Kraftwerk - Influence On Other Musicians

Influence On Other Musicians

Kraftwerk's music has directly influenced many popular artists from many diverse genres of music.

Kraftwerk's musical style and image can be heard and seen in later electronic music successes such as Gary Numan, Ultravox, John Foxx, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Human League, Depeche Mode, Visage, and Soft Cell, to name a few. Kraftwerk would also go on to influence other forms of music such as hip hop, house, and drum and bass, and they are also regarded as pioneers of the electro genre. Most notably, "Trans Europe Express" and "Numbers" were interpolated into "Planet Rock" by Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force, one of the earliest hip-hop/electro hits. Techno was created by three musicians from Detroit, often referred to as the 'Belleville three' (Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson & Derrick May), who fused the repetitive melodies of Kraftwerk with funk rhythms.

Richard D James (Aphex Twin), has noted Kraftwerk as one of his biggest influences and called Computer World as a very influential album towards his music and sound.

Björk has named Kraftwerk as one of her main musical influences.

Joy Division and New Order were heavily influenced by Kraftwerk. Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis was a fan of Kraftwerk, and showed his colleagues records that would influence both groups. New Order's song "Your Silent Face" has some similarities with "Europe Endless", the first song on Trans-Europe Express, and had a working title of KW1, or Kraftwerk 1. New Order also recorded a song called "Krafty" that appeared as a single and on the album Waiting for the Sirens' Call. New Order also would sample "Uranium" in their 1983 songs "Blue Monday" and "The Beach".

David Bowie's "V-2 Schneider", which was released as the B-side to the "Heroes" single, and also features on the album "Heroes", is a tribute to Florian Schneider.

Electronic musician Kompressor has cited Kraftwerk as an influence. Kraftwerk is also mentioned in the song "Rappers We Crush" by Kompressor and MC Frontalot ("I hurry away, get in my Chrysler. Oh, the dismay!/Someone's replaced all of my Backstreet Boys with Kraftwerk tapes!").

Franz Ferdinand were inspired by Kraftwerk's song "The Model" when writing their song "Walk Away". The similarity is especially heard in the intro of the song.

Vince Clarke of Erasure, Yazoo, and Depeche Mode, is also a notable disco and Kraftwerk fan and is influenced by their music. Daniel Miller, former boss of Mute Records, purchased the vocoder used by Kraftwerk in their early albums, comparing it to owning Jimi Hendrix's guitar.

Simple Minds recorded a cover of the Kraftwerk track Neon Lights and included it on an all-cover tunes album by the same name, they also played it live during their Graffiti Soul tour of 2009.

Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys, founding members of OMD, have stated that Kraftwerk was a major influence on their early work, and covered "Neon Lights" on their 1991 album, Sugar Tax. Further, a song on the 2010 album History of Modern is entitled RFWK- Ralf (Hütter), Florian (Schneider), Wolfgang (Flür), Karl (Bartos).

Kraftwerk is currently listed as the second most deserving band who has yet to receive enshrinement to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame according to the website, www.notinhalloffame.com. This was based on their high level of influence towards multiple artists.

Dr. Alex Paterson of The Orb listed The Man-Machine as one of his 13 most favourite albums of all time.

U2 recorded a cover version of "Neon Lights" and included it as the B-side of their 2004 single "Vertigo". The band also performed some Kraftwerk songs as snippets during live shows. U2's frontman Bono also stated he is a huge fan of the German electronic band.