@seedy:
I don't like YMO - too pop - too synth (in a 80s bad way) for me - I can take only so much slime
Just because they were influenced by Kraftwerk, doesn't mean they got the idea in the right way.
There are thousands of techno/house/tech-house/dance people influenced by Kraftwerk - and they still make bullshit slime music.
Like Pete said - all those fancy pop elements in Kraftwerk tracks were there for sarcasm, but obviously some people got it the wrong way.
@Dennis:
Don't believe everything you read - on the other hand - you can believe your ears
just take any Kraftwerk album and speed it up a little bit, spice it with just a few effects and you will get every known steady-beat electronic genre - techno, house, industiral, minimal, electro, tech-house, gabber, rave, trance.
The broken beats genres on the other hand, emerged from jazz -> funk -> hip-hop -> turntablism -> jungle -> big beat -> d'n'b.
There are crossovers ofcourse, but the point is all of them were mixing and building on top of each other.
Hip-Hop (The first hip hop record is widely regarded to be The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight", from 1979) was brought to Detroit/Chicago in the electro style by Afrika Bambaataa in 1980 (Bambaataa Zulu Nation Soul Sonic Force – Zulu Nation Throw Down) and he was building on Kraftwerk samples and adding some funky basslines (the disco lement) - that's the birth of hip-hop, 10 years after Kraftwerk.
True, classic clubber house & techno did appear for the first time in Detroit/Chicago - better said - the name 'techno/house' appeared there for the first time - but the root music was created before in western Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(The initial take on techno arose from the melding of electronic music, in the style of artists such as Kraftwerk)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_musi ... late_1980s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Otherwise, if you want to hear/read about the roots of electronic music, do some digging of the following:
1910s- Luigi Russolo - Italian futurist, experimental noise, machines making music
1920s- Leon Theremin - Russian, the inventor of theremin electronic instrument, early experimentalist
1947 - Karlheinz Stockhausen - German composer, ground-breaking work in electronic music.
1948 - Pierre Schaeffer - French, musique concrète and sampling techniques
1950 - Pierre Henry - French composer, pioneer of the musique concrète genre of electronic music.
1954 - Gottfried Michael Koenig - German-Dutch composer, ground-breaking work in electronic music.
1956 - György Ligeti - Hungarian composer working electronic pieces in Vienna, Austria
1956 - Louis & Bebe Barron - US, the first electronic music for magnetic tape, and the first entirely electronic film score (didn't do much else than 1 soundtrack)
1957 - BBC Radiophonic Workshop - UK mega group for experimental electronic sounds
1958 - Luc Ferrari - Italian/French composer, tape music
1960s- Luigi Nono - Italian composer
1960s- John Cage - US composer since the '30s, but didn't start electronic experiments till early '60s
1960s- Philip Glass - US composer, american minimalism
1963 - Terry Riley - US minimalism
1965 - La Monte Young - US minimalism
1969 - Jean-Michel Jarre - French electronic composer, pop-electro
1970s- Clara Rockmore - Russian/Lithuanian theremin maestro
1970 - Kraftwerk - German, experimental electro/techno
1970 - Popol Vuh - German cosmic krautrock
1970 - Tangerine Dream - German, cosmic krautrock, ambient
1970 - Brian Eno - UK, electronic ambient guru producer
1970 - Steve Reich - US minimalism
1971 - Harold Budd - US composer, minimal ambient (friend of Eno)
1971 - Kluster / Cluster / Moebius / Roedelius - German, electronic kraurock experiments
1971 - Conrad Schnitzler - German, electronic noise theories
1972 - Klaus Schulze - German electronic music pioneer
1975 - Bernard Fevre - French experimentalists
1976 - Throbbing Gristle - UK, first industrial music
1970s- Giorgio Moroder - Italian electronic disco producer from the late 70s
1979 - Cabaret Voltaire - UK
1980 - Afrika Bambaataa - US DJ
1981 - Depeche Mode - UK synthpop - yuck!
1982 - Front 242 - Beglian
1982 - Psychic TV & Genesis P-Orridge - UK, psycho-punk-electro
1982 - Steve Roach - US ambient
1982 - Robert Rich - US ambient
1983 - Juan Atkins (Model 500, Infiniti, Cybotron) - US DJ
1986 - Coldcut - UK
1986 - Renegade Soundwave - UK
1986 - Front Line Assembly - Canadian
1986 - Kevin Saunderson - US DJ
1987 - Aphex Twin - UK, idm
1987 - Blake Baxter - US DJ
1987 - Derrick May - US DJ
1988 - Humanoid - UK
1988 - Fluke - UK
1988 - 808 State - UK
1988 - Meat Beat Manifesto - UK
1988 - Atom TM (Atom Heart) - German
1988 - Frankie Bones - US techno/house
1988 - Underworld - UK
1989 - Jeff Mills - US DJ
1989 - The Black Dog - UK
1989 - The Orb - UK
1989 - Orbital - UK
1989 - Vidna Obmana - Belgian
1990 - B12 - UK
1990 - Underground Resistance - US techno
1990 - Fatboy Slim - aka Mighty Dub Katz aka Pizzaman aka Beats International aka Freak Power - big beat maestro
1990 - DJ Food - UK
1990 - 4 Hero - UK drum'n'bass
1990 - CJ Bolland - UK DJ
1990 - Moby - US
1991 - FSOL - UK
1991 - The Prodigy - UK
1991 - Leftfield - UK
1991 - Plastikman - UK/Canada/US/Germany
1991 - Apollo 440 - UK, big beat, mixing rock with electronic music
1991 - Autechre - UK
1991 - Plaid - UK
1991 - DJ Shadow - US
1991 - Carl Craig - US DJ
1992 - Pete Namlook - Germany
1992 - Freddy Fresh - US/UK big beat
1992 - DJ Q-Bert - US
1993 - Photek - UK
1993 - The Sabres of Paradise - UK
1993 - µ-Ziq - UK
1993 - Luke Vibert (Wagon Christ, Plug) - UK
1993 - The Chemical Brothers - UK
1993 - Alec Empire (Atari Teenage Riot) - German hard core
1993 - Omni Trio - UK
I probably missed a dozen
but you get the point