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.

Even though she never traversed the Atlantic to tour or visit the New World, Clara Schumann was a regular subject of the American press in the second half of the nineteenth century. However, her widespread celebrity meant that daily newspapers, trade journals and leisure periodicals fashioned Schumann in many different – and sometimes competing – ways. On the one hand, factual reports informed readers of her professional activities, personal life and European reception. On the other hand, such information could be used by editors like John Sullivan Dwight, critics like George Upton, writers like Aubertine Woodward, and publishers like John Church, to advance their own agendas. As a result, the Schumann depicted in the American press in the aggregate during her lifetime might more accurately be characterized as ‘Schumann’ – a symbolic figure who not only appealed to America’s nascent celebrity culture, but who could also be invoked to shape important aesthetic, social and artistic issues.