Good Afternoon Charles,
Glad you acknowledge Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk. What an influential band.
RIP Florian Schneider.

Larry

You understand the limitations of all politics, it seems, except your own.

Thanks for this. I went to the University of Illinois at Champaign | Urbana in the '80s. DJs would come down from Chicago to play weekend parties. Kraftwerk was always in the mix. The dance floor would jump. Man, I miss those days!

There was a documentary on the Post-War German music scene, including Kraftwerk. It was mentioned that Kraftwerk was approached by David Bowie to do an album together. Kraftwerk very politely and respectfully declined because they felt it would be a David Bowie album and not a Kraftwerk album, I mean how could it not be. I was impressed by their integrity and honesty to their own vision.

And I would argue with Charles that Kraftwerk was not "capitalistic" per se. Kraftwerk asked themselves a very difficult question: "What is German music?" in a post WWII world. Babyboomers in Germany had to keep their distance from their past, created by their fathers and grandfathers. New German music had to be new, forward-looking, worldly, even global. There was a feeling of expansion, of moving forward. Hence Autobaun and Trans Europe Express. Of course that expansion was driven by capitalism, but I don't think it was what was driving Kraftwerk.

@6,
Agree. Very good observation.