Kraftwerk
Autobahn

Essential History of Electronic Music

VI. Dance in the Era of Kraftwerk

In 1893, the Franco-Scottish William Dickson, the driving mind behind Thomas Edison's laboratories, invented the kinetoscope. This curious invention, capable of reproducing the effect of movement through a sequence of images, laid the foundations of an art whose paternity would be disputed in the decades to come between Edison and the Lumière brothers; in essence, Dickson invented cinema, only sensing its potential when he decided to part ways with his mentor, who was too focused on the developments of the newborn phonograph. The Breton lit the fuse of the cinematograph, without conceiving the camera: he was the precursor, not the inventor.

Similarly, in the flourishing Germany of the '70s, Kraftwerk, essentially identified in the stubborn minds of Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider, elaborated the electronic style so dear to German culture, forging consumer electronics, disco music that is not danced in clubs, music for the masses without the masses. After controversial beginnings credited first to the collective "Organisation," then to the actual band from Düsseldorf, it was through Ralf & Florian in '73 that the German duo accessed the combination of the Kraftwerkklang, introducing through "Elektrisches Roulette" and "Kristallo" the era of the rawest and most syncopated techno-dance. The work, enhanced by at least a couple more gems like "Tanzmusik" and "Ananas Symphonie," stands as a naive appetizer to what would become the first popular phenomenon of Kraftwerk's production, the first effective example of listenable electronics where the melodic unit loops, replicating itself. Autobahn, in some ways still akin in several parts to the previous output, bears in its memorable title track the typical Kraftwerk sound. The natural voice of Hütter appears, unprecedented (previously Florian Schneider had performed with the vocoder in "Ananas Symphonie"), an unequivocal sign of the new transition in style: "Wir fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der Autobahn" sounds like a childish refrain in all its simplicity, periodically renewing the fundamental melodic unit. The instrumental set perfectly integrates into the techno-dance era with indulgence in the use of synthesizers, and for the first time, the resort to electronic percussion, despite vintage episodes like Schneider's flute sound, still representative of the classical pre-Autobahn phase, make their appearance. For the first time, the leading voice is not disorder, waste, or variatio: the repetitive loop is the new stylistic hallmark, the continuous indulgence in the reproduction of pre-established schemes that would strengthen the dance electronics so much owed to the Düsseldorf collective.

With Autobahn Kraftwerk, like Dickson, positioned themselves as precursors: as the Breton had the intuition of the cinematograph, so they are the forerunners of disco music and its derivatives, neither implementers nor executors; Hütter and Schneider's music is not and never would have been disco dance. Although it indeed preaches repetition and dance orchestration, the Kraftwerk sound is anything but danceable or practicable; the slow advance of keyboards where each note is predicted by the sequences of previous notes, even in its catchiness, betrays movement: it accompanies it without involving it. Not coincidentally, one of the most representative dance episodes from Kraftwerk, "The Robots," which two years later would consecrate the group to international acclaim, would be presented as "music for automatons," inane and mechanical breakdance for non-dancers, which even received credit from an eminent video clip shot by four static, stiff, and glacial gentlemen. The static sound of Kraftwerkian disco music will remain the peculiar hallmark of the Düsseldorf group to this day, on the trail of a production that will continue the Autobahn path without changing its features, except for the more animated The Mix of 1991: in the era of updating disco music, first through the techno-pop of the '80s, then through the house of the '90s, Kraftwerkklang will remain anchored to its proud non-danceability.

Autobahn, precursor and post-cursor album, still tied to the tradition of chaotic Kraftwerk beginnings: the suite form of the title track will be supplanted by the subsequent Trans-Europe Express, where the enjoyment of the tracks will be more balanced, and we will witness the meticulous cleanup of all the deconstructive remnants of the beginnings, defections present in Autobahn in the first movement of Hütter and Schneider's "Kometenmelodie" (more canonical and predictable, in perfect Kraftwerk style, the second movement) and in the experimental "Morgenspaziergang," where the electronic synthesis of natural sounds is outside the band's research field.

Today, Kraftwerk enrich themselves with the lifeblood of essay information, webzines, and musical pamphlets. Like Dickson, unknown to the opinion of the teen generation that worships dance music, to whom they indirectly owe the premature birth of disco music. An incubation known only to field specialists, but luminescent. It moves grandly on Schult's white Beetle, slow and mechanical like a robot, proud and frivolous like a model who gives her best only in front of the camera. The same camera, the offspring of Dickson's cinema, when that dance remembered today by the name of foxtrot was in vogue.

