“We should use the tools of today’s society to create music – otherwise it is just antique”: How Kraftwerk’s The Model set the prototype for modern pop

‘Seminal’ is a much-used word in arts and culture but in the case of German electronic collective Kraftwerk it’s an extremely apt one.

Kraftwerk are one of the most influential bands in the history of contemporary pop and without them huge swathes of music simply would not exist.

Without them, there would be no electronic music, dance music or hip-hop as we know it.

Kraftwerk expanded the boundaries of what music is capable of, and in the process influenced a huge sweep of artists from David Bowie, Depeche Mode, Gary Numan and Human League to Coldplay, Prince, Jay-Z , Daft Punk, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, Stereolab, Dr. Dre, De La Soul, Afrika Bambaataa, Chemical Brothers and LCD Soundsystem.

One of the downsides of being so colossally influential, of course, is that the world often doesn’t catch up with what you have achieved until long after you have done it.

Such was the case with The Model, a single from the band’s classic 1978 album The Man-Machine.

The song took three years to get noticed, by which time the band were actively promoting another album.

When it did eventually hit, The Model would have a profound impact on the band’s trajectory and inspire a whole generation of new artists, particularly in the UK.

The Model became Kraftwerk’s mega-hit. And it would be the Big Bang moment for legions of enlightened young artists, ushering in drum machines, synthesisers, vocoders, samplers and sequencers into the pop mainstream.

By the time Kraftwerk released The Model and the album The Man-Machine, they already had six albums under their belts.

The band was formed in Düsseldorf, West Germany, in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Hütter had first met flautist and “sound fetishist” Schneider when they were both music students in that city in the late-60s.

The duo became key players in Germany’s experimental art-rock underground, occupying the same creative terrain as Can and Neu!, a cluster of avant-garde artists that were disparagingly dubbed ‘krautrock’ by the UK press.

By 1970, Hütter and Schneider were becoming increasingly obsessed with synths and became inspired by Gilbert & George, the suit-wearing British artists whose aim was to bring art into everyday life.

This was a manifesto that inspired Hütter and Schneider when in 1970 they formed Kraftwerk. They rented an empty workshop premises at Mintropstrasse 16, in an industrial area of Düsseldorf.

This space, which they called Kling Klang Studio, became the epicentre of their creative development.

That year, they also began working with the visionary producer, engineer and musician, Konrad ‘Conny’ Plank, who would shape Germany’s electronic music and influence the development of ambient, new wave, hip-hop, house and techno.

Plank was a master at creating startling electronic soundscapes and blending them with conventional sounds.

Kraftwerk’s first three albums were groundbreaking in their own right, but Autobahn (1974) was the first to fully embrace the repetitive electronic sound that would become their trademark.

By then, Hütter and Schneider had invested in newer technology such as the Minimoog, the ARP Odyssey and the EMS Synthi AKS.

Autobahn still retained some conventional instruments, such as flute, violin and guitar but this album set a template for Kraftwerk and they quickly phased out acoustic instrumentation from this point on.

In 1974, they recruited drummer Wolfgang Flür, whose delicate style worked perfectly with the band’s mechanised, minimalist sound. As Hütter proudly told the music press: “Our drummers don’t sweat.”

Many critics in the US and the UK struggled to come to terms with synth music, but as Helen Brown put it in the Financial Times in August 2017, these critics “were soon forced to concede that the routine pleasures and elegant melancholy of the band’s pristine soundscapes were resonating with young people.”

And as Hütter himself explained earlier that same year: “It is emotional.

“People a long time ago had difficulties finding the sensitivity of electronics. But when you go and see your doctor and he does a heart test, it is electronics that are very sensitive to this.

“It’s the same with an instrument. That’s why we should use the tools of today’s society to create music – otherwise it is just antique.”

Fuelled by the success of Autobahn, Kraftwerk released the album Trans Europe Express in 1977. By then, the musician and composer Karl Bartos had joined the band.

One year later, they released The Man-Machine and the first track on side two was The Model.

