronic pop is foundational to Röyksopp's warm downtempo and synth-pop.
• Hot Chip — Kraftwerk's electronic pop foundation runs through Hot Chip's synth-driven productions.
• Crystal Castles — Kraftwerk's pioneering electronic pop is among the acts AllMusic lists behind Crystal Castles' lo-fi electronics.
• Leftfield — Kraftwerk's electronic template is part of the machine-music lineage behind Leftfield's productions.
• Wire — What turned Pink Flag into Chairs Missing and 154 — the decision to build a song out of a pulse and a texture instead of a riff.
• LCD Soundsystem — Named by James Murphy among his influences, with Suicide, Talking Heads and Eno.