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Kraftwerk's radical 1976 track
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- xgulfie 6mo agosaving you a click: it's Radioactivity
- nephihaha 6mo agoThere is a bit more in the article than that.
- the_arun 6mo agoIMHO Autobahn is still their best.
- cmrx64 6mo agoThe Electronic Harpsichord, same year. must have been an interesting time.
- WatchDog 6mo agoIf the suggested political impact of this music is to be believed, the music might be one of the biggest environmental disasters of all time. Germany has been pretty widely criticized for decommissioning it's nuclear power program, only to replace it with Russian oil.
- lovemenot 6mo ago>> only to replace it with Russian oil with Russian gas.
- MomsAVoxell 6mo agos/Russian/American/ Either way, Germany has perfected the efficient foot bullet, at least. I could imagine Kraftwerk devising a stonkin’ “Fußkugel” track, actually ..
- lxgr 6mo agoCheck your facts, please: Germans figuratively shoot themselves in the knee, not the foot ;)
- MomsAVoxell 6mo agoSee also: the back! :)
- cjpearson 6mo agoIn 2021, Russia was the source of 52% of Germany's gas. Following the expansion of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 imports from Russia quickly dropped. The biggest suppliers of gas to Germany last year were Norway, Netherlands and Belgium. LNG from the United States and other countries has increased to 10% which is not nearly enough to replace the Russian imports. The phaseout was accomplished by drastically reducing overall gas usage. [0] https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/EN/2023/20230105_RueckblickGas2022.html https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilung... [1] https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/EN/2026/20260112_GAS.html https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilung...
- Barrin92 6mo agothat would be an odd criticism because we never generated any meaningful amount of electricity from oil (and started importing Russian fossil resources 30 years before we turned nuclear power plants off). The chief source for energy in Germany was coal. Gas is primarily an industry and heating input rather than a source of power generation, gas plants have only become more popular in recent years. What replaced all other fossil fuel sources are renewables, which at 50% are now by far the single largest source of energy.
- lionkor 6mo agoLots of brown coal, which famously emits more radioactivity than any nuclear power plant ever did. The anti nuclear movement is a fucking joke, and the people I know personally here in Germany who oppose(d) nuclear still think the danger is an atomic bomb level explosion, or generational crippling mutations, or losing their house.
- alanwreath 6mo agoOnly related in awesomeness but whenever I see VLC’s icon I think of Kraftwerk. Kraftwerk sounds novel even today, I can’t imagine how it must have sounded 50 years ago.
- nntwozz 6mo agoRuckzuck is way more interesting and ahead of its time (1970). https://youtu.be/yUFc5QoMG1E https://youtu.be/yUFc5QoMG1E P.S Also check out Ashra - Deep Distance (1976). https://youtu.be/BJZ9PVvu9OA https://youtu.be/BJZ9PVvu9OA
- ainch 6mo agoI love Kraftwerk, but contributing to anti-nuclear sentiment in Germany hasn't been a major success. If only more European countries had followed the French example and developed substantial nuclear fleets.
- msla 6mo agoBeing against nuclear only kept the world on coal longer.
- senectus1 6mo agoonly if renewable resources are not considered an option.
- lionkor 6mo agoIt's a fact that Germany turned off nuclear and subsequently extended the lifetime of brown coal power plants (they still run). Germany has plenty of renewable energy, but that is not a replacement for a steady base supply of power yet.
- rectang 6mo agoAnd perhaps meaningfully contributed to a reduction in the quantity of radioactive waste products requiring custodianship on a timescale that humans can barely conceive of let alone commit to or execute responsibly.
- mgfist 6mo agoCoal power produces more radiation waste into the environment than nuclear power. That's because nuclear power has this amazing quality where all the waste is neatly packaged whereas burning coal just releases it into the air. > requiring custodianship on a timescale that humans can barely conceive of let alone commit to or execute responsibly. This is fearmongering. Casing waste in big concrete casks is enough. It's so incredibly overblown that we're willing to burn coal and kill people over it.
