Computer World: How Kraftwerk Used Science Fiction To Push Into The Future

by Jake E.

Kraftwerk, despite having achieved international fame in between the mid-1970s and early-1980s, are often misunderstood by those coming to their work retrospectively. Young people who listen to them today with little more than a notion of their significance often seem to return disappointed. While their stiff rhythms and simple melodies can sound dated to modern ears, their music actually serves a conceptual framework that is overlooked and under discussed. Kraftwerk deserves to be celebrated, but not just as electronic pioneers. In a time when the Anglo-American media still viewed Germans through a rifle scope, Kraftwerk repurposed ideas from science fiction, not only push popular music forward, but also to advocate for a united Europe in the wake of World War II. 

While the group sometimes referred to as “more influential than the Beatles” were not the first band to make music with electronic keyboards, they uniquely fused the innovations coming from the burgeoning school of German progressive music to traditional pop structures.  By combining the evocative nature of early, beat-less synthesizer experiments by Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream, melodies drawn from pop artists such as the Beach Boys, and the so-called “motorik” beat that was being pioneered simultaneously by not only Kraftwerk but other kosmische musik acts such as Can and Neu!, Kraftwerk created the blueprint for entire genres. The “Belleville Three'' for example, commonly cited as the first techno artists, were Kraftwerk obsessives. Even before that, it’s notable that one of the first hip hop hits, Africa Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock,” sampled two Kraftwerk songs for its beat - Kraftwerk’s music, when twisted into the head-bobbing swing of hip hop, ended up forming the bones of electro (which, by the way, is seeing something of a modern resurgence in the beats used by Michigan rappers such as Babytron or Teejayx6). Beyond this, they’ve been cited as an influence by various artists of rapport, such as David Bowie, Joy Division, and Radiohead.

At the core of this, the computerized, thumping rhythm section reveals itself as the paramount innovation of Kraftwerk’s music. Typified by the repetitive throb of their custom-made drum pads , their ceaseless 4/4 grooves provided a programmed imitation of familiar human patterns. This “robotizing of rhythm: was their ultimate influence on future artists. Their drum machines never slipped out of time and their pre-programmed melodies never missed a note, foreshadowing the advent of quantization. 

This synthetic reproduction of previously established musical cadences is on full display in Kraftwerk’s 1978 single, “The Model.” The song begins with a James Brown-ian, bluesy bass riff reproduced on a synthesizer, and a kick, snare, kick, kick, snare, programmed drum pattern familiar to the conventions of funk music. In essence, it is written as a funk song, yet the way it is performed provides the major twist: Kraftwerk does not swing or groove, but rather, they tick, as a machine does. This is music that has been bled dry, and, in more than one way, bled white of the performance cadences established by African-American rock pioneers such as Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry. Kraftwerk instead cleverly chose to hone in on the martial quality of songs like “the Payback” to explore the following concept: what if robots tried to play dance music? Perhaps the great success of their music is that they risk being ersatz or mawkish in light of their influences, yet are consistently saved by evocative song writing; when the second half of “The Model” introduces a minor key keyboard lead, it becomes clear that the band is performing a new form of dance music, one that embodies the urban, technological paranoia of the last quarter of the 20th century more than any kind of music had before.

One of the factors of Kraftwerk’s success was that their music represented broader attitudes of people from the mid seventies to the early eighties. In 1973, the Western world experienced the collapse of Keynesian economics and a period of stagflation that would ultimately lead to the election of neoliberal politicians such as Margaret Thatcher, Brian Mulroney, and Ronald Reagan in the early 1980’s. The period when Kraftwerk released their most acclaimed work, the six-album run between 1974’s Autobahn and 1981’s Computer World, was therefore a time of disillusionment: the psychedelic optimism of 1967’s Summer of Love was gone, and 1969’s Altamont Free concert disaster had presaged the dawning of the “alienation of labour” felt by those going through an economic collapse. The band’s robotic music found huge success on the charts among people who were broadly beginning to feel the emotionally draining and robotizing effects of survival in a strained capitalist workforce.

The concept of the robot is therefore an essential element to the music of Kraftwerk. The evocation of robots was not only present in the musical elements of the band, however, but in their imagery and aesthetics as well. Most press photographs present the band with expressionless faces, perfectly groomed hair, and immaculate formal wear. Music videos such as that for “The Robots” show the group moving stiffly through rooms filled with machinery, covered in blinking lights and knobs. The symbolism continued late into their career, with the cover art for their 1991 album The Mix displaying the head of band member Ralf Hütter attached to a mechanical body.

By the time Kraftwerk was implementing this imagery, however, robotics had already been used extensively in warfare, since automated weapons had been pushed forward by the demands of World War II. Although Kraftwerk were making music at a time when robotic targeting systems were being used to launch missiles in Vietnam, their imagery recalls pre-WWII iconography such as Eric, the cutesy so-called “world’s first British robot,” and those seen in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. The band’s choice to allude to this specific era of robotics gives the sense of a nostalgic aura for a bygone optimism, one that recalls a time before German participation in WWII had left the country ravaged.

For two and a half decades after WWII, Germany went through a period of lost identity. There was a void in German (pop) culture history due to the art purge of 1937 and subsequent reign of the Nazi Party. In the late 1960’s, German musicians who were dissatisfied with national silence during the British Invasion and subsequent revolution in pop music due to groups like The Beatles and the Velvet Underground began to pioneer kosmische music. Irmin Schmidt of German progressive group Can explained the ethos of these artists as such:

“The point was that here in Germany the dominant belief was that one has to play like the English or the Americans in order to be taken seriously as a rock-, pop-, or beat-musician. When we started out, the critics said: they cannot play properly. We answered: that's right! We also don't want to play like the English or the Americans. We also didn't destroy any structures; we just created our own.”

