History Music / Kraftwerk

* ''Music/TheManMachine[[note]]Original German title: ''Die Mensch-Maschine''[[/note]] (1978)

* ''Electric Café''[[note]]Originally titled ''Techno Pop''; was rereleased in 2009 under that title.[[/labelnote]] (1986)

* ''Tone Float'' (1969 - as Organisation) [[note]] The common CD edition of this album, released without the band's consent (as they've disowned their first four LP's) amends the credit to 'Kraftwerk / Organisation'. [[/note]]

* ''Radio-Activity'' (1975)
* ''Music/TransEuropeExpress'' (1977)
* ''[[Music/TheManMachine Die Mensch-Maschine]]'' (1978) [[note]] An English version was released titled "The Man Machine". [[/note]]
* ''Music/ComputerWorld'' (1981)
* ''Electric Café'' (1986) [[note]] It was originally named ''Techno Pop'', and was rereleased in 2009 with that title. [[/note]]

On May 6, 2020, Florian Schneider passed away of cancer just a few days after his 73rd birthday..

On May 6, 2020, Florian Schneider passed away of cancer just a few days after his 73rd birthday; he will be missed.

* {{Irony}}: As of 2016, Florian is on good terms with Karl and Wolfgang. Fifteen years prior, Florian [[https://youtu.be/RFKMRqhfBeI?t=97 refused to speak of either of them]].

Kraftwerk is a German electronic group based in Düsseldorf, Germany, noted for such songs as "Autobahn", "Trans-Europe Express", "The Model", "The Robots", and "Computer Love". Originating in the [[{{Krautrock}} highly experimental rock scene]] of 1970s UsefulNotes/WestGermany, they're practically the TropeMakers of ElectronicMusic in general, being among the very first groups to begin experimenting making music entirely electronically, starting in the early '70s. They are directly responsible for the existence of modern electronic Dance music, from Techno, {{Industrial}} and EBM to SynthPop and even early Hip-Hop.

Their songs mainly have to do with technology ("Kraftwerk" is German for "Power Plant"). Their [[KayfabeMusic gimmick]] was that they were robots; Kraftwerk will often put on concerts and give interviews through robotic replicas of themselves. The robots became less and less human-like over the years.

* PoeticJustice: The single ''Tour de France'' was supposed to have been issued as the first single from the album ''Techno Pop'', before the production work on the album had been completed. The album was shelved when Ralf ended up in a coma from a cycling accident.

* [[SharpDressedMan Sharp-Dressed Men]]: See above image. Their formal, clean-cut image made them stand out from their more casually-dressed contemporaries.

* ''Radioactivity'' (1975)

* LoudnessWar: Downplayed at worst. As one might expect, their remasters have been slightly louder than the original CDs, which ranged in the [=DR13-15=] range, but they've never released a CD that scored worse than [=DR8=]. All of the discs in the ''3-D'' box set from 2017 were either [=DR11=] or [=DR12=].

* [[SharpDressedMan Sharp-Dressed Men]]: See above image. Their formal, clean-cut image made them stand out during the late 70s.

* [[SharpDressedMan Sharp-Dressed Men]]: Their formal, clean-cut image made them stand out during the late 70s.

Kraftwerk is a German electronic group based in Düsseldorf, Germany, noted for such songs as "Autobahn", "Trans-Europe Express", "The Model", "The Robots", and "Computer Love". Originating in the [[{{Krautrock}} highly experimental rock scene]] of 1970s UsefulNotes/WestGermany, they're practically the TropeMakers of ElectronicMusic in general, being among the very first groups to begin experimenting making music electronically, starting in the early '70s. They are directly responsible for the existence of modern electronic Dance music, from Techno, {{Industrial}} and EBM to SynthPop and even early Hip-Hop.

