Favourite Member of Kraftwerk (classic line-up)

Well, that didn't work now, did it.

Ralf obv

WOLFGANG WOLFGANG WOLFGANG

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ZggUbaM9r0M/Sb92Hs0OgzI/AAAAAAAAAIM/aiFgrZyqPHs/s400/l_ee323cb6334246ad8de026289b492303.jpg

undoctored version of that photo with Ralph looking kind of like 90s Michael Hutchence

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ZggUbaM9r0M/Sb91lwbZc2I/AAAAAAAAAIE/xZozDZpEXGs/s400/l_01b6ca878f5b4c00ac7c4d1abbb23205.jpg

I know they are ~from the future~ and all, but why is Ralf holding an iPhone in that photo?

p.s. it's so obviously Florian.

https://33.media.tumblr.com/340d8aa272b58222074572f80bb60b09/tumblr_ngsyzmcY1q1s6j5j1o5_r1_500.jpg

Also...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFKMRqhfBeI

tbf i can't really choose between Ralf and Florian i just wanted to say obv

I do admire Florian's ability to carry off the 't shirt with a picture of your own face on it' look

http://en.academic.ru/pictures/enwiki/70/Florian_Schneider_1970.jpg

this person on deviantart has several Florian pictures, they asl ppl not to reproduce their drawings, so I'll just link

http://gagambo.deviantart.com/art/Florian-Schneider-and-Iggy-Pop-asparagus-hunting-460569599

the two guys who replaced Wolfgang and Carl are called Fritz Hilpert and Henning Schmitz apparently? I had no idea until I looked them up just now

http://media.giphy.com/media/CwPAhQVqUDUVa/giphy.gif

http://media.giphy.com/media/CwPAhQVqUDUVa/giphy.gif

uh

Wolfgang > Florian > Karl > Ralf > Schult > Hilpert > everyone else

http://www.djfood.org/djfood/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Florian-Autobahn-smile.gif

That gif is the go to clip for when the BBC make the merest mention of Kraftwerk on any program, they must think it's funny.

In that sense it's similar to that TOTP clip of Sparks performing 'This Town...', when Ron looks over at the camera sideways.

xp I love the BBC presenter saying "Next year, Kraftwerk hope to eliminate the keyboards altogether, and build jackets with electronic lapels, which can be played by touch" in a condescending 'oh those wacky foreigners' tone, without suspecting that perhaps the band are winding him up.

Florian definitely

Florian the best for grooveflauting in pre-classic era and a grimly f fanfic post from the pre-retirement era

Wolfgang seems to have been secretly the lynchpin of the classic era, the one whose presence and influence shaped their stage performance and encouraged active songwriting and the most self-aware humour they've shown, even if his specific musical & technical contributions were minor (or utterly negligible in Ralf & Florian's eyes)

for grooveflauting in pre-classic era

specifically in live footage for visual reasons, Neu dudes are usually the best thing about these performances musically obv

One of the things I like most about Florian is that he was always so un-rock and roll looking.

V2 Schneider

Also Florian is a nice name

Wolfgang's sad, affectionate and funny review of one of the Katalog shows: http://thequietus.com/articles/11330-wolfgang-flur-kraftwerk

One of my favorite things about Ralf is how he cups his hand around the microphone when singing. Like, even with all the technology he finds it makes a good sound to do this.

Florian for that brazilian tv interview alone.

was thinking about putting this on the 'famous ppl you never expected to see together' thread, but I suppose it's not that surprising: Ralf with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi from YMO

https://36.media.tumblr.com/628ea7f8e03f919cc9c4cc6fed952f95/tumblr_n5j0ioy9uY1shxh5xo1_500.jpg

Karl, since he had as much to do with the music on The Man Machine and Computer World as Ralf and Florian did and nobody ever seems to point this out.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m78rqyT5j21ql7uwio1_500.jpg

Alvin Stardüst

voted for Neu!

Wow, that's kind of a, erm, PHWOAR photo of Ralf in the leather jacket there. And he's not someone I had ever contemplated in that light before.

I dunno, that whole "how much did the rhythm section really do" is one for the courts to decide. I almost always assume the answer is "way more than the lead guys would ever let on".

(The problem is, having watched that bizarre Florian interview, I just want to call them "Karlos Bartos" and "Don Dub-lah-vay Flüros" or whatever.)

Florian and Wolfgang are both awesome names. I am probably unduly swayed by the names because my favourites go Florian > Wolfgang > Karl > Ralf. But Florian really mostly strikes me as someone who is just genuinely strange, in a completely unassumed way. The fact that he is the least rock'n'roll looking person in the world, ever, just makes him even more rock'n'roll. There's something genuinely sinister about his smile that I find so appealing.

this person on deviantart has several Florian pictures, they asl ppl not to reproduce their drawings, so I'll just link

http://gagambo.deviantart.com/art/Florian-Schneider-and-Iggy-Pop-asparagus-hunting-460569599

Ha!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GTrMzYhlG8

Bartos was more than just part of "the rhythm section", he was very much part of the writing process from 1978 up until he left the band. He's credited as a songwriter on every track on The Man Machine, Computer World and Electric Cafe, and sang lead vocals on 'The Telephone Call'. Wolfgang Flur, by comparison, gets no writing credits at all, and reportedly doesn't even feature on either Computer World or Electric Cafe whether its musically, rhythmically or production-wise (although he did of course play on tour).

Yukihiro Takahashi from YMO Looks so beautiful in that photo. Swoon....

In fact he still looks fantastic. http://www.syncmusic.jp/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Yukihiro-Takahashi.jpg

Kraftwerk News,local...