- LeoPanthera 6mo agoThe original version is quite different from the version performed today. The original lyrics refer to the pun of "radioactivity" versus "radio activity", meaning, activity on the radio. The new live version refers almost exclusively to the former meaning, and adds "stop" to turn it into a protest song. I've seen Kraftwerk live twice, at London's Albert Hall and Berkeley's Greek Theater, both times absolutely amazing. Highly recommended. I've often thought they would be the ideal band to perform inside the "Sphere" in Las Vegas.
- FabHK 6mo agoJust saw Kraftwerk live exactly a week ago, 2026-05-06, in Hong Kong on their Asia tour. They played Radioactivität, among their other hits. Recommended indeed. There might not be another tour, Ralf Hütter is 79! Over the next month, they will play in Ireland and UK, then Eastern Europe. https://kraftwerk.com/concerts/index-concerts.html https://kraftwerk.com/concerts/index-concerts.html
- stinos 6mo agoboth times absolutely amazing. Highly recommended. Saw them last year in Brussels. And while I agree with this and would go again and would recommend it to others, the side note for me is: I've listened to a lot of electronic music old and new and for my personal taste almost everything Kraftwerk makes is on the mediocre side. I'd never play it at home to listen to. But to see them in concert with pretty nice visuals and at the same time realizing they basically pioneered all of this 50 years ago does remain sort of mindblowing.
- jerkstate 6mo agoIt’s a shame they were so anti-nuclear. Best song on that album was Ohm Sweet Ohm.
- jchip303 6mo ago[dead]
- TurdF3rguson 6mo agoTotally Rad.
- erickhill 6mo agoSaw them last year in Seattle. One of those bands I never thought I'd get the chance to see (I'm 54), but thanks to them they are still touring and making great music. It was an amazing show, and incredible night.
- emptybits 6mo agoIf you like Kraftwerk and you're not aware of this book, I recommend it: "Kraftwerk: Future Music from Germany", by Uwe Schütte. It's packed with details of albums, songs, tours, equipment, and people. The anti-nuclear message in "Radio-Activity" certainly came later and was repeatedly updated, right into the Fukushima era [2011], but this was not the original sentiment [1976]. From the book: "At the time, Billboard magazine featured the most-played singles by the large network of radio stations under the heading 'Radio Action'. The band seemed to have misread or misremembered this as 'Radio-Activity'. 'Suddenly,' remembers Wolfgang Flür, 'there was a theme in the air, the activity of radio stations, and the title of 'Radioactivity is in the Air for You and Me' was born. All we needed was the music to go with it. ... The ambiguity of the theme didn't come until later.' Radio-Activity was intended to celebrate radio broadcasting as a convenient, easy and democratic means to listen to music and news."
- TedDoesntTalk 6mo agoGreat story. Had no idea. Still love the name Uwe. One of those German names that doesn’t have an English equivalent unlike, say, Pieter.
- Bairfhionn 6mo agoPieter is Dutch. German version of it is Peter.
- KKOSer 6mo agoI was told once Hugh is the nearest equivalent to Uwe, but i can't tell if thats correct.
