Kelefa Sanneh: This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Kelefa Sanneh. I'm here with the brilliant and perceptive David Remnick, who is not only the host of this show, he also writes the intros.

David Remnick: This is such a setup.

Kelefa Sanneh: David, we're going to talk about one of the most influential bands of all time. I'm going to play you some tracks and explain why they're influential. Here is our first snippet.

David Remnick: I'm all ears.

[MUSIC - Kraftwerk: Ruckzuck]

Kelefa Sanneh: David, name that band.

David Remnick: Kraftwerk.

Kelefa Sanneh: Kraftwerk, of course. This is Ruckzuck.

David Remnick: I'm seeing them tomorrow from their 1970 debut album. You're going to see Kraftwerk at my kids' behest.

Kelefa Sanneh: Well, this will be a pre-concert primer for you then.

David Remnick: Oh, I hope so.

Kelefa Sanneh: Listeners of a certain age may know that song Ruckzuck because it was used as the theme song to Newton's Apple, the public television show about science. Back then, Kraftwerk. They were kind of like a progressive rock band back then. It kind of almost sounds like Tubular Bells or one of those records.

David Remnick: They have been around. The Beatles had just broken up when they got together, Kraftwerk.

Kelefa Sanneh: Yes. Early '70s.

David Remnick: '73 too.

Kelefa Sanneh: Well, the debut record is 1970. They're obsessed with electronic instruments, but also electronic rhythm, which turned out to be important to the history of music.

David Remnick: Sure did.

Kelefa Sanneh: In 1974, they made this album called Autobahn. Here's a little bit of it.

[MUSIC - Kraftwerk: Autobahn]

David Remnick: Ah, yes. Ah, yes, I remember it well.

Kelefa Sanneh: The album was kind of a hit. It went to number five on the American album chart. It was kind of like a lot of great bands or great tracks. It was kind of considered a novelty record. These Germans singing about the Autobahn. There was this idea that, like these artsy Germans from Dusseldorf, were making the music of the future. The funniest thing about that joke is it turned out to be true, more or less.

David Remnick: They kind of did.

Kelefa Sanneh: Although if you wanted to make a parody of German music, you probably couldn't do much better than this track. Trans-Europe Express 1977.

[MUSIC - Kraftwerk: Trans-Europe Express]

Kelefa Sanneh: It's tidy, it's severe. There's lyrics about trains.

David Remnick: Wow.

Kelefa Sanneh: The funny thing about this is, a few years later, Trans-Europe Express was reborn as a track called Planet Rock by Afrika Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force.

[MUSIC - Afrika Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force: Planet Rock]

David Remnick: Yes, something else is creeping in here.

Kelefa Sanneh: Yes. Part of what I like about this history is it kind of flips the history of rock and roll. You have this rock and roll history of these beloved old black blues musicians, and these upstart white bands are ripping them off. Here, the role of the beloved black, older blues musician, is played by the members of Kraftwerk. [laughter] It's funny how quickly that sound, that Kraftwerky sound, comes to be associated with other things. It comes to be associated with break dancers and stuff.

David Remnick: That's absolutely true. In the subway, more often than not when you'd see breakdancers when it first kind of popped up. Kraftwerk was not an uncommon music to be the backing track for that scene.

Kelefa Sanneh: Did you ever bust out a little bit of cardboard and do some moves, David?

David Remnick: Less frequently than you would have thought.

Kelefa Sanneh: I can barely spin on my feet. It wouldn't have worked well. In 1981, Kraftwerk, synthesizers are not so new anymore. Kraftwerk makes basically a concept album about a different emerging technology. The personal computer also turned out to be important.

David Remnick: Very. I heard that.

Kelefa Sanneh: They called it Computer World, and one of the best tracks is Numbers.

[MUSIC - Kraftwerk: Numbers]

Kelefa Sanneh: The vocals kind of sound like they're coming from a Speak & Spell. In fact, I believe they're coming from a device called the Language Translator, which was made by the same company, Texas Instruments, that made the Speak & Spell. They were experimenting with all this stuff. One of the things they've realized is-- I think a lot of us thought that to be a hit, a song probably needed a catchy tune. I think what they realized is they got more and more interested in the textures and sounds that were coming out of these electronic equip. They realized that you could have a rigid electronic beat, but somehow have enough happening that it wouldn't be boring and it wouldn't be predictable. Or if it was predictable, it would be predictable in a good way.