Follows a critical reading on Kraftwerkwelt: since the discussion goes beyond the informative purposes of this series of reviews, it can be ignored; those interested can broaden their field of knowledge about the Düsseldorf commune.

Industrial Apocalypse and Popular Sentiment: How the Machine Civilization Lived in Kraftwerk

"By demystifying the synthesizer, Kraftwerk, in fact, demystified the very machine civilization they attacked verbally; and, in fact, ended up bringing it into the discotheque. These records revisited myths and (disturbing) stereotypes of futurism, transforming them into myths and (innocuous) stereotypes for the generation that hadn't studied futurism in school.

Few about-faces were as remarkable as theirs, and few were as influential as theirs." (P. Scaruffi)

The unkind voice of Piero Scaruffi, one of the most discussed and contested gurus of today's music criticism, deconstructs the Kraftwerk world in a few lines, specifying the guidelines of what is supposed to be the most substantial bluff in the history of modern music. The scholar's consideration, though dismissable by many of the staunchest fans of Hütter and Schneider, nevertheless deserves more than a line of comment. The analysis concerning the alleged turnaround of Kraftwerk primarily descends from the observation of the peculiarities of Autobahn: it is in the automobile that the Düsseldorf collective veers towards techno-pop, abandoning the chaotic experimentation of the early days aimed at bringing to light works like Kraftwerk2 and Ralf & Florian, today among the most interesting examples of chamber proto-industrial, niche works incapable of delivering fame to Hütter and company on par with The Man Machine and Computer World. From Ralf & Florian to Autobahn the leap is remarkable: the setup is the same, but the sound is changed, renewed; in short, Kraftwerk would end up founding disco music even starting from very different premises. The consideration then on a supposed change of intentions during the work by Hütter and Schneider is inevitably sacred; it can be called a turnaround, reversal, path evolution: it is not possible in any case to identify a univocal definition for what was simply a transformation. Scaruffi himself does not address a solely musical factor: the "turnaround" he refers to involves the entire Kraftwerk culture, the community of intents that just in the transition from Ralf & Florian to Autobahn would be disavowed in favor of other interests. Let's go into detail: Kraftwerk would have deconstructed the "civilization of machines" they demonized. Curious notation, but presumably not "targeted." The reference, not directed solely at the '74 "turnaround" episode, draws strength from global considerations on at least two glaring episodes of Hütter and company's discography: Radioactivity and The Man Machine, among the band's catchiest albums. In both records, Kraftwerk did not hide their focus on the culture of technological progress, defining an overall vision often grotesque, not infrequently apocalyptic, with a sound seemingly non-indulgent. Here perhaps is found the thread of the intricate Kraftwerkian tangle, the indirect response to Scaruffi's relentless accusations. In Kraftwerk, the industrial apocalypse and the popular sentiment coexisted indissolubly. The civilization of machines was never the subject of verbal attack by the German group (except for the remixed version of "Radioactivity" in '91), contrary to what Scaruffi believed: the few verbal excerpts scattered here and there by Hütter and Schneider only served as a filler for a catchy chorus, never assuming the role of an engaged text. In "The Man Machine" the original chant "Man Machine, pseudo human being Man Machine, super human being" corresponds to the pursuit of purely euphonious intents by the Düsseldorf collective, in apparent contrast with a musical architecture that, while betraying an overall simplistic setup, presents itself with its threatening pseudo-industrial demeanor, accusatory and culpable. In "The Man Machine" coexist the autofagous drama of the industrial scene and the folksy roundabout of a suburban mazurka. There is no invective against technological culture, no stance, no tirade: perfectly smoothed appears the debate between musical register and verbal gear. The further proof of the change in tone in "Radioactivity" (the 1991 version of The Mix carries a significantly invective text following the Chernobyl catastrophe), only testifies to the absolute frankness of intents of a group that thirteen years earlier merely sang an innocuous chorus without foreseeing the scope of events that would occur shortly after. Thus, in Kraftwerk's intents, there was presumably never a turnaround, never a renunciation; the trajectory change in 1974 would deliver Kraftwerkklang to discos, renewing the musical element, but the technological civilization would never be affected by the sparse philosophy of the German band, intent solely on transmitting the catchiness of its discographic repertoire.

Whether that musical setup, often between apocalypse and anxiety, was indeed indicative of substantial condemnation towards the machine's civilization, no one knows. Except for those who, in faith, grasped the essence of KraftwerkKlang.

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