{
  "slug": "krautrock",
  "name": "Krautrock",
  "aliases": [
    "kosmische musik",
    "kosmische",
    "german experimental rock",
    "motorik"
  ],
  "description": "West German bands from around 1970 who declined to inherit the blues. In its place: a steady unaccented pulse, tape editing treated as composition, and synthesisers used for texture rather than for showmanship.",
  "origin": {
    "place": "West Germany",
    "year": 1970
  },
  "lineage": [
    {
      "genre": "minimalism",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/minimalism/",
      "inherited": "The permission to repeat. New York drone and phase music reached Germany through Tony Conrad and La Monte Young, and gave a generation of bands a reason to hold one figure for twenty minutes and call it finished."
    },
    {
      "genre": "psychedelic-rock",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/psychedelic-rock/",
      "inherited": "The starting point most of these bands were reacting against and extending at once. Amon Düül II are a commune psych band by any reading; Can and Faust keep the studio experiment and throw out the blues and the whimsy."
    },
    {
      "genre": "musique-concrete",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/musique-concrete/",
      "inherited": "The editing. Faust and Can built records out of tape splices rather than takes, and Stockhausen taught two of Can's members directly — the lineage here is a classroom, not an influence."
    }
  ],
  "bpm": {
    "min": 100,
    "max": 140
  },
  "updated": "2026-08-29",
  "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/krautrock/",
  "trackCount": 9,
  "curatedBy": [
    {
      "name": "The Waxonia Desk",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/artist/the-desk/",
      "pickCount": 4
    }
  ],
  "playlists": {},
  "tracks": [
    {
      "rank": 1,
      "trackKey": "neu--hallogallo",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/neu--hallogallo/",
      "title": "Hallogallo",
      "artist": "Neu!",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/neu/",
      "year": 1972,
      "label": "Brain",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Ten minutes of Klaus Dinger playing one beat perfectly. The motorik pulse is the single most exportable idea German rock produced, and every record that drives forward without swinging owes it something.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-roots",
          "name": "Roots",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/the-desk-roots/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-krautrock",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — Krautrock",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-krautrock/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Neu!%20Hallogallo",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=zndpi8tNZyQ",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 2,
      "trackKey": "kraftwerk--autobahn",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/kraftwerk--autobahn/",
      "title": "Autobahn",
      "artist": "Kraftwerk",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/kraftwerk/",
      "year": 1974,
      "label": "Philips",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Twenty-two minutes of a car journey, and the record where Kraftwerk stop being a rock group. Detroit heard the machine precision; Britain heard the pop tune hiding inside it. Both were right.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-krautrock",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — Krautrock",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-krautrock/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Kraftwerk%20Autobahn",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=vkOZNJYAZ7c",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 3,
      "trackKey": "can--halleluhwah",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/can--halleluhwah/",
      "title": "Halleluhwah",
      "artist": "Can",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/can/",
      "year": 1971,
      "label": "United Artists",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Jaki Liebezeit holds one figure for eighteen minutes while the band come apart around him. The strongest evidence that repetition is not the opposite of drama but its cheapest fuel.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Can%20Halleluhwah",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=-ukhZgsC4vc",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 4,
      "trackKey": "kraftwerk--trans-europe-express",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/kraftwerk--trans-europe-express/",
      "title": "Trans-Europe Express",
      "artist": "Kraftwerk",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/kraftwerk/",
      "year": 1977,
      "label": "Kling Klang",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Afrika Bambaataa built Planet Rock on it, Detroit built a genre on it, and it remains a wistful song about trains. No other record on this site has been quite so productive for people who misheard it.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Kraftwerk%20Trans-Europe%20Express",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=i_85fUIRlmU",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 5,
      "trackKey": "tangerine-dream--phaedra",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/tangerine-dream--phaedra/",
      "title": "Phaedra",
      "artist": "Tangerine Dream",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/tangerine-dream/",
      "year": 1974,
      "label": "Virgin",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A sequencer drifting out of tune with itself for seventeen minutes, which the band kept because it was better than the accurate take. Ambient's immediate ancestor, and considerably more sinister than its descendants.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-krautrock",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — Krautrock",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-krautrock/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Tangerine%20Dream%20Phaedra",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=EhQpXD2Z9WQ",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 6,
      "trackKey": "faust--its-a-rainy-day-sunshine-girl",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/faust--its-a-rainy-day-sunshine-girl/",
      "title": "It's a Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl",
      "artist": "Faust",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/faust/",
      "year": 1972,
      "label": "Polydor",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A nursery rhyme played by a band who seem to be sabotaging the tape as it runs. Faust treated the studio as the only real instrument, decades before that became a normal thing to say.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Faust%20It's%20a%20Rainy%20Day%2C%20Sunshine%20Girl",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z4ahue-pSo",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 7,
      "trackKey": "cluster--hollywood",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/cluster--hollywood/",
      "title": "Hollywood",
      "artist": "Cluster",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/cluster/",
      "year": 1974,
      "label": "Brain",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Moebius and Roedelius abandon drone for something that clanks and bounces. The direct line between this and every warm, slightly broken analogue electronic record made since is short and well documented.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Cluster%20Hollywood",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=L2n7ZueDbWg",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 8,
      "trackKey": "manuel-gottsching--e2-e4",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/manuel-gottsching--e2-e4/",
      "title": "E2-E4",
      "artist": "Manuel Göttsching",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/manuel-gottsching/",
      "year": 1984,
      "label": "Inteam",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "One hour, one sequence, one guitarist improvising over it in a single take. Sueño Latino lifted it, Balearic DJs adopted it, and it accidentally became the bridge from kosmische to the dancefloor.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-krautrock",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — Krautrock",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-krautrock/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Manuel%20G%C3%B6ttsching%20E2-E4",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=pUfIqO5arq4",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 9,
      "trackKey": "amon-duul-ii--archangels-thunderbird",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/amon-duul-ii--archangels-thunderbird/",
      "title": "Archangels Thunderbird",
      "artist": "Amon Düül II",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/amon-duul-ii/",
      "year": 1970,
      "label": "Liberty",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The commune end of the scene: Renate Knaup howling over a band that can genuinely play. Included because krautrock was never only the tidy, metronomic half that got the better press.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Amon%20D%C3%BC%C3%BCl%20II%20Archangels%20Thunderbird",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=sfu-k9CKq2w",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}