“We’re just private people,” Kraftwerk co-founder Florian Schneider told Rolling Stone in 1975. The group, led by him and Ralf Hütter, was then becoming popular in the U.S., after the release of its third album, Autobahn.
Schneider, who died of cancer last week, generally spoke less than Hütter, and neither ever got personal. “Kraftwerk isn’t a band,” Schneider said. “It’s a concept.
We call it ‘Die Menschmaschine,’ which means ‘the human machine.’ We are not the band. I am me. Ralf is Ralf. And Kraftwerk is a vehicle for our ideas.” And what a vehicle it was.
Between 1974 and 1981, Kraftwerk made five startlingly original albums that were influential enough to shape entire genres, including experimental rock, synth pop, and electronic
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