If you wanna get down with a real “80’s week special” you’ve got to savor one group necessarily. In a career over a period of more than 35 years, these German electro pioneers have been an endless source of inspiration for generations of groundbreaking musician. Whole music-styles emerged or were influenced because of ‘em and possibly they’re the most sampled band on the planet.
We slobber over Kraftwerk.

In 1970 Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider-Esleben, who had met studying classical music at the Dusseldorf Conservatory, founded the Kling-Klang Studio. Their first recorded appearance together is 1970’s Tone Float by a psychedelic rock quintet called Organisation. After leaving that group, Hütter and Schneider took the name Kraftwerk (”power plant”) and began experimenting with integrating mechanized sounds from everyday life into music.

1981 - Pseudoe makes his mommy happy and Kraftwerk came with their 8th record called Computer World which is presumed to be a forerunner of modern electro and techno music and a reflection on the new global dominance of technology. By now pop music was dominated by synthesizers and drum machines, and the group’s uniqueness and extravagance-status became almost ordinary. But just almost.

It seems to be an attribute of 80’s musican to be ahead of the times. And Kraftwerk seems to come directly from a future society who pre-dated their electronic music to bring it right into the time my/our generation has grown up.

“After the war, German entertainment was destroyed. The German people were robbed of their culture, putting an American head on it. I think we are the first generation born after the war to shake this off, and know where to feel American music and where to feel ourselves. We cannot deny we are from Germany.” (Ralf Hütter: interview with Lester Bangs, 1975)

Mediafire: Kraftwerk - Home Computer Live