German Humor in Response to Brazilian Questions

A postscript to my last blog on Kraftwerk...

Kraftwerk, Techno, Hip Hop

It wasn't just David Bowie who was influenced by the German bands of the 1970s. Post punk, electronica and indie artists have been inspired by everybody from Faust to Can and Kraftwerk in particular have left their imprint on techno and early hip hop. Although Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütter were not too pleased when they found out that Afrika Bambaataa had used their songs "Trans Europe Express" and "Numbers" without permission, we should be thankful he did. Equally drawing on George Clinton's electro funk and Kraftwerk's Teutonic robot music, hip hop pioneers created a genre that is still with us today, more than three decades after its inception. The video to "Planet Rock" has some kick-ass dance moves too.

Bowie & Berlin

Although I've been researching Krautrock for about two years now, there are still many loose ends and much music to explore -- quite amazing, for instance, the underwater music of Jürgen Müller that has just very recently come to the surface (pun intended): http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15696-science-of-the-sea/  -- and in the last few weeks I have been listening to a lot of Ton Steine Scherben, a group from the squatter movement I disliked when I was younger but that I have become very fond of, especially their less agitative but nonetheless deeply political album Wenn die Nacht am tiefsten ist.
I have so much more to say about the Scherben but I also wanted to mention that I've been listening to a lot of David Bowie. Strong connections exist between Bowie and Krautrock groups Kraftwerk, Neu! and Cluster. Some of Bowie's best music was heavily influenced by Krautrock as was the music of Iggy Pop and Brian Eno -- there are collaborations between Eno and Cluster (and Eno and Harmonia). Bowie recorded two albums in Berlin and one other that also, at least in spirit, belongs to the Berlin Trilogy. Heroes was named after the Neu! song "Hero" and name-checks Kraftwerk's Florian Schneider on "V2 Schneider." Low has instrumentals that would have made Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother proud. And Lodger, while not recorded in Berlin, owes much to Krautrock as well. Just one example: "Red Sails," which completely rips off Klaus Dinger's Neu! beat. See examples below.

Of course Bowie is fantastic but Neu! deserves some credit as well. I've been spending an entire month with them and I will get back to the details later...

Can and Kraftwerk and National Identity

Since I write academic texts I try to find arguments. The argument I've developed so far over two academic articles -- one accepted and one submitted -- connects Krautrock with questions about German identity. Krautrock oftentimes is an attempt to develop a new/different German national identity from the "rubble" of World War II. If we take some of the best known groups, we can see how this is done differently but with a similar goal. The goal is to move away from the Nazi past. Kraftwerk do this by ironically playing up their German identity -- they are the robots.


Can had a different strategy. They employed an African American and then a Japanese singer (Damo Suzuki). They incorporated elements of music from around the world. They confronted the German past through becoming international.


Both Can and Kraftwerk moved away from blues-based African American and Anglo American music. This is also true for Neu!, of whom I have a lot more to say soon.

"Krautrock"?

Let's start at the beginning... in the beginning was the word, and the word was krautrock. The term itself is heavily contested. Someone in the UK came up with it. It doesn't really matter whether it was radio DJ John Peel or somebody at the New Musical Express -- the term has stuck even though most musicians associated with it don't like it and even though the German music press didn't use it until 1974. Kraut of course comes from sauerkraut and it's a not-so-nice term Brits use to call Germans -- in the same spirit of labeling all Americans yanks. In German, kraut can refer to many things, among them herbs, weeds, drugs... all said, the term is now used in reverent tones by U.S. music publications like Pitchfork and has even gained some acceptance in Germany... blame it on Julian Cope and his seminal but flawed book Krautrocksampler.


I'm starting this blog to exchange ideas about Krautrock -- and all its related styles, from kosmische Musik to Deutschrock -- so anybody else who is interested in this topic is welcome to chime in. I will have more to say about Neu!, Kraftwerk, Can, Cluster, Faust, Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Amon Duul II, Popol Vuh, Ton Steine Scherben, La Dusseldorf -- and I will figure out how to use the umlaut on here -- but I just wanted to get this blog rolling.