Das Model, as it is called in German, evolved from a poem the band’s artistic collaborator Emil Schult wrote about the high-fashion models who he observed in a nightclub in Cologne.

“She's a model and she's looking good/I'd like to take her home, that's understood/She plays hard to get, she smiles from time to time/It only takes a camera to change her mind.”
The lyrics are a satirical comment on the commercialisation of beauty, but they would ultimately draw criticism for the perceived objectification of women who only exist for the male gaze.

Those who defended the song claimed that it is in fact a critique of a male-dominated consumerism.

Thematically, The Model stood out for Kraftwerk.

While most of the tracks of The Man-Machine album focused on themes such as the Cold War, Germany's fascination with manufacturing and humans’ increasingly symbiotic relationship with machines, The Model was simply about people.

It was also a lot shorter than the other tracks, clocking in at just 3.38.

Sonically, The Model is a masterclass in minimalism.

There’s a hypnotic flavour to the 124bpm song and an exuberance, offset by Hütter’s clipped, sophisticated and deadpan vocal delivery.

In terms of structure, The Model is pure pop with a simple progression. This is Kraftwerk at their melodic and mechanical best.

The percussion is spare and there is a simple, infectiously catchy melody played in octaves, running throughout the song. The chords in the verse could not be simpler: Am-Em, before shifting to C-Bm-G C-Bm-E on the bridge.

Despite their passion for electronica, there are still nods to ’60s pop sensibilities within Kraftwerk’s music.

As Bartos told Jonathan Miller of Sound On Sound magazine in March 1998. “I grew up on that British and American pop sound – Motown, The Beatles, Rolling Stones and The Who.

“I forgot about them in the ’70s when I went back to avant‑garde classical composers like Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez and all that musique concrète stuff.

“In Kraftwerk, I really forgot about pop music, although of course we did do songs like The Model which were in that kind of tradition. Nobody recognised it at the time, but it was still a three‑minute pop song.”

Kraftwerk have always been guarded about the technoolgy they use, but it seems likely that the bass on The Model is a Micromoog, the lead line is a Polymoog, or possibly an ARP Odyssey, and the melody that enters the mix at 1.30 is a Minimoog.

There’s a hypnotic feel to the melody and the lyrics of The Model, which is a beguiling piece of synth pop that came to epitomise the electronica movement of the early 1980s.

As is the case with all the songs on The Man-Machine album, The Model was released in German and English language versions. The lyrics on both versions are virtually identical with the exception of a guttural-sounding "Korrekt!" after the line “Sie trinkt in Nachtclubs immer Sekt” (“She's going out to nightclubs, drinking just champagne").

In his splendidly-entitled autobiography I Was A Robot, former Kraftwerk member Wolfgang Flür explained that this was an in-joke between the band. Flür said the line refers to a waiter in the band’s favourite night club in Düsseldorf’s old town who always forced champagne on guests because he received the highest commission.

“We'd heard him so often,” wrote Flür, “and he was such a fine example of Düsseldorf chic, that we invited him into our studio when we were recording The Model so that he could speak his smug slogan directly into the microphone. That's why his pithy "Sekt? Korrrrrrrekt!" [Champagne? Correct?] appears in our most famous song.”

The Model was released in September 1978 in the UK as the B-side to the nine-minute epic Neon Lights and the 12-inch version was pressed on luminous vinyl. But in an era enthralled by the disco glitz of Grease, it sank without a trace and had little impact outside of Germany.

It took a further three years before the song finally began to get the attention it deserved. In 1981, The Model was reissued as a B-side to the track Computer Love and when DJs began playing the B-side, the single was re-issued as a double A-side. In February 1982, The Model went to No.1 in the UK Singles Chart.

Astonishingly, despite having been recorded three years earlier, The Model still sounded innovative and fresh.

It only stayed at No.1 for one week but its impact was profound.

With The Model, Kraftwerk had created the prototype for modern pop. They had also lit the touchpaper for a whole wave of electronic and synth pop bands that were to follow in their wake.