Numbers
By Kraftwerk
“In the 1970s and 1980s, the German city of Düsseldorf became, together with Berlin, one of the two epicenters of a new music movement.”
The main reason Düsseldorf entered the map of international music in the 1970s and 1980s was Kraftwerk, probably one of the most successful electronic bands of all time. We spoke extensively about the historical relevance of the German music scene in our Kösmische Musik/Krautrock special here on hiphopelectronic.com.
Florian Schneider on flutes, synthesizers, and violin) with Ralf Hütter on organ and synthesizers formed Kraftwerk between 1969 and 1970. They released two free-form experimental rock albums based on exploratory musical improvisations played on various traditional instruments. When Wolfgang Flür joined the band in 1973, Kraftwerk began to rely more heavily on synthesizers and drum machines. Their early works were still instrumental. Their first four albums, Kraftwerk (1970), Kraftwerk 2 (1972), Ralf und Florian (1973), and most importantly Autobahn (1974), their most successful album until then, were all produced by a critical figure in the German music scene, producer Conny Plank.
To promote their fifth album, Autobahn (1974), the band toured the US, Canada, and the UK for the first time and started investing in an arsenal of new music gears and tools they learned to use with the help of Plank, who produced the album. Their albums started featuring lyrics and vocals parts filtered with a vocoder, one of their most distinctive elements, and a constantly increasing presence of synthesizers like the Minimoog, EMS Synthi AKS, and ARP Odyssey. The new band member Karl Bartos performed on homemade electronic percussion instruments. In the following years, the band changed members several times, but the organization of Hütter-Schneider-Bartos-Flür remained in place until the late 1980s and is now considered the classic live line-up of Kraftwerk.
Their famous Kling Klang studio in Düsseldorf started to collect several pieces of gear that not many of the other German bands of the Krautrock and Kosmiche Musik scene could afford. Thanks to the global success of albums like Autobahn, Radio-Activity (1975), Trans-Europe Express (1977), and The Man-Machine (1978).
The Man-Machine’s iconic cover was the final element that made Kraftwerk stand out compared to the rest of the German electronic music scene. The use of pop melodies, visual effects during their performances, and powerful image helped the band reach international attention. In 1981 they released the single Computer Love/The Model, taken from their new album Computer World, getting to number one in the UK for the first time.
The song we’ll talk about today, Numbers, is the third track of Computer World, and with its industrial drum machine beat has clear elements of minimalism and techno. It consists only of a drum machine, a synth arpeggiator, and filtered voices counting in multiple languages. Because of Kraftwerk’s international success, the album was released in German and English.
The album was entirely produced with analog gear, dedicated to the power of new technologies and the risk of a more controlled society because, funny fact, the band still didn’t own a computer at the time. Following the release of the Computer World, Kraftwerk went on tour and packed up their entire Kling Klang studio to take it along on the road. A dream for every musician and producer.
