Kraftwerk was a very unique group of musicians with a knack for exploring the unknown and turning it into great music. The image or look that they were going for was sort of "Hitler-like." They had short dark hair and dressed in two-piece suits. You could see this on their album cover and they also performed at live shows in this type of attire. Their musical sound originated from the classical and experimental. Their sound was classified as "Krautrock", an experimental German sound (The Story of Kraftwerk/Youtube.com). They used the Beach Boys way of making their musical sound the sound of the America and made their sound into the German sound with the album "Autobahn" (Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution/Veho.com). They knew that in order to become successful that the key was to create their own sound and that's exactly what they did. A lot of their music was experimental music. Most of their music was created by the original two members of the band, Ralf and Florian. They had a few producers and hired musicians who helped them in creating their "Kraftwerk" sound, but they were the main contributors. The band started out with Conny Plank as their producer, but later turned to doing everything on their own before later adding Brian Eno and David Bowie. They had a lot of friends who were up-to-date on technology and had instruments specially tailored for the band. Their albums between 1974-1981 were all created in their studio "Kling Klang." The albums during this time had a subject matter and were very conceptual beginning to end. The album "Trans-Euro Express" was influenced by train and travel throughout the country. Their songs were in their native language as well as French and English. This was a major part in the success of the band and their music. Their lyrical content was kind of senseless in a way and helped in setting them apart from other musicians by becoming sort of an artistic statement (Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution/Veho.com). As a listener, their sound was fun and easy to listen to. As a professional, I really enjoyed the creativeness and daring approach that they took in creating music.
Great job Martarius on your blog post about the group “Kraftwerk” and their innovative approach to making great music, I like the fact that you mentioned how they used a “Hitler-like” theme for their visual look and locked it to the feel of their music. The fact that they based their album "Autobahn" on the Beach Boys sound and harmonies is timely, they used the combination of the classical and experimental music to craft a sound that hit the dance floors on both sides of the Atlantic made them a huge success. Overall this is a great post, but I would keep an eye on your grammar and maybe add some images to help your blog stand out. Thanks for your post.
ReplyDeleteLaman Richards
Initially, like many artists, musicians and groups at the time they’re doing their thing, many of their releases, along the same lines of The Velvet Underground, weren’t very successful commercially and weren’t getting the praise and recognition they deserved; to reference the point brought up in the Kraftwerk video, their music was causing people to leave the dance floor in droves. They weren’t the sexiest group of their time and their lyrics weren’t anything to write home about either but we have to dig deeper than what they were at the surface and take into account the mark they left on electronic music historically with their musical, artistic, creative and personal developments.
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