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Although Kraftwerk perfected their sinisterly synthetic pop on later albums, it was Autobahn that woke the world up to the potential of electronic sounds.
Kraftwerk's previous albums consisted largely of ambient instrumental noodlings, similar to their German contemporaries Tangerine Dream or Ash Ra Tempel, but with Autobahn, they created a template for cutting edge pop and rock throughout the rest of the century.
Krafty Florian Schneider recalls that Autobahn emerged when they returned to their whimsically named Dusseldorf studio, Kling Klang, after a long motorway drive. "When we came in to play, we had this speed in our music. Our hearts were still beating fast, so the whole rhythm became very fast."
Taking a revolutionary departure from their usual entirely instrumental approach, they decided to add some lyrics about driving on the Autobahn. Then, as lyric collaborator Emil Schult explains, “Ralf (Hutter of Kraftwerk) specifically asked me to write some lyrics, and it took me one day. Ralf went over them and corrected them a little bit, and it was singable, so it became a song."
To capture sounds of passing traffic, several Autobahn journeys were undertaken in Hutter’s (what else?) Volkswagen with a portable tape recorder whose microphone dangled from the window. Despite its engine noises, evocative doppler shifts, and rhythmic precision provided by their newly-acquired custom-built 16 step analogue sequencer, Autobahn wasn't intended as a map of the future. Kraftwerk saw it as being similar in many ways to The Beach Boys' Fun Fun Fun. Hutter and Schneider, were fascinated by how Beach Boys songs, crammed with references to woodies, perfect waves and beach bunnies, conjured instant mental pictures of West Coast teen society. "A hundred years from now," explained Hutter, "when people want to know what California was like in the 60s, they only have to listen to a single by the Beach Boys."
Autobahn was their first attempt to do the same thing for their homeland, but 70s Germany was radically different from 60s California. “Walk in the street and you have a concert - cars playing symphonies,” pointed out Hutter. “Even engines are tuned, they play free harmonics. Music is always there - you just have to learn to recognise it.”
The 22 minute long Autobahn is the album’s centrepiece, and although other tracks are clearly descended from their earlier ambient output, Hutter’s unlikely Beach Boys analogy is borne out by the unmistakeable surf-rock drum patterns and chugging rhythms in Kometenmelodie 2.
An edited version of Autobahn reached No25 on the US singles chart but, just as the crooners of the early fifties couldn't grasp the significance of Elvis Presley, the music critics of the seventies were so steeped in the traditional verities of the twelve bar and the blustering machismo of rock, that many saw it as little more than a bizarre electronic novelty, a lifeless Teutonic descendant of Route 66.
It was, however, just a matter of time before nothing would ever be the same again, and Kraftwerk’s influence was soon celebrated in the work of artists as diverse as Afrika Baambaata, David Bowie, Depeche Mode, New Order, Orbital, the Chemical Brothers and Michael Jackson.
(Source : Johnny Black, first published in the book Albums by Backbeat Press, 2007)
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Kraftwerk's previous albums consisted largely of ambient instrumental noodlings, similar to their German contemporaries Tangerine Dream or Ash Ra Tempel, but with Autobahn, they created a template for cutting edge pop and rock throughout the rest of the century.
Krafty Florian Schneider recalls that Autobahn emerged when they returned to their whimsically named Dusseldorf studio, Kling Klang, after a long motorway drive. "When we came in to play, we had this speed in our music. Our hearts were still beating fast, so the whole rhythm became very fast."
Taking a revolutionary departure from their usual entirely instrumental approach, they decided to add some lyrics about driving on the Autobahn. Then, as lyric collaborator Emil Schult explains, “Ralf (Hutter of Kraftwerk) specifically asked me to write some lyrics, and it took me one day. Ralf went over them and corrected them a little bit, and it was singable, so it became a song."
To capture sounds of passing traffic, several Autobahn journeys were undertaken in Hutter’s (what else?) Volkswagen with a portable tape recorder whose microphone dangled from the window. Despite its engine noises, evocative doppler shifts, and rhythmic precision provided by their newly-acquired custom-built 16 step analogue sequencer, Autobahn wasn't intended as a map of the future. Kraftwerk saw it as being similar in many ways to The Beach Boys' Fun Fun Fun. Hutter and Schneider, were fascinated by how Beach Boys songs, crammed with references to woodies, perfect waves and beach bunnies, conjured instant mental pictures of West Coast teen society. "A hundred years from now," explained Hutter, "when people want to know what California was like in the 60s, they only have to listen to a single by the Beach Boys."
Autobahn was their first attempt to do the same thing for their homeland, but 70s Germany was radically different from 60s California. “Walk in the street and you have a concert - cars playing symphonies,” pointed out Hutter. “Even engines are tuned, they play free harmonics. Music is always there - you just have to learn to recognise it.”
The 22 minute long Autobahn is the album’s centrepiece, and although other tracks are clearly descended from their earlier ambient output, Hutter’s unlikely Beach Boys analogy is borne out by the unmistakeable surf-rock drum patterns and chugging rhythms in Kometenmelodie 2.
An edited version of Autobahn reached No25 on the US singles chart but, just as the crooners of the early fifties couldn't grasp the significance of Elvis Presley, the music critics of the seventies were so steeped in the traditional verities of the twelve bar and the blustering machismo of rock, that many saw it as little more than a bizarre electronic novelty, a lifeless Teutonic descendant of Route 66.
It was, however, just a matter of time before nothing would ever be the same again, and Kraftwerk’s influence was soon celebrated in the work of artists as diverse as Afrika Baambaata, David Bowie, Depeche Mode, New Order, Orbital, the Chemical Brothers and Michael Jackson.
(Source : Johnny Black, first published in the book Albums by Backbeat Press, 2007)