John Darko
Are Kraftwerk more influential than The Beatles? Paul Morley made a case in the affirmative for the BBC in 2015. Deutsche Welle did the same more recently.
This will undoubtedly be seen by some Fab Four fans as a controversial assertion — one that might trigger emotions before logic. In an audiophile world dominated by Baby Boomers, many of whom grew up on The Beatles, we often hear table-thumping about ‘playing real instruments’ and ‘soullessness‘ before we get any proper analysis or scaffolded counter-argument.
So, consider this: The Beatles took strong cues from Chuck Berry. Their influences were as overt as they were obvious:
But Kraftwerk’s electronic sound had no obvious influences. Their music was borne of a desire to escape Germany’s troubled past. We might hear them as the patient zero of popular electronic music.
Moreover, without the influence of Kraftwerk’s classic album run – Autobahn (1974), Radioactivity (1975) and Trans Europe Express (1977) – house music might not have blossomed in Chicago in the mid/late-80s. Similarly, Techno might not have taken hold of Detroit at the same time to (in a neat twist) feed back into Berlin in the early 1990s. Electronic music would not be as it is today without Kraftwerk.
But what if you, like many audiophiles, grew up in the 1960s on a diet of Beatles and Stones, picked up a little Kraftwerk enthusiasm with Autobahn and Radioactivity, investigated Tangerine Dream’s Phaedra and maybe dove into Can’s Tago Mago before unwittingly checking out of new music discovery as adult life and its responsibilities took hold?
How would you then discover newer music that reflects the sound of Kraftwerk’s studio work or the beefed-up – and I would argue superior – reworks that they now play live?
Allow me to present a playlist called “Das klingt wie Kraftwerk, oder?” (“That sounds like Kraftwerk, right?”). Ten cuts from the last forty years that not only mainline the spirit of Kraftwerk’s Maschinemusik but also carry its sonic DNA.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4UnHB5NsxY4w2cotRmhykP?si=5b132ac32c9a4a2d
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/de/playlist/das-klingt-wie-kraftwerk-oder/pl.u-5gx7T8YpLAp?l=en-GB
Tidal: https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/e862582e-0b37-4430-8591-7e248cc948d9
Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/18973495
If you like what you hear, Part 2 of this playlist series – featuring ten more songs that sound like Kraftwerk – will shortly be appearing on the Darko.Audio Patreon.
UPDATE: Part 2 of this playlist series is now on Patreon but Qobuz users are advised that six (6!) of the playlist’s ten songs are missing from the Qobuz library. ☹️
