Electronic Music Entry

The group Kraftwerk, formed in the early 1970's was almost sort of a project considering how experimental the group was. With classical musicians and arrangements, this group mixed their western classical style into electronic form to become pioneers in the art of electronic music. To fit along with their classical style, the group image they pursued was unlike what was expected of the typical 1970's group, with each member in a uniform of suit and tie and a clean haircut. The image they were after was the classic German style, more of a Adolf Hitler looking bunch if they can be compared to anything.
With their first album Autobahn, they were unpolished considering they were trying to draw attention like the pop music in the US, with songs that were lengthy compared to western pop hits. With this in mind, they were still innovators musically, as they introduced musical ideas from an electronic point of view that are looked at today after they had finally succeeded with later albums. Radio Activity was looked at as a failure to the group, even though they showcased many talents, like having the album spoken in German and English language. It is believed that it was not the correct mixture for that album when it was released to make for a big success. The album Trans Europe Express is viewed to many as the best of Kraftwerk; because they had condensed their music, still had very original ideas, and also had a story line of traveling through Europe inside of the entire album. This is the album before their most popular album The Man Machine that was sampled from many other artists. The Man Machine was most popular because Kraftwerk managed to truly understand the pop culture and mix it with electronic music. They offered lyrics through a vocoder in many cases, which is another display of how they were pioneers in music just by using such a tool in that time. They used these tools to make lyrics that were more acceptable to the US, only through their lack of originality lyrically and thematically do many believe this album is not better than Trans Europe Express.
Personally, I view the work of Kraftwerk better as a professional than a listener; This is because they offer many ideas through their music arrangement that could possibly inspire me. I would look more for ideas for music in these albums than I would strictly for listening pleasure.