Kraftwerk's total work of art
The German electronic music pioneers delve into 'Autobahn' and beyond
On April 19, 1975, Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider, founding members of Düsseldorf, Germany’s electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk, led a crew of man-machines behind an arsenal of keyboards, cables, and musical machinery on stage at Alex Cooley’s Electric Ballroom. The scene, by all accounts, looked like the engine room of the Starship Enterprise — the old-school Enterprise. The pleasantly robotic melodies and proto-industrial rhythms of the 22-minute title track from Kraftwerk’s 1974 LP Autobahn came as a disarming juxtaposition to the guitar-oriented rock of Bruce Springsteen, Ted Nugent, and Rush, who also graced the same stage that year. Over the course of its first four albums, Kraftwerk’s embrace of electronic and computer-based instruments had grown from pure experimentation into refined and propulsive electronic pop, placing the group on the cutting edge of a new identity for post-WWII German youth, and it caught the world’s attention.
In a Creative Loafing review of their Electric Ballroom show — Kraftwerk's one and only Atlanta appearance to date — published May 3, 1975, writer Rich Briant criticized Autobahn saying: “The new music may indeed bring the group mass popularity but, in fact, only when a synthesis of early and late styles is achieved will the band truly be an innovating force in contemporary rock.”
More than 40 years later, history has proven CL’s intrepid music writer to be somewhat off the mark. More albums and singles followed, and Kraftwerk is credited, by many, as a major influence in the development of everything from hip-hop to modern EDM. And when Hütter leads a new robot crew on stage at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, the group’s legacy comes into dazzling view.
Billed as Kraftwerk 3-D, Hütter, along with Henning Schmitz, Fritz Hilpert, and Falk Grieffenhagen, delve into the group’s Autobahn-and-beyond catalog for what Hütter calls in a press release, a “gesamtkunstwerk” — a total work of art. The show is a massive, multi-media reinvention of classic Kraftwerk numbers. Over four decades, the group never relinquished its fetish for technology. Throughout the show, the ’70s cyber-aesthetic that defines songs such as “The Model,” “Trans-Europe Express,” and “Musique Non-stop” is channeled into a larger-than-life spectacle of modern visuals. Don’t forget to grab a pair of 3-D glasses on the way into the theater.