Nowadays, Kraftwerk’s appearance performing Autobahn on the BBC TV show Tomorrow’s World in 1975 is touted as one of the most important and influential moments in electronic music. At the time, though, it wasn’t quite the groundbreaking development that history has judged it to be… more ‘look at these strange German men’. Of course, Tomorrow’s World – being broadcast in roughly the same early evening time-slot as Top Of The Pops – wasn’t exactly a deep-dive into science and technology, and it’s edifying to hear presenter Raymond Baxter solemnly relaying the hope of one band-member that soon they might do away with keyboards, replacing them by jackets with electronic lapels which could be played by touch… rather in the same manner that Tomorrow’s World presenters had previously marvelled at the idea of jet packs, or robot assistants.
The footage of the four men dressed in suits with their names in neon signs at their feet presenting their “machinemusik” looked more like a bunch of enthusiastically groovy professors showing an end of term presentation than any future pop manifesto. “The sounds are created in their studio in Düsseldorf,” Baxter intoned reverently, “then reprogrammed and recreated onstage with the minimum of fuss.” And there, in one line, was the rejection of rock values and the difference between artifice and authenticity. Mind you, the moment that Schneider unleashed his smile – a facial expression that combined gentle reassurance with the air of a kidnapper about to harvest some organs from his trussed-up victim – was distinctly unsettling. The classic clip is available on YouTube.
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