718.) Tues Nov. 20, 2018

Originally Published on Nov. 20, 2018

The Song of the Day is:

Kraftwerk – “Radioactivity”

From the album Radio-Aktivität (1975)

Chernobyl, Harrisburg, Sellafield, Hiroshima
Stop radioactivity
Is in the air for you and me
Stop radioactivity
Discovered by Madame Curie

Ralf Hütter – Florian Schneider – Emil Schult

Here in America, we don’t quite cherish Kraftwerk as much as probably should.  Their influence is in so much music that we listen to though.  They’ve been sampled in rap music by Afrika Bambaataa and Dr. Dre, they’ve been interpolated by Coldplay, they’ve been idolized and aspired to by Daft Punk, Nine Inch Nails and LCD Soundsystem, and they were a big reason why Bowie, Eno and Iggy Pop went to record in Germany in the late seventies.  Really though, that just scratches the surface with this pioneering electronic music band.  They called them Krautrock originally, because there was no definition yet for what they were playing.  It certainly wasn’t “rock” as the term “Krautrock” would imply.  The band was electronic, but that term is so taken for granted these days.  Kraftwerk weren’t simply dialing up all their “blips”, “zaps” and “ticks” on state of the art keyboards, they were inventing these sounds, many of them organically.  These innovations and inventions became the building blocks for new wave and EDM.  It can seem pretty intimidating to familiarize yourself to a foreign band in a seemingly foreign genre, but getting accustomed to Kraftwerk is not as daunting a task as it would seem.  It’s worth knowing that Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider are the masterminds of this group, and that their music is largely instrumental and in English as often as it is in German.  Their classic five album run from 1974-1981 (Autobahn, Radioactivity, Trans-Europe Express, The Man-Machine and Computer World) can easily be streamed before a lunch break at work, it’s not like trying to become a Frank Zappa expert in a day.  Radioactivity is probably my favorite song by the group, as I feel it has a great ambient quality, a rarity in their efficiently industrial and driving transportation-based music.  Based on their influence alone, the group is worthy of a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  They are nominated this year for the fifth time, though there is no reason to think they are either more likely or less likely of induction than previous years.