Kraftwerk More Influential Than the Beatles

It's not that difficult. Even senor Coconut knows who Kraftwerk is, considering this fine cover of one of their songs



And that band has made also other fine covers of Kraftwerk, like Computer World, Robots, Trans Europe Express, Autobah and Tour de France. You can find them at YouTube.

 

Even the modern, classical music has found Kraftwerk! Here the Balanescu Quartet:

 

There's Chuck Berry music and then there's Kraftwerk music.
That is all...

 

Threads about how this band or that band is more influential than the Beatles is certainly a complete waste of everyone's time.

 

Calendar doesn't say April 1.......

 

My loss? No, my gain. We gain with renewed strength of purpose, and of sacrifice. We attribute the loop as the audio equivalent of the scouring pad of the devil, brillo padding our minds into a slurry mush and prompting us by dint of incessant boring madness into violent acts of audio purity.

Our ears are a virgin audio bride, pure like fresh snow, waiting for the coming audio groom riding his white horse of audiophile renewal and of purge and of purifying audio fire.

I'm not pointing a finger at Kraftwerk, per se, because to my mind they were a electronic Council of Nicea. It's what came after that I take issue with. So do all the righteous, all those who wait the call of the pure sound. Our time is coming. Or went. I'm not sure.

 

Here a fine video clip from YouTube about the (direct!) influences of Kraftwerk in modern pop music (from Pink Floyd, via many electro and hiphop acts, Madonna, Jay-Z to Franz Ferdinand and Coldplay):

 

industrial strength trolling

Until now I had wrongly assumed you might be serious!

 

It's very different to be a popular band, who is exposed everywhere, to be an obscure band who quietly influences a subgenre over decades and thereby creates a foundation for new music. The Beatles is in the first category. Kraftwerk and The Velvet Underground is in the second.

Ask Joe Public and he will have a view on The Beatles, though it's probably not Tomorrow Never Knows he will mention. He will probably say Hey Jude or Yellow Submarine.

Kraftwerk and The Velvet Underground has influenced all the other western rhythmic music that The Beatles did not in any way represent. The Beatles had focus on songwriting, structure, harmonies and arrangement.
Kraftwerk and The Velvet Underground has represented the absolute opposite, exposing the grim, the alienating and the un-human aspect in the music.

The Beatles themselves has said that if one word should be attached to their music, it would be 'Love'.
For the other to band's, that exact word is not connectable at all.

Why is it, that Beatles-devotees think that Beatles invented everything. Come out of your nutshell and accept the fact that the world did not begin and end with this band. There were other music being created who was just as influential.

No. Music history revisionism is perfect here, as it has had a tendency to make The Beatles the fathers of every musical genre. They were not.

Are you sure that's it's not you, who has a limited view?

 

My daughter (who is 11) could open up Garage Band, and within an hour, put together some loops and effects running for 10 minutes, that many would say was "influenced" by Kraftwerk. Having no lessons, she could not pick up a guitar, or sit down at the piano, and compose a song that anyone would say was "influenced" by The Beatles.

That being said, I enjoy both bands. My point is that the reason Kraftwerk seems to be more influential today, is that so many programs and sequencers that make it so easy to create something you can call music, without having any idea how to actually play a musical instrument.

 

Now that is weird and funny.

 

It's just because recently (I mean, by the time TEE was Made) both artist had been relocating or were active in Germany.
They are not mentioned by chance. They were part of the scene.


Anyway. I can't believe I actually read most of this thread.
There's something perverse in me.

 

I know...same here. Threads like this actually sort of highlight the perversity in human nature. But if we're conscious of it I guess that's good.

 

Anyway (part II): "I never heard of it, therefore it MUST NOT be relevant" is one of the most funny arguments that keep surfacing here.
Only that after the third time it's not funny anymore.

 

Okay, but, "reports from the current tour"? Is the press polling/interviewing all in the audience at each stop? Talking to other artists at every concert and asking the question? The ground presented here really is quite thin and sounds more like the press wanting something to be, without presenting thorough foundation, rather than stating what actually is. It reminds me of when paid critics held all the power cards and could make or break sales or a band with an album review, sometimes forgetting that what they were paid to do was be as objective as they possibly could.

I have no dog in this fight - Kraftwerk isn't my cup of tea, and I very much cherry-pick what I listen to from the Beatles.

I'm more interested in the overall lineage and history of things as far as artist influence goes, not "who wins". This goes for all arts - dance, visual arts, writing, filmmaking - everybody is influenced and inspired by others, and those chains of inspiration can be very interesting. No doubt Kraftwerk has does and will exert much influence, but to seat Kraftwerk on the same sofa as the Beatles is a major cultural stretch.

I'd rather see "the press" do a more scholarly job of supporting their position, regardless of who they proclaimed "most influential", a title that probably shouldn't be handed to anyone anyway.

 

Some of those are rather quotations or even rip-offs. I wouldn't really call that influence.

And then some seem to be the guy assuming that similar sounds--like "Time" versus "Kling Klang"--must be influenced. To really know that something is influenced by an artist (which means that it's not just a quotation of something else or a rip-off), we need not only the music in question, but statements from the artist in question that they are a fan or that they were influenced, or that they at least heard the supposed influencer's music enough that they could have unintentionally been influenced by it. Otherwise we can't know.

 

Nice hyperbole, transparently absurd. Boomers have embraced a vast array of musical genres including electronic.

 

Here you are (just a small sample of modern music, there is much more at YouTube):

 

Invention has nothing to do with influence, though. Someone could be heavily influenced by the Cult, say, but not influenced by AC/DC. Maybe they've never even heard AC/DC. So someone listening to their music might say, "Wow, listen to how heavily AC/DC-influenced these guys are", but they'd be wrong. They're Cult-influenced, not AC/DC influenced. For influence, it doesn't matter who invented something. After all, you're certainly not claiming that Kraftwerk, or VU, or the Beatles, etc. invented the well-tempered tuning system, scales, diatonic key conventions, quarter, eighth, sixteenth etc. notes, AABA-etc. song form conventions and on and on and on.

 

What would you say that has to do with my post?

 

This is just silly prattle.

The Beatles have been so influential over the years that people tend to no longer recognize the influence when they hear it.

 

Definitely more influential on today's "beats" music styles but I feel pretty confident that's the extent of it

 

Same with Kraftwerk. TEE is nearly 40 years old.

 

this deserves to be repeated.

the crux of the argument without the silly beatles component is that kraftwerk had a huge hand in shaping the entire soundworld we live in today, more so than most any other musical entity.