I was helping out a friend put together a piece of music to accompany some horse dressage, the sort of thing I used to do for a dance troup yonks ago, the horsewoman like(s)d Jools Hollnd so there was lots of honky tonk train blues sort of thing, a couple of Miles Davis style modjazz interludes, and right in the middle, for two sections, the flute and violin bit from the long "Autobahn".

It seemed to work quite well, the music got seven out of ten and a thuumbs up for being "different"

Takahashi has always had that otherworldly handsomeness about him. Though damn @ that pic of Ralf in leather, it's so weird to think of KW as being sex symbols of any kind, but y'know I do have Trans-Europe Expressed framed in my house and looking at it now, they all were quite dapper. I was fascinated with that album cover before I even knew who Kraftwerk were, I heard of them being the "grandfathers of techno" in the age of trance and Scooter and The Prodigy, and here they were looking like they were getting their photos taken for their badges in the IRS head office. Anyway I picked Florian here, he always struck me as the one with the best sense of humor, and really, how else are you supposed to choose?

a grimly f fanfic post from the pre-retirement era

Also, yeh, this ^: reading Pascal Bussy's book a few years back did suggest that Florian's input was more about wafting around the place being Florian-esque, rather than toiling on songs.

― Special topics: Disco, The Common Market (grimly fiendish), Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Florian's more on the sound designing side. There's a bit in (possibly) Bussy's book where Florian smugly states that he can listen to the sound of a plane flying overhead and know all the components of the sound and how to recreate it in the studio.

― snoball, Tuesday, January 6, 2009

...

yeah ultimately I don't really see why he felt compelled to leave

Unless Ralf's basically had enough of him: "You don't come on tour, you just sit about the studio listening to jumbo jets and saying, 'I could do that' ... go on, take your puncture-repair kit and fuck off."

― Special topics: Disco, The Common Market (grimly fiendish), Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Bartos was more than just part of "the rhythm section", he was very much part of the writing process from 1978 up until he left the band.

You do know that even conventional rhythm sections are often part of the writing process, help compose and arrange tracks, and are integrally involved in the recording process as much as lead guys are supposed to be. And this is why "the rhythm section" often ends up taking the rest of the band to court to get credits and royalties etc. Which was kind of the point of my saying "that's for the courts to decide".

voting florian but shout out to wolfgang for TIME PIE

http://eil.com/images/main/Yamo-Time-Pie-128010.jpg

You do know that even conventional rhythm sections are often part of the writing process, help compose and arrange tracks, and are integrally involved in the recording process as much as lead guys are supposed to be

Turrican's point is that Bartos was the main composer, not just "part of the writing process". He pretty much wrote all their melodies as well as the rhythm tracks.

Turrican's point is that Bartos was the main composer, not just "part of the writing process". He pretty much wrote all their melodies as well as the rhythm tracks.

― you've got no fans you've got no ground (anagram), Monday, January 12, 2015 6:25 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ This ^

But rather than the main composer, he was one of three main composers, contributing melodic content. There's nothing for the courts to decide, for he's been credited for the tracks he was involved in co-writing since those albums were first released.

Not to discredit the contributions of the others, but to my mind, Ralf IS Kraftwerk in the way that MES is the Fall.

Also always thought he was rather handsome after he cut off those long locks ca. Radio-Activity.

So, Ralf.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Florian

RALF FFS

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Florian in a landslide.

Come on X has been in the band for like 20 years and doesn't even get a mention?

curious as to whether the one vote this option received was for a specific member of the post-classic line up, or just a general sympathy vote for all of the other guys

Conny Plank, I reckons.

Wolfgang was the one who invented electro

Well, Florian went from jaw-length hair and sideburns, to short hair, to no hair. So there's been some change. He's just so distinctive looking I think it's impossible for him to look like anyone else, no matter what styling he has.

But the thing is, I'm sorry, but... sexless? Fluteless, sure, I can understand how free jazz flute isn't to everyone's taste.

I have never understood why people called Kraftwerk's music sexless. OK, maybe the earlier experimental traffic cone stuff is a bit wibbly and rather sexless; Ananas Symphony isn't exactly a banger. But the *music* of the kind of classic period? Are you kidding me? It's dance music! It's incredibly sexy, even while it's austere and restrained - or perhaps that's why it's so sexy, because it's so repressed, it's practically dripping with sex. (And that's not even touching on the lyrical content - like, every hetero(ish) female Kraftwerk fan I've ever known has highlighted the same bits in Computer Love and The Robots - come on! "We are programmed just to do/Anything you want us to" like HELLO! - and so on.)

Sexless... if all that machine music on TEE isn't drop-dead sexy and if the romanticism of e.g. Neon Lights isn't drenched in emotion... well if that stuff isn't considered sexy, then quite frankly I'm not sure what sex is supposed to be.

Granted, this is not the best thread for this, perhaps I should just go and revive one of ILM's 8 billion Kraftwerk threads, but this has always confused me deeply.

― The Hauntology of Celebrity (Branwell with an N), Sunday, August 9, 2015 5:50 PM

Robot sex jokes aside, really. Is Kraftwerk's classic period *MUSIC* sexless? Really? Discus!

So how true is that Ralf and Florian are trying to erase the other guys' existence? Read a review about the reissues where the writer was saying the album covers where changed so it didn't feature any of the band members.

What other guys?

Those were very early EMI cd issues,where you'd get a page of 'technical detail" about CDs in five languages, rather than the credits.

Wolfgang Flür's new album now streaming on Spotify.

I'm going in...