** "The Robots" has the phrase in Russian, ''"Я твой слуга, я твой работник."'' "I'm your servant, I'm your worker."

Kraftwerk is a German electronic group based in Düsseldorf, Germany, noted for such songs as "Autobahn", "The Model", "Computer Love", "The Robots", and "Trans-Europe Express". Originating in the [[{{Krautrock}} highly experimental rock scene]] of 1970s UsefulNotes/WestGermany, they're practically the TropeMakers of ElectronicMusic in general, being among the very first groups to begin experimenting making music electronically, starting in the early '70s. They are directly responsible for the existence of modern electronic Dance music, from Techno, {{Industrial}} and EBM to SynthPop and even early Hip-Hop.

* EpicRocking: All tracks from their debut album (the shortest is "Ruckzuck" with 7:47), "Kling-Klang" (17:36) and "Wellenlänge" (9:40) from their second album, "Ananas Symphonie" (13:55) from ''Ralf und Florian'', "Autobahn" (22:43) and the two-part "Kometenmelodie" (which totals over 12 minutes) from ''Autobahn'', the title track (6:42) from ''Radio-Activity'', the title track (6:52) from ''Trans-Europe Express'',[[note]]The track that follows it, "Metal on Metal", is a seamless continuation of it, making it total almost 14 minutes[[/note]] "Neon Lights" from ''The Man-Machine'' and "Computer Love" from ''Computer World''.

* EpicRocking: All tracks from their debut album (the shortest is "Ruckzuck" with 7:47), "Kling-Klang" (17:36) and "Wellenlänge" (9:40) from their second album, "Ananas Symphonie" (13:55) from ''Ralf und Florian'', "Autobahn" (22:43) and the two-part "Kometenmelodie" (which totals over 12 minutes) from ''Autobahn'', the title track (6:42) from ''Radio-Activity'', the title track (6:52) from ''Trans-Europe Express'',[[note]]And that's not even counting the fact that the two tracks that follow it, "Metal on Metal" and "Abzug", clearly are seamless continuations of it, making it total almost 14 minutes[[/note]] "Neon Lights" from ''The Man-Machine'' and "Computer Love" from ''Computer World''.

** In ''Music/ComputerWorld'' Expect to hear the word "computer" on most songs.

* EpicRocking: All tracks from their debut album (the shortest is "Ruckzuck" with 7:47), "Kling-Klang" (17:36) and "Wellenlänge" (9:40) from their second album, "Ananas Symphonie" (13:55) from ''Ralf und Florian'', "Autobahn" (22:43) and the two-part "Kometenmelodie" (which totals over 12 minutes) from ''Autobahn'', the title track (6:42) from ''Radio-Activity'', "Neon Lights" from ''The Man-Machine'' and "Computer Love" from ''Computer World''.

* RobotOrSpacemanAlterEgo: It is because of Kraftwerk presenting themselves as robots circa 1978 that a number of electronic bands have adopted robot or spaceman alter egos.

-->"The Model"

'''Kraftwerk''' is a German electronic group based in Düsseldorf, Germany, noted for such songs as "Autobahn", "The Robots", and "Trans-Europe Express". Originating in the [[{{Krautrock}} highly experimental rock scene]] of 1970s UsefulNotes/WestGermany, they're practically the TropeMakers of ElectronicMusic in general, being among the very first groups to begin experimenting making music electronically, starting in the early '70s. They are directly responsible for the existence of modern electronic Dance music, from Techno, {{Industrial}} and EBM to SynthPop and even early Hip-Hop.

* AnimatedMusicVideo: Musique Non-Stop, one of the [[TropeMakers first]] computer animated videos.
* ArcWords: Expect to hear the word "computer" on most songs in ''Music/ComputerWorld''.

* AuthorAppeal: Ralf Hütter loves cycling so much he and his band wrote a song about the biggest race in cycling, "Tour de France", completed with sampled voices and mechanical sounds associated with cycling. They even go further by writing an album about it.
** Hütter suffered a cycling accident that left him in a coma during the initial sessions for ''Techno Pop'' (the album that became ''Electric Café''), and Karl Bartos once mentioned that the first thing Hütter said after waking up was "Where's my bicycle?". Hütter denied Bartos' account, but did admit that it made for a good story.

