Kraftwerk was supposed to be the man machine, the ultimate fusion of culture and technology. The band’s use of electronic instruments in pop-song form paved the way for those that followed, an influence felt from Detroit techno to London grime, from Kanye to Coldplay.
This was a unit whose music would live on via automation long after its human incarnation had departed the natural realm. And yet the death of Florian Schneider—the band’s co-founder, sonic perfectionist, and erstwhile flute player—still hurts like hell.
At least in Kraftwerk’s later years, there was little left of them in the whole endeavor: Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos, key members of the imperial 1970s lineup, were replaced by an anonymous roll call of musical technocrats;
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