- vanderZwan 6mo agoOne of the things whose non-existence I'm mildly surprised by: a mash-up between Kraftwerk's Radioactivity and Imagine Dragons Radioactive. Sure, they're extremely different songs melody-wise but that never stopped people from successfully mashing up songs before, and the underlying beat is almost the same but reversed, which is kinda interesting[0][1]. Also, has anyone ever compared the cultural context and zeitgeist of both songs? Probably would be a fun high school assignment, haha. Kraftwerk's song came out in the same decade that the Club of Rome published its Limits To Growth report[2], so when fears about humanity's future really started to become A Thing that was impossible to ignore. Later versions of the song turning it into a protest song encapsulate Cold War fears for a nuclear apocalypse of the time (presumably, I wasn't really around yet back then). The main audience for the Imagine Dragons song was a generation fully born after the fall of the Berlin Wall. One that grew up playing the Fall Out games. It also came out in 2012, right after the 2008 crisis kick-started the "oh the previous generation will leave us with nothing huh?" Doomer mentality among millennials and Gen Z kids. Remember the media going nuts over the "Ok, Boomer" expression for a while? (which still feels like the media intentionally dividing a community to stop it from actually fixing things me, tbh, but let's not get too side-tracked) In that context, when put side by side the ID song almost feels like a Doomer generation follow-up and implicit critique of how nothing seems to have actually be done about to prevent the impending apocalypse that the Kraftwerk song's generation was supposedly so worried about, turned into a fantasy about living in that post-apocalyptic planet. It's "vibe" is weirdly hopeful too, especially compared to the Kraftwerk song as well. Instead of fearing an apocalypse, it's set after one and embraces living within it. At least, that's how the two songs come across to me, which probably says more about me than anything else. Apparently Dan Reynolds, main singer on ID and one of writers of the song, has said that in retrospect after almost a decade, he had realized that it was actually about him "not giving up hope after losing faith in Mormonism."[3]. Which makes sense as a personal experience of going through feeling doomed and figuring out how to survive and embrace living on in a "post-apocalyptic" world on a personal, social level. I think that's what annoys me about the Kraftwerk song's status as a protest song, and a lot of other music from the same era: it doesn't feel like it's insisting on a better future. It's passive late 70s, early 80s pessimism. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3viBe2Q0P8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3viBe2Q0P8 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyXeJZJUFHE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyXeJZJUFHE [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_%28Imagine_Dragons_song%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_%28Imagine_Dragons...
- RobotToaster 6mo agoFun fact, these "radicals" were behind one of the longest running copyright lawsuits in European history, one that started in 1997 and ended this year https://ra.co/news/85004 https://ra.co/news/85004
- egorfine 6mo agoI have been extremely lucky to get an invitation to their concert in Kiev, Ukraine, many years ago. Three of the original members still alive and kicking. It was incredibly awesome. The concert itself was a gift from Victor Pinchuk, one of the Ukrainian oligarchs and renowned patron, to the city. Previously he also sponsored a full-blown Elton John concert on the main city square which I also attended.
- teddyh 6mo agoI remember thouroghly disliking The Mix (1991). The changed new versions of the old songs were all worse, not better, and especially egregious was the change of Radio-Activity from an etherial hymn about radio communication, to an overtly political activism song about nuclear power.
- TitaRusell 6mo agoI read once that they wanted Autobahn to be longer but sadly the limitations of the LP was 23 minutes. If only they had access to the CD! What could have been. Still as it was it must have been a tremendous shock to the hippies of the era. It was the sound of the future.
- gchamonlive 6mo agoHonest question, why a shock to the hippies? In 69 less than a decade before there was Woodstock and the music, while not futuristic, was very progressive and innovative. All in all I think these folks might have had more to do with the hippies than anyone else at the time, specially in a time right after the world war, with the extreme anti-fascist sentiment in the country.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6mo agoThe sound of Autobahn was so different than anything else in the air, that it came as a shock to everyone. Even if you point out other synth-pop songs ("Popcorn" would be the most obvioous) of the era, Autobahn just doesn't sound anything like them. The biggest reason is that it doesn't work very hard at all to be a song. While there were plenty of people in that era who were not making "songs" (hey, prog rock, we love you!), their approach to that quest was entirely different.
- JKCalhoun 6mo agoIf you're into "kraut rock" see how many references you find name-checked in The Doleful Lions tribute song (The Sound of Cologne): https://youtu.be/LmXjs7O5kUQ?si=fWAM0dqWQsmtyx8d https://youtu.be/LmXjs7O5kUQ?si=fWAM0dqWQsmtyx8d And stumbled upon a documentary (in German) on Conny Plank: https://youtu.be/YD29GzjiSvw https://youtu.be/YD29GzjiSvw
- FiatLuxDave 6mo agoThis seems like a good post to mention my old friend Laszlo Baksay. He was part of the original krautrock scene, being a member of the band Dom (see https://dom1972.bandcamp.com/album/edge-of-time https://dom1972.bandcamp.com/album/edge-of-time , scroll down to the notes at the bottom). If I recall correctly, he went to school with some of the members of Kraftwerk. Later, he because a particle physicist at CERN. When I was in grad school he was my thesis advisor, while I was doing a project on the measurement of... radioactivity.