--> ''By pressing down a special key, it plays a little melody.''

** "The Robots": ''"Я твой слуга, я твой работник."'' [[spoiler: "I'm your servant, I'm your worker."]]

* BunnyEarsLawyer / ReclusiveArtist: They rarely give interviews. They usually use dummies or custom-made robots for promo photo shoots instead of themselves. All we know about their studio is its name and the address in Düsseldorf where it ''used'' to be. They are also extremely hard to contact. For example, their studio telephone didn't have a ringer because they considered it "noise pollution" during recording. If you really wanted to contact them they would instruct you to call precisely at a certain time, and Ralf Hütter would answer the call himself even though there was no phone ring.
** Allegedly, when Chris Martin contacted them (through their lawyers) to request permission to sample "Computer Love" for the Music/{{Coldplay}} song "Talk," they responded by mailing him a piece of yellow legal paper with nothing but the word "Yes" written on it.

--> '''Interviewer''': What are the songs that you are going to play?
--> ''* {{Beat}} *''
--> '''Florian Schneider''': [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments All]].
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Basically everything before ''Music/{{Autobahn}}'' is quite a bit different from their later work.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCg7hPeUdvE Compare this to anything after ''Autobahn''...]]
** Any suggestion that Florian Schneider played the flute is the product of a highly deranged imagination.
* EpicRocking: The 24 minute long "Autobahn".
** AdaptationDistillation: The version played live, post-''The Mix'', is compressed down to 9 minutes, but retains all the high points of the original. The same thing happened to the single version, which was slashed down to 3 minutes but still kept the best parts of the song.
** Other tracks that are this are: All tracks from their debut, "Kling-Klang" and "Wellenlänge" from their second album, "Ananas Symphonie" from ''Ralf und Florian'', the two-part "Kometenmelodie" from ''Autobahn'', "Neon Lights" from ''The Man-Machine'' and "Computer Love" from ''Computer World''.

* FloatingHeadSyndrome: A few albums have this, namely ''Music/ComputerWorld'' and ''Electric Cafe''.

* GermanicEfficiency: If you've ever wondered what GermanicEfficiency ''sounds'' like, this is it.
** They wanted to make music that sounded like '70s Germany, in the same way that the music of Music/TheBeachBoys sounded like early '60s California.

* TheKnightsWhoSaySquee: Ralf and Florian met Music/DavidBowie and Music/IggyPop, with Bowie interested the Kraftwerk's music, and Florian, a big fan of both Music/TheStooges and Bowie.
* KrautRock: They were classified as this in their early years, back before they started using exclusively electronic instruments. In fact, the members of Music/{{Neu}} were members of Kraftwerk first, and played on the first SelfTitledAlbum.
* LoopedLyrics / TitleOnlyChorus: Several songs, almost the majority of them in fact.

* MoodWhiplash: Occasionally they'd throw in a love song on their albums, such as "The Model", "Computer Love" and "Sex Object" (though that last one is more of an AntiLoveSong), quite a shift from singing about robots, pocket calculators and radioactivity.
** Ironically enough, "The Model" is the band's most popular song with the general public. That is probably because most people can relate to a man singing about his attraction to a beautiful woman, but much fewer people can relate to lyrics about science and technology.
* {{Mondegreen}}: One of the more famous ones is the "Wir fahren fahren fahren auf der Autobahn" chorus of "Autobahn", which was frequently misheard as "[[Music/TheBeachBoys Fun fun fun]] on the Autobahn". Hütter didn't mind the mishearing, as he has frequently cited The Beach Boys as one of his favourite bands.

