And now for something completely different…..

Today’s long song is from Kraftwerk, the electronic music pioneers from Dusseldorf, Germany.  Autobahn, released in 1974, was their fourth album.  The title track from that album is today’s offering.  Let’s listen…you might as well sit back and relax, this is going to take a while.  Twenty two minutes to be exact.

I was quite taken by this song, and by the album, when it was first released.  I can still remember listening to Autobahn over and over and over again on the cassette player in my car on a four hour trip to Montgomery, Alabama in 1974.  Fun, fun, fun on the Autobahn indeed!

Influential is an over used word these days but I think we can feel comfortable in saying that Kraftwerk merits the use of that word.  I firmly believe that many of today’s groups would not exist today if Kraftwerk had not laid the electronic music groundwork to prepare the way.  School of Seven Bells (featured in a New Music That Doesn’t Suck post last week) is one example of such a group.