David Remnick: They were arguably the first.

Kelefa Sanneh: Well, a lot of people were using this stuff. Sly Stone has one of the first drum machine hits in 1971. People are using this electronic stuff. There was something about their vision. As with anything else, they put elements together in a way that was catchy. It's a funny word to use about a track like Numbers. Numbers comes back here. Here's a way in which Numbers comes back. A trio from Florida called Anquette has a song called Shake It, Do the 61st. If you listen closely, you can hear those chirping, fluttering synthesizers in the background from Numbers.

[MUSIC - Anquette: Shake It, Do the 61st]

Kelefa Sanneh: That's the group Anquette. I know we are a little bit digressive. I'd like to get extra digressive here for a moment, David. Anquette, this group, had an album called Respect, executive produced by Luther Campbell from 2 Live Crew. It includes a song about guys who don't pay their child support. I guarantee you this is a group from Florida, late '80s. You will never in a million years guess what this track is called.

[MUSIC - Anquette: Janet Reno]

Kelefa Sanneh: The single is called Janet Reno, who at the time was, I believe, a US attorney in Miami-Dade County.

David Remnick: Oh, it was before she was in the Clinton administration.

Kelefa Sanneh: She was a local figure. The idea was that if you don't pay your child support, Janet Reno was going to come after you. I don't know if she owns an autographed copy of that single, but I hope she does. Anyway, back to Kraftwerk. This one particular track, Numbers, kept getting recycled and sampled and sampled. You might recognize the robotic counting in this techno track.

[music]

Kelefa Sanneh: This is Mike Hitman Wilson's remix of Rock to the Beat by Reese, which is a name of the producer Kevin Saunderson, who was one of the Detroit producers who created techno. This is a fairly early techno track. This is only a few years after the genre was born. By this point, Kraftwerk is roots music. For a techno producer, that's a way of paying tribute to the eight-- by this point, eight years old German track that helped inspire them.

One last Kraftwerk track, Computer Love, from that same 1981 album, Computer World. It's kind of a love song about computers. I think the sense of humor in Kraftwerk is sometimes underrated.

David Remnick: Overlooked.

Kelefa Sanneh: Yes. There's a silliness to them or a sense of play.

[MUSIC - Kraftwerk: Computer Love]

David Remnick: This is familiar. Does the creativity and the innovation come to a halt at a certain point? Do they become an oldies band in a way?

Kelefa Sanneh: Well, I think it's fair to say most of the people who come to see them now are there for the older songs. They would call that a legacy act. Not oldies. It's pejorative.

David Remnick: The original members.

Kelefa Sanneh: One of the original members, yes.

David Remnick: Everybody else is kind of a replacement along the way.

Kelefa Sanneh: Yes. The heart of Kraftwerk was Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütter. Ralf Hütter is still alive and touring. Florian Schneider died in 2020. It's partly an opportunity to pay tribute to this legacy. David, I think you might have told on yourself a little bit. You said that this track, Computer Love, sounded kind of familiar.

David Remnick: Something.

Kelefa Sanneh: I think I know why.

David Remnick: Why?

[MUSIC - Coldplay: Talk]

Kelefa Sanneh: Because Coldplay took the melody-

David Remnick: Oh my God.

Kelefa Sanneh: -and used it for Talk from 2005.

David Remnick: Wow.

Kelefa Sanneh: This is the ultimate musical lesson, that no matter what kind of pioneer you are, you're going to come back to life as a Coldplay song.

David Remnick: That's a hard fate. Kel, thanks so much.

Kelefa Sanneh: I'll see you next time.

David Remnick: Kelefa Sanneh is a staff writer at The New Yorker, and you can find his work, of course, at newyorker.com. The Kraftwerk tour is on to the UK and Europe in June. I'm David Remnick. That's our program for today. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

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