A selection byThe Waxonia Desk
Krautrock
Four records for the reader who arrived here from a techno page and wants to know what a German band from 1972 has to do with anything.
- Picks
- 4
- Genre
- Krautrock
- Years
- 1972–1984
- Curator
- The Waxonia Desk
- Updated
- 2026-08-29
Listen to the whole list
Play it through here →One record after another, with the verdicts
Take this list to YouTube → (opens in a new tab)
Opens the list on YouTube as a playlist you can save to your own account. We never see your account, and nothing is stored here.
The picks — selected, not ranked
Kraftwerk / Autobahn
1974 · Philips
The one Detroit heard. Derrick May's line about Kraftwerk and Parliament stuck in an elevator is the most quoted sentence in techno, and this is the record that put Kraftwerk in the lift.
Also on Krautrock, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Neu! / Hallogallo
1972 · Brain
The one Britain heard. Every post-punk band that drives forward without swinging is playing Klaus Dinger's beat, usually without having been told whose it was.
Also on Krautrock, Roots, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Tangerine Dream / Phaedra
1974 · Virgin
The one ambient heard. A sequencer drifting out of tune for seventeen minutes, kept because it was better than the accurate take, and far more sinister than anything it went on to influence.
Also on Krautrock
Manuel Göttsching / E2-E4
1984 · Inteam
The one the dancefloor heard, ten years late and via an Italian bootleg. An hour of one sequence, and the moment kosmische stopped being something you sat down for.
Also on Krautrock, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
About the curator
The people who write the rankings on this site. We keep the lists honest, we argue about the order, and we get asked the same question more than any other: where should someone actually start. These are our answers.