{"id":495303,"date":"2020-05-06T09:38:20","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T15:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=994735"},"modified":"2020-05-06T09:38:20","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T15:38:20","slug":"kraftwerk-co-founder-florian-schneider-dead-at-73","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/kraftwerk-co-founder-florian-schneider-dead-at-73\/","title":{"rendered":"Kraftwerk Co-Founder Florian Schneider Dead at 73"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/florian-scheider-kraftwerk-death.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Florian Schneider, co-founder and keyboardist of the influential German electronic music group <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/kraftwerk\/\" id=\"auto-tag_kraftwerk\" data-tag=\"kraftwerk\">Kraftwerk<\/a>, has died at the age of 73.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cKraftwerk co-founder and electro pioneer Ralf H\u00fctter has sent us the very sad news that his friend and companion over many decades. Florian Schneider has passed away from a short cancer disease just a few days after his 73rd birthday,\u201d the band said in a statement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cIn the year 1968 Ralf H\u00fctter and Florian Schneider started their artistic and musical collaboration. In 1970 they founded their electronic Kling Klang studio in D\u00fcsseldorf and started the multi-media project Kraftwerk. All the Kraftwerk catalogue albums were conceived and produced there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Formed by Schneider and Ralf H\u00fctter in the late Sixties, Kraftwerk\u2019s pioneering use of keyboards and synthesizers would later inspire artists in all genres of the musical spectrum, from rock and electronic music to hip-hop and pop.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">While undergoing numerous lineup changes over Seventies and Eighties, the partnership of Schneider and H\u00fctter remained the group\u2019s creative backbone.<\/span> <span class=\"s1\">The duo recorded three albums alongside famed Krautrock producer Conny Plank \u2014 1970\u2019s <em>Kraftwerk<\/em>, 1971\u2019s <em>Kraftwerk 2<\/em> and 1973\u2019s <em>Ralf und Florian<\/em> \u2014 but Kraftwerk considered their 1974 album <em>Autobahn<\/em> to be the true start of their famed catalogue, which earned the group a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">On <em>Autobahn<\/em>, Schneider and H\u00fctter solidified the Kraftwerk sound: Hypnotically looping and repetitive beats and synths and vocoded vocals to create boundless soundscapes that, like in the case of the influential title track, could span the entire side of a record.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vkOZNJYAZ7c?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Now joined by Karl Bartos and Wolfgang Flur on electronic percussion, with their Kling Klang studio in Dusseldorf their official outpost, Kraftwerk next released 1975\u2019s <em>Radio-Activity<\/em> and 1977\u2019s <em>Trans-Europe Express<\/em>; the latter album, inspired by David Bowie\u2019s 1976 LP <em>Station to Station<\/em>, would foster a mutual admiration between the two artists, with Bowie\u2019s <em>Heroes<\/em> track \u201cV-2 Schneider\u201d an ode to the Kraftwerk keyboardist.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Prior to his forays into synthesizers, Schneider was a flautist. <span class=\"s1\">\u201cFlorian came from the flute, we were at the same school and he was in the classical orchestra, but at that time he was already manipulating sound with gadgets like equalizer, delay and fuzzbox. The results sounded electronic, but it was not anything near computers or synthesizers,\u201d one-time Kraftwerk member and founding Neu! guitarist Michael Rother <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uncut.co.uk\/features\/kraftwerk-autobahn-new-era-electronic-music-like-artificial-joke-91136\/2\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">told <em>Uncut<\/em><\/a> in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">While H\u00fctter was the voice and mouthpiece of Kraftwerk, the notoriously press-shy Schneider<\/span> <span class=\"s1\">\u2014 the son of the architect Paul Schneider-Esleben, who designed Germany\u2019s Bonn Airport \u2014<\/span> <span class=\"s1\">is credited with navigating the band toward its boundary-pushing limits.<\/span> <span class=\"s1\">\u201cFlorian is a sound fetishist. I am not so much, I\u2019m maybe more a word fetishist,\u201d H\u00fctter told <em>Mojo<\/em> in 2005. \u201cThese roles are not an obligation, they have just developed over the years as our preferences.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">As the progenitors of electronic-pop, Kraftwerk lived up to their reputation with a pair of albums \u2014 1978\u2019s <em>The Man-Machine<\/em> and 1981\u2019s <em>Computer World<\/em> \u2014 that leaned into their almost-robotic machinations; in 2005, Coldplay, with permission from Kraftwerk, retooled the latter album\u2019s \u201cComputer Love\u201d for the band\u2019s hit \u201cTalk.\u201d Schneider and H\u00fctter\u2019s joint love of cycling would next result in the 1983 single \u201cTour de France\u201d; the duo would revisit the theme for their final studio album together, 2003\u2019s <em>Tour de France Soundtracks<\/em>. Five years later, Schneider left Kraftwerk, leaving H\u00fctter as the band\u2019s only remaining member.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"s1\">Ahead of their time musically, the band was not embraced and often misunderstood by American audiences upon touring the U.S. in the mid-Seventies.<\/span> However, Kraftwerk\u2019s impact traversed the musical spectrum: Afrika Bambaataa\u2019s groundbreaking 1982 single \u201cPlanet Rock\u201d was directly influenced by Kraftwerk\u2019s \u201cNumbers\u201d and \u201cTrans-Europe Express,\u201d with the latter track also employed by Dr. Dre on the Jay-Z collaboration \u201cUnder Pressure.\u201d The group would frequently be sampled by hip-hop acts over the ensuing decades, leading to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/entertainment-arts-49162546\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a landmark trademark lawsuit<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In 2019, Kraftwerk was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, although the group was not selected as part of the Class of 2020.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/i_85fUIRlmU?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><br \/><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZtWTUt2RZh0?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>This story is developing\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/kraftwerk-florian-schneider-dead-994735\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Florian Schneider, co-founder and keyboardist of the influential German electronic music group Kraftwerk, has died at the age of 73. \u201cKraftwerk co-founder and electro pioneer Ralf H\u00fctter has sent us the very sad news that his friend and companion over many decades. Florian Schneider has passed away from a short cancer disease just a few [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-495303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-music-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-01 11:23:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KQZR - The Reel","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}