YES, COOLER THAN YOU.

Boy, I sure didn't expect this. When I heard this afternoon that Florian Schneider passed away I actually felt a human emotion, for a man whose music was intentionally robotic and soulless. Schneider was one of the founders of Kraftwerk, as such a sort of electronic godfather. Their 1974 hit "Autobahn" was one of the earliest uses of synthesized music on a pop record. Less than ten years after it was released, the whole electro/synth pop thing exploded but not before they released Man Machine in 1978, their most perfectly crafted LP to date at that point. That record was all the rage with my friends and I, enough to stage a copy cat photo on a boring summer evening.

Kraftwerk has been in my collection for years. To wit, I remember driving my '61 Ford Falcon with a used FM radio just installed and "Autobahn" being played as I drove downtown for some long forgotten punk show. Being that I was listening to it, in my car and in stereo, I imagined myself on the autobahn, nevermind the fact that the speed limit was 55 MPH and my car could barely go 65 with a tailwind. That had to have been in the mid-late seventies. Yeah, that old. Point is, I've been listening to Kraftwerk a long time. No wonder I felt a human emotion.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Kraftwerk - Elektrisches Roulette mp3 at Pretty Goes With Pretty 1973
Kraftwerk - Autobahn mp3 at Get the Curse (?) 1974
Kraftwerk - Radioactivity mp3 at 666 Thrash Tripes (?) 1975
Kraftwerk - Die Roboter mp3 at Dark and White (?) 1978
Kraftwerk - The Man Machine mp3 at UCSB 1978
Kraftwerk - Electro Kardiogramm Roulette mp3 at Acquiesce to Music 2003
Africa Bambaataa - Planet Rock mp3 at Tumblr 1982 Kraftwerk sampled.
David Bowie - V-2 Schneider (streaming) at YouTube 1977 Named after Florian Schneider.
Video: 
Kraftwerk - Köln II (live in TV studio) at YouTube 1971 Long hair, overalls, flute, guitar, drums!
Kraftwerk - Three more early videos at Beware of the Blog
Kraftwerk - Radioactivity (French TV 1978) at YouTube
Kraftwerk - Live, Lattitude Festival UK 2013 at YouTube
Lemmchen Primary School - The Robots at YouTube Cover by kids in cardboard robot costumes. Keeping the torch lit.