Krautrock
The 9 Best Krautrock
Tracks of All Time
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
- West Germany, 1970
- Tempo
- 100–140 BPM
- Also known as
- kosmische musik, kosmische, german experimental rock, motorik
- Tracks
- 9
- Updated
- 2026-08-29
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Curators on Krautrock
This ranking is the whole scene arguing. These are individuals who gave us their own Krautrock list, and a reason for every record on it.
Number 1: Neu! / Hallogallo
1972 · Brain
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.
Also on Roots, The Waxonia Desk — Krautrock, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Number 2: Kraftwerk / Autobahn
1974 · Philips
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.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — Krautrock, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Number 3: Can / Halleluhwah
1971 · United Artists
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.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Number 4: Kraftwerk / Trans-Europe Express
1977 · Kling Klang
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.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Number 5: Tangerine Dream / Phaedra
1974 · Virgin
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.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — Krautrock
Number 6: Faust / It's a Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl
1972 · Polydor
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.
Number 8: Manuel Göttsching / E2-E4
1984 · Inteam
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.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — Krautrock, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Number 9: Amon Düül II / Archangels Thunderbird
1970 · Liberty
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.