The leitmotif of both American and British Krautrock reception in the 1970s was the continuing popularity of German stereotypes and clichés, with the music press coverage in both countries differing only in nuances. It was not before the end of the decade that those ascriptions and stereotypes slowly started to fade away; by then, in a broad consensus among critics and pop journalists, the ‘future sounds’ of Krautrock were widely regarded as a transformative contribution to pop music and culture. The shift in the Anglo-American music press’s understanding of Krautrock in the 1970s suggests that Krautrock’s mission to create a new and transnational cultural identity, for themselves and for West Germany, can ultimately be considered successful; British as well as American observers clearly placed Krautrock outside the Anglo-American realm of pop music, viewing it as a distinct West German phenomenon detached from pop music’s Anglo-American roots. In addition, and as a result, Krautrock’s soundscapes and performative elements were perceived as the first fundamental contribution to pop music from outside the Anglo-American sphere.

The chapter approaches Kraftwerk‘s oeuvre from a conceptual perspective and treats the band as performance artists. After discussing the artistic major influences, the first three albums from 1970 to 1973, later disowned by the core team of Ralf Hütter and Florin Schneider, are considered aginst the conceptual notion of ‘industrielle Volksmusik‘ (i.e. electronic pop music). Next, Kraftwerk‘s concept albums from 1974 to 1981 are analysed using key themes and lead aesthetics such as retro-futurism, man-machine, and post-humanism. The chapter then examines the impact of digitilisation on the artistic production of the band and discusses the reversal of the primary mode of operaton from the recording of new studio albums towards the curation of the core work in the period between 1983 and 2003. To conclude, the chapter looks at the evolution of their stage craft up to the current fully immersive and ritualistic audio-visual performances. I evaluate to which extent Kraftwerk can be seen as a paradigmatic example of a pop-cultural Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) in the modernist Gesamtkunstwerk tradition, fulfilling Richard Wagner‘s promise of a true Zukunftsmusik (future music).

This chapter deals with the ‘flip side‘ of Krautrock, exploring which political, social, and cultural developments in West Germany in the 1970s were clearly not reflected in Krautrock. The aim is to show that German pop music in the Krautrock era – contrary to its glorification as progressive, avant-garde, and internationalist – was actually conservative, if not restorative, in essential aspects. The chapter demonstrates that, firstly, feminist tendencies are discernible outside Krautrock (e.g. Inga Rumpf or Claudia Skoda). Secondly, the chapter deals with the vibrant music scene of Turkish migrants, which was ignored by German majority society. Thirdly, the chapter focuses on aspects of the appropriation of national traditions in German pop music of the 1970s. It discusses bands like Novalis and Hölderlin, who took up the tradition of German Romanticism, or Achim Reichel, who used the marginalised language form of Low German for his pop music. The chapter establishes a counter-narrative that challenges the prevailing view of the modernising power of Krautrock. Rather, it suggests that Krautrock was decoupled from the actual modernising trends in 1970s West Germany, such as the women‘s movement and the multicultural diversification of society.

The chapter analyses Faust‘s work, situating their sound within the diverse Krautrock trend and outlining their history to explain their political and artistic aims as a German music group. Faust‘s music celebrates a disruptive, avant-garde approach to rock music, influenced by dada and fluxus artists to create musical cut-ups and sound collages that blur the difference between noise and music. This methodology positions the band outside the structures of civilization, as per the framework of the Romantic hero, and reflects their conflicted disruption of German identity through the coincident political, phenomenological, and spiritual anxieties present in their music, lyrics, and performances. Faust‘s experimentation and aesthetics have influenced the ways noise has been incorporated into popular music, anticipating the development of industrial music.

This chapter explores the multi-decade career of Tangerine Dream and their founder, Edgar Froese, with an equal emphasis on the band’s practices during the 1970s and 1980s. We situate Tangerine Dream’s prolific discography within multiple styles such as kosmische Musik, ambient, techno/trance, and synthwave, while highlighting the band’s influences and legacies in live music and Hollywood film scores. First, Tangerine Dream’s evolution during the 1970s is traced, involving the group’s central role in the ‘Berlin School‘ of electronic music. Classic albums on Ohr, from Electronic Meditation to Atem, led to success particularly in Britain and France. With the signing of the band to Virgin Records, the subsequent sections explore landmark albums such as Phaedra and Rubycon, and the important roles of Christopher Franke and Peter Baumann in the group’s classic configuration. We then highlight Tangerine Dream’s iconic live tours, stretching from Australia to America, as well as influential concerts in Eastern Europe. The band’s extraordinary career in film music, especially in 1980s Hollywood, forms the focus of our conclusion, where the mark of Tangerine Dream’s major influence can be seen in media as diverse as the bestselling video game Grand Theft Auto 5 and the Netlix hit series Stranger Things.

The chapter considers the musical project Popol Vuh in the context of its special relationship to spirituality. Although referred to as a band, Popol Vuh consisted of pianist/keyboardist Florian Fricke and various co-musicians with whom Fricke attempted to express his spirituality through music. The chapter begins with an overview of Fricke‘s early creative phase, beginning with his first album Affenstunde, which, like the first side of its successor In den Gärten Pharaos, was still dominated by the sound of the Moog. A special focus is placed on the process leading Fricke to turn away from electronic music; opting for a sound as natural as possible, he hoped to find spiritual fulfilment in organic sounds. As the chapter discusses, Fricke‘s spirituality originated in the study of Eastern religious texts, which he combined with his own interpretation of Catholicism, for example on Hosianna Mantra. Finally, the use of Popol Vuh‘s music in the films of German director Werner Herzog is explored to explain how the two artists were able to achieve a unique synergistic effect in these films.

