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Joined: September 03 2005
Location: Olympus Mons
Status: Offline
Points: 15926
Posted: March 13 2016 at 06:24
Davesax1965 wrote:
I do wish people would stop linking all German 1970's bands under one arbitrary label.
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I use the term 'Krautrock' firmly applying to their first 3 albums - maybe Side 2 of Autobahn too. Then they went all 'electronic' and 'robotic', but I never considered them 'selling out', just 'progressing'. Revolutionary even.
Joined: February 01 2011
Location: Michigan
Status: Offline
Points: 13228
Posted: March 13 2016 at 12:32
I got the general idea with "Autobahn" and never listened again. Until now, of course. I listened again, heard that cheap Casio and metronomic drum machine crap and decided I was right the first go round.
...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology...
Joined: March 28 2010
Location: Alabama
Status: Offline
Points: 2866
Posted: March 13 2016 at 13:10
The Dark Elf wrote:
I got the general idea with "Autobahn" and never listened again. Until now, of course. I listened again, heard that cheap Casio and metronomic drum machine crap and decided I was right the first go round.
Joined: February 01 2011
Location: Michigan
Status: Offline
Points: 13228
Posted: March 13 2016 at 13:17
Sheavy wrote:
The Dark Elf wrote:
I got the general idea with "Autobahn" and never listened again. Until now, of course. I listened again, heard that cheap Casio and metronomic drum machine crap and decided I was right the first go round.
A casio? In 1974?
They were crappy ahead of the crappy curve.
...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology...
Joined: May 23 2013
Location: UK
Status: Offline
Points: 2839
Posted: March 14 2016 at 03:42
Son.of.Tiresias wrote:
haters go hate, usually having no idea about the subject really... as interesting as watch a dog boob
No, it's not "haters go hate" - it's not that simple. From a musical perspective, they are the antithesis of prog rock. Everything is remarkably simple and predictable. Contrast and compare to Tangerine Dream - who are simple enough in places (up until the late 70's).
This is not "haters go hate" - or "having no idea about the subject. " I think I know what I'm talking about here, having just built a Eurorack modular at component level.
Kraftwerk used a very simple setup, wrote very simple, populist tunes (at least in later life) - it's basically electronic pop and no longer serious music. It may have been revolutionary in some ways, but just using a synth was deemed "revolutionary" for some bands in the 1970's. Much, much more musically revolutionary stuff came out of Germany in the late 60's and 70's.
I can play Autobahn with one hand. It's deliberately composed ("no idea about the subject") not to use any of the "difficult black keys". It neither excites or challenges me. I'd say I was just "bored" by it, but all the media circus around it leads me to a conclusion that I "dislike" it. It's really just fluff propped up by marketing.
haters go hate, usually having no idea about the subject really... as interesting as watch a dog boob
No, it's not "haters go hate" - it's not that simple. From a musical perspective, they are the antithesis of prog rock. Everything is remarkably simple and predictable. Contrast and compare to Tangerine Dream - who are simple enough in places (up until the late 70's).
This is not "haters go hate" - or "having no idea about the subject. " I think I know what I'm talking about here, having just built a Eurorack modular at component level.
Kraftwerk used a very simple setup, wrote very simple, populist tunes (at least in later life) - it's basically electronic pop and no longer serious music. It may have been revolutionary in some ways, but just using a synth was deemed "revolutionary" for some bands in the 1970's. Much, much more musically revolutionary stuff came out of Germany in the late 60's and 70's.
I can play Autobahn with one hand. It's deliberately composed ("no idea about the subject") not to use any of the "difficult black keys". It neither excites or challenges me. I'd say I was just "bored" by it, but all the media circus around it leads me to a conclusion that I "dislike" it. It's really just fluff propped up by marketing.
Very well, your opinion, you explained it well. It was my joke OK. Still, why do hate them or anything that is in their primary level. Unless they can make huge money for somebody else´s work. Surely they were below the average German prog at the beginning but they were experimental, nevertheless n their own way. They weren´t the brightest of the genre for sure. They may even have tought that they really were progressive, perhaps namely because were using simplest gear. And because of that they may have even been very proud of their work. This of course has nothing to with real gift or creativity. They thought being cool but actually weren´t. Usually naive people think being really good.
I mean, I can play the famous solo of Steve Hackett´s finest, namely "Firth of Fifth" very very good.
I can copy note by note perfectly but this has nothing to do with real talent, it may actually sound very clumsy to a trained ear and a true musician.
First, I ain´t no expert on electronic (rock) music either, I just occasionally listen some Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze but the first from TD is intorerable, also "Alpha Centauri" is quite boring but their mid-seventies albums are getting interesting... I never took Kraftwerk so seriously really and wasted no more time with their albums. They turned into electronical pop for sure. Actually they invented "computer rock/pop", music done by machines ? As I said I ain´t do specialist but Kraftwerk were pioneers in programmed/computerized pop ? So they were kinda forerunners on serious computer music, actually funny impression ? Well, they turned into banality nevertheless.