For Kraftwerk, this issue of identity was enormous. The band often made clear in interviews that their German heritage was important to them, and that one of their goals as artists was to represent their country on a national stage without shame of their German identities. Band member Ralf Hütter explained in a 1975 interview with Lester Bangs that “We are the first German group to record in our own language, use our electronic background, and create a Central European identity for ourselves… We want the whole world to know our background. We cannot deny we are from Germany”.

This frame of mind can be further observed in the lyrics to the 1977 song  “Hall of Mirrors,” which describe a “young man [who] stepped into the hall of mirrors, where he discovered a reflection of himself”. The man goes on to “[fall] in love with the image of himself,” and find that “suddenly the picture was distorted.” This description parallels the experience of Germany in WWII, when extreme nationalism led to a “distortion,” or anti-Semitic beliefs. The third verse describes how the man “made up the person he wanted to be, and changed into a new personality,” and ultimately, in the final verse, he is no longer described as a man, but as an “artist living in the mirror, with the echoes of himself.” The song is an allusion to the experience of the kosmische musicians, artists who were not denying their history, but building something new out of the rubble of their country and moving forward.

The band’s adoption of a robotic aesthetic furthers these concepts on identity. Robots themselves have no identity, as they lack the consciousness that philosophers recognize as necessary for a sense of self. Furthermore, robots cannot be citizens of a nation, or have a nationality. In these ways, the choice of Kraftwerk to portray themselves as robots reflects the people of post-war Germany, who were feeling themselves as though they had no identity or nationality. Kraftwerk took the discourse that they observed in their surroundings and, ironically, crafted an identity based on the lack of identity. The artist still lives “with the echoes of himself,” however, and it’s obvious that the robotic imagery is an interpretation of long existing stereotypes that caricaturize German people as stiff, emotionless, and systematic. The purpose of Kraftwerk’s robotic imagery was therefore to take step forward for the German people on a national plane, re-establishing them in culture with a new personality separate from the mistakes WWII and rather linked to a familiar, less hateful German identity, while simultaneously introducing a heretofore unseen note of irony to the Deutschland.

Kraftwerk reached out to the rest of the world through references to another science fiction element: utopia. The 1977 album Trans-Europe Express has a utopian vision of Europe as a prominent theme, and begins with the track “Europe Endless,” an uplifting pop song with lyrics that paint a holistic vision of Europe, unburdened by lines of division such as time or space. The band refers not only to “parks” and “hotels,” but to “palaces'' as well, and contrast “real life” with “postcard views.” The impression is one of a truly endless Europe, one that can encompass contrasting ideals like “elegance” and “decadence” due to its infinite and utopic nature. Kraftwerk uses the song as an opportunity to present a celebration of all aspects of the continent, extending an arm across the cultural chasm left between Germany and the rest of Europe in the wake of WWII.

The second side of the album expands on these themes, and introduces the idea of technology as a path to utopia. The three song suite of “Trans-Europe Express,” “Metal on Metal,” and “Abzug” form one flowing, multi-part piece, connected by a rumbling percussion arrangement that evokes the sound of rolling train wheels. Kraftwerk used this suite to pay homage to the TEE, a railway line that opened in 1957 and connected nations across Europe. While the TEE only operated truly transnationally until 1965, Kraftwerk’s choice to reference it in their music shows an admiration and desire for connection, and is one example of their utopic vision of technology as a means of connecting people.

The ability of technology to break down barriers is further explored on the 1981 album Computer World. The song “Computer World” opens the album with lyrics about “Interpol and Deutsche Bank, FBI and Scotland Yard,” introducing us to a world in which computers have broken down barriers between transnational organizations. Later on the album, the song “Computer Love” features lyrics about calling a number “for a data date,” because the narrator “needs a rendezvous.” Kraftwerk imagined a future in which people are so connected by computers that even intimate romantic connections can be formed through them. Aside from the prophetic quality of these lyrics, it is clear that Kraftwerk saw technology as a way to cross divides between people and the nations they were a part of. Throughout their catalogue, Kraftwerk’s embrace of cutting-edge synthetic instruments and lyrical tributes to machines that connected people reflect that the band saw technology as a way towards a re-connected and united future for Europe.

It’s important to note, however, that the group didn’t have an entirely optimistic perspective regarding the potentials of technology. Even a cursory listen to their music will reveal this: minor keys and sinister tones abound on most of the material from their classic period. As has already been touched on, Kraftwerk’s music was reflective of an uneasy attitude about the boom of technological advancement of the last half of the 20th century, and this is reflected in the paranoid atmosphere of many of their classic tracks. Kraftwerk’s LPs set glittering visions of technological utopias against tense journeys through industrial nightmares, and that contrast lends them their emotional shading and sophistication. 

The music and art of Kraftwerk utilized technological themes and science fiction imagery to re-establish Germany as a presence in popular culture and push for a new world unity. The complex symbolism in their lyrics, artwork, and music put forward a multi-faceted statement about the state of the German people and the world at large. Their embrace of cutting-edge musical ideas and instruments also influenced countless musicians and strongly informed much of the music we hear today. While Kraftwerk were always conscious of history, they used it to inform something new, and to push forward into the unknown future. Ultimately, they succeeded in stepping out of a dark past with their eyes on the horizon.