* OurGraphicsWillSuckInTheFuture: A few of their album covers.
** Intentionally invoked in the remastered CD editions (which originated with the ''Catalogue'' box), as the cover artwork for each album is reduced to a single, incredibly simple, large icon.
** Both ''Kraftwerk'' and ''Kraftwerk 2'' depicted only a simple drawing of a road cone, which nonetheless became iconic. The same image was used for each LP albeit re-colored, allowing fans to nickname the albums "Red Cone" (''Kraftwerk'') and "Green Cone" (''Kraftwerk 2'').
*** Bootleggers took this even further -- a bootleg edition of ''Ralf und Florian'' replaces the original cover depicting the two artists with a blue cone to match the first two albums. And to complete the 'cone' quadrilogy, one version of the bootleg ''K4'' (a live performance of otherwise-unavailable material recorded between the first two self-titled albums) depicts a yellow cone on its cover!

* ProtestSong: "Radioactivity." The original lyrics mixed references to Madame Curie (radioactivity) with "Tune in to the melody..." (radio activity - i.e. listening to the radio) but later live versions, and the version from the 1991 album ''The Mix'', make it an explicitly anti-nuclear anthem, specifically the proposed second processing plant at the Sellafield processing site in Seascale, England:
--> ''Sellafield-2 will produce 7.5 tons of plutonium every year. [[ArtisticLicenseNuclearPhysics 1.5 kilogram of plutonium make a nuclear bomb.]] Sellafield-2 will release the same amount of radioactivity into the environment as [[GoingCritical Chernobyl]] every 4.5 years. One of these radioactive substances, Krypton-85, will cause death and skin cancer.''
** "It's in the air, for you and me."
** In 2012, Kraftwerk started performing an altered version of Radioactivity with new, Japanese lyrics concerning Fukushima.
* RealSongThemeTune: Happened at least twice. For its initial 1983-1990 run, the {{Edutainment}} show ''Newton's Apple'' used "Ruckzuck" (from their long-disowned debut album) as its theme (it was replaced for the home soundtrack due to licensing issues), and the ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' sketch "Sprockets" used a sped up [[note]] specifically, playing a 33 RPM record at 45 RPM [[/note]] version of "Electric Café"'s 'chorus' melody.
** The Chinese film ''Film/MasterOfTheFlyingGuillotine'' uses "Kometenmelodie", "Mitternacht" and "Morgenspaziergang" off of the ''Music/{{Autobahn}}'' album as most of its {{BGM}}.

* RobotOrSpacemanAlterEgo: See above.

* ShoutOut: The "eins zwei drei vier" count that begins "Showroom Dummies" was made as a reference to Music/TheRamones' habit of starting their songs with Dee Dee quickly shouting "one two three four!"

* TitleOnlyChorus

* UpdatedRerelease: ''The Mix'', which re-records some of the group's best known songs on what was then the most up-to-date synth technology.
** 2017's ''3D - The Catalog''release can be seen as an updated version of ''The Mix'', much longer (covering 8 of their albums) and with more re-recorded songs from their 3D live concerts.
* {{Zeerust}}: Some of their older works sounded futuristic at the time but are somewhat dated now, or they've already come true, like ''Music/ComputerWorld.''
** The version of "Computer World" on the 2005 live album ''Minimum-Maximum'' still references [[TheGreatPoliticsMessUp the KGB.]]

'''Kraftwerk''' is a German electronic group based in Düsseldorf, Germany, noted for such songs as "Autobahn", "The Robots", and "Trans-Europe Express". Originating in the [[{{Krautrock}} highly experimental rock scene]] of 1970s WestGermany, they're practically the TropeMakers of ElectronicMusic in general, being among the very first groups to begin experimenting making music electronically, starting in the early '70s. They are directly responsible for the existence of modern electronic Dance music, from Techno, {{Industrial}} and EBM to SynthPop and even early Hip-Hop.

* ArcWords: Expect to hear the word "computer" on most songs in Music/ComputerWorld.
** In Electric Cafe, the words "Music Non Stop, Techno Pop." are repeated in the majority of songs. They're also the titles of two of the tracks.

* ArcWords: Expect to hear the word "computer" on most songs in ''Music/ComputerWorld''.