This chapter discusses the musical and cultural impact of the Düsseldorf group Neu!, who consisted of Michael Rother (guitars) and Klaus Dinger (drums). The essay puts Neu!’s work in the context of how Krautrock music was part of the quest to establish a new sense of post-war West German cultural identity by establishing new musical forms that did not owe a debt to the Anglo-American blues tradition or conventional rock structures. Analysing their first three albums released in the first part of the 1970s – Neu!, Neu! 2, and Neu! ’75 – this chapter shows how Neu! arrived at a musical formula that reflected the opposite temperaments of the two group members, reflected in the ambient rock of Rother and the motorik beat of Klaus Dinger, creating an imaginary West German landscape travelling from the past, through the present to the future. The chapter concludes that although they were commercially unsuccessful at the time, Neu! were hugely influential and have established for all time a unique mode of rock musical being, West German in origin, which serves as a source of inspiration for present and future generations.

This chapter explores the fledgling countercultural popular music industry in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s and summarises the economic conditions under which Krautrock developed. Compared to Britain and the United States, Germany was a disadvantaged place for popular music production. The chapter gives an overview of the places, events, and people that prepared the ground for independent popular music production away from the Schlager-focused major labels. The role of music journalist Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser in organising Krautrock’s founding event, the International Essen Song Days in 1968, and his three influential record companies Ohr, Pilz, and Kosmische Kuriere, is highlighted. Independent record labels like Kaiser’s and others such as Brain and Sky enabled musical experimentation and allowed a German avant-garde interpretation of rock music to thrive. The chapter outlines Krautrock’s reception on the international market, considering commercial successes (Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk) and failures (Faust). Independent record producers, most notably Conny Plank and Dieter Dierks, were indispensable for their creative contribution to many Krautrock records and as intermediaries between Krautrock artists and their record companies.

This chapter examines the music created by Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Dieter Moebius, and Michael Rother, under the band names Cluster and Harmonia. It makes the case that this music exists in a different relation to post-war Germany than that of Kraftwerk or Neu. Cluster/Harmonia created music deeply informed by the rural setting in which the musicians worked; in doing so, they engaged with one of the archetypal signifiers of German identity – the German landscape. The improvisatory nature of their work both allowed them to respond directly to the influence of their environment, but also created a template that proved very influential – not least on the work of Brian Eno (who collaborated with them in the mid-1970s).

The influence of black artists and music genres on Krautrock‘s pioneers fed directly into the conception of electro, Detroit techno, and Chicago house, largely developed by exponents of black communities in their respective localities. A universal funk, present in the black music that inspired early Krautrock artists, through to Kraftwerk and their industrielle Volksmusik, permeated through to black communities in America. The programmed funk of Kraftwerk‘s automated computer music spoke to black pioneers in New York, Chicago, and Detroit, sparking the development of ground-breaking genres such as electro, house, and techno. Barnes explores the lineage and transnational influence of Krautrock on America‘s black communities via the tributaries of German free jazz and krautfusion.

The Introduction first considers the enthusiastic reception of Krautrock in Britain, comparing it to the limited contemporary interest in Germany and locating the origins of a homegrown pop music in the desire to develop a pop musical countermodel to the hegemony of Anglo-American pop and rock music. Then the trajectory of Krautrock’s rediscovery beginning in the mid-1990s is traced; first, the renewed media interest from the 2010s onwards, which has resulted in several journalistic books on both the movement in general and on individual bands; next, the concomitant academic research on Krautrock that accelerated in the mid-2010s and continues apace. The Introduction further discusses the neglect of female voices in the received Krautrock narrative und critiques essentialist attempts to reduce the highly heterogenous movement. Rather, the Introduction proposes understanding Krautrock as the specifically (but not exclusively) German variety of a ‘sound of revolt‘ thriving in the politically charged period from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. By considering German experimental music as an attempt to give voice to the longing for a better future, the conclusion links Krautrock to Ernst Bloch’s utopian philosophy.

In terms of musical style, the sizeable catalogue of music that falls under the label of Krautrock is as diverse as it is experimental. The difficulty in pinning down a specific ‘sound‘ for this diverse body of music can be traced to its roots in the period of cultural revival in the 1950s and 1960s. The chapter discusses how the desire to create a new German identity, distanced from the crimes of the Nazi present and freer from the influence of American culture, was reflected in this music: Krautrock musicians began to abandon the characteristics of both Anglo-American popular musics such as beat and rock ‘n’ roll, and the prevailing German style of the time, Schlager, endeavouring to create something entirely original. The chapter demonstrates how Krautrock was initially better defined by what it was not, rather than what it specifically was. However, these radically different approaches to newness shared certain characteristics. As the chapter argues, Krautrock musicians embraced innovative approaches to instrumentation, timbre, the voice, texture, and form, generating a new musical vocabulary that they could call their own.

This chapter argues that the emergence of Krautrock can only be understood against the background of the specific mixture of national and international impulses that shaped the West German musical scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s. What is striking is a high degree of politicisation that resulted, among other things, from the Nazi past and the position of the divided country at the interface of the Cold War. It fuelled a particularly radical student movement and at the same time legitimised a fundamental critique of the culture industry. Combined with the musical impulses from United States and Britain, this gave rise to very unique musical forms that seemed to counter the international mainstream with something entirely new.