Joined: June 25 2013
Location: Portugal
Status: Offline
Points: 10278
Posted: March 14 2016 at 07:39
I don't find them particularly great but I enjoy their music and that album has an obscure mood I like. Saying that electronic music wouldn't exist without them is an overstatement, in my opinion but I think their work was fundamental for the creation of Synthpop and New Wave.
Kraftwerk have two very different sounding stages to their career: before and after Autobahn. Their early krautrock years are definitely my favourite..
I gather most folks instantly think of 'The Robots' or something to that effect when they hear Kraftwerk mentioned. I bet they haven't heard this:
“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
Joined: January 04 2007
Location: Grok City
Status: Offline
Points: 18066
Posted: March 15 2016 at 11:57
Davesax1965 wrote:
Can't stand Kraftwerk. Simplistic, pop, nope, not for me.
Actually, all the early synthesizer folks were very simplistic ... and things like NEU and many others around them were simply the turning on a knob with effects on it, which was something new at the time ... and today we can buy that effect on a VST, and it cost 3 cents, and in many cases even less.
KRAFTWERK, starting with the Autobahn piece, went on to make what has been described as "commercial music" which differed from the others that took music much more seriously and composed like it, on the synthesizer ... but that is not to say that Vangelis, or Tangerine Dream, never spent 5 minutes turning a knob with different effects, they simply disguised it better as a musical form, instead of just playing child like games with it.
I do not dislike KRAFTWERK, and they deserve their spot, but I would not consider them serious composers like I do TD, KS and many others. Ans yes, I would consider KRAFTWERK pop, but only going back to Autobahn as the earlier stuff was a bit different, even though it already had some pop elements in it.
It was a natural development of the synthesizer ... the easiest one of all to make and do, I suppose we could say.
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com
Joined: May 23 2013
Location: UK
Status: Offline
Points: 2839
Posted: March 16 2016 at 10:32
I'm going to remove what I posted here before. As it turned into a rant.
Mosh: you need to realise that electronic music bands - early ones - did nothing "simplistic", in that not many of them "just turned a knob with an effect on it" and that Tangerine Dream "didn't turn a knob with an effect on it for five minutes and disguise it as music more successfully."
Kraftwerk are MUSICALLY simplistic. There is a difference between being musically simplistic and technically simplistic. In 1974, most of this was technically revolutionary, but hardly musically so.
Can I just remind you of what I build for a hobby, Mosh ? At component level, ie. soldering iron, bag of resistors ?? ;-)
If I put you in front of this, without it being patched up, and invite you "just to turn a knob", it may be several years before you work out how to get a single sound out of it.
Please don't denigrate people based on a very slight understanding of what they were doing.
Joined: May 23 2013
Location: UK
Status: Offline
Points: 2839
Posted: March 16 2016 at 10:34
PS Guldbalmsen, thanks for that earlier Ruckzuck post. Enjoyed it - it'd passed me by beforehand.
In 40 years of playing, I've never been tempted to buy a drum machine. As soon as Kraftwerk switched over to drum machines, well, that was the end of it, really. ;-) (By contrast, TD used a much more complicated method of doing electronic percussion.)
Kraftwerk - even the simplistic stuff they did later, is influential on modern electronic music. That's not to say it was good or revolutionary, but it certainly did condition and form the basis of synthpop and New Wave. Turning the contour down on an early Mini produced a different sound. I have no problems with them doing it - what I have issues with is the total commercialism they sank to, becoming a parody of their former selves.
Joined: December 27 2012
Location: Oakland, CA
Status: Offline
Points: 308
Posted: March 16 2016 at 12:10
I never realized how divisive Kraftwerk are! I am a huge fan, own most of their catalog. I'm not a huge fan of the early, more experimental phase. Autobahn & The Man-Machine are my favorites from the middle period, and maybe I am one of the few that really likes Tour de France Soundtracks & the live stuff after that.
To me, their approach seems to be to boil things down to the essentials - melody, lyrics, sounds. Some perceive this as simplistic, but to me it's a different approach than virtuosity or complexity. I don't think they were trying to be the "best" - they were just making the music they wanted to make, and this changed over time, and was also tied in with the visual aesthetic which also changed over time.
Question - when did they start using programmed drums? I think it is later than most people think - Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos played percussion in the classic period from the mid-'70s - if I remember correctly, in "I Was A Robot," Flür talks about wanting to help design the electronic percussion instruments but his efforts being rejected by either Ralf Hütter or Florian Schneider (can't remember which) rejecting the offer. I think some people think that they are using some kind of simple drum machine on albums like Autobahn or The Man-Machine but I think this may not be the case. I wonder when drum machines/sequencers began to be used to the exclusion of electronic percussion performed by "humans"?
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