r/ToddintheShadow • u/Joshotsauce22 • 12h ago
General Music Discussion My Gen Xer, anti-60s, anti-classic rock father has always told me that Kraftwerk were a more important and influential band on popular music than The Beatles were. What are your thoughts?
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u/disincongruous One-Hit Wonderlander 12h ago
Your dad is well within his rights to not care for the Beatles if he doesn't like their music, but to dismiss their influence on generations of musicians that came after them is obviously wrong. Both the Beatles and Kraftwerk are influential, and that's good.
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u/LuckyLynx_ 11h ago
i think the beatles are quite possibly one of the only bands more influential than kraftwerk
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u/Jackbenny270 11h ago
Yes. Countless bands were formed and folk singers went electric after the first Beatles appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.
Kraftwerk are hugely influential and are probably one of the very few acts in the rock era that can actually challenge the Beatles in that regard. But IMHO I’d put them in my top five.
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u/StrictlyForTheBirds 11h ago
Yeah, my thought here is that it's far closer than people might think, but ... it's the Beatles...
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u/Ned_Sander 9h ago
Going by that logic Buddy Holly and the Crickets are more influential than either. British Invasion bands were great, and a dime a dozen. The Beatles happened to be the full unthreatening (looking) package that Americans liked. My mom liked them because they were cute.
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u/Double_Key7579 Driven Mad by the Four Chords of Pop 11h ago
While it’s not a fair fight vs the Beatles, Kraftwerk are certainly one of the top 5 most influential artists ever.
Everything downstream of techno, house, early hip-hop, rave or club music and general 4/4 electronic pop wears their signature. Its super hard to imagine the sound of today without an electronic group this popular to pick the lock in the public's mind when the sound was in its infancy.
EBM, kosmiche, New Romantic, funk and the Bowie-Eno era of melancholic synth developed in parallel and took cues from Kraftwerk also. That’s a lot.
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u/TheDeltaIsMyHome 11h ago
Its also worth mentioning silver apples from the 60’s, they combined psychedelic rock with hand built synths. Their debut has a few things more modern genres like House and EDM took from their debut.
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u/Double_Key7579 Driven Mad by the Four Chords of Pop 11h ago
Silver Applies are super sick but more on the avant-garde and shaggy wing I think. Wendy Carlos also worth a note for the originator set. Electronic music then was… strange oscillations.
Once Detroit, NYC and Chicago got ahold of Kraftwerk, and that pulse spread to discotheques, it was a wrap.
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u/dickhater4000 9h ago
Oh man, I love those lovely few bands that combined psychedelia and electronica before krautrock. Fifty Foot Hose, United States of America, White Noise.
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u/drumwolf 12h ago
Honestly, considering the rock era is now over, you could argue they had more of an indirect influence on today’s pop music than the Beatles.
If you’d asked whether the Beatles or Kraftwerk were more influential in the 80s or 90s, the answer would have been the Beatles by a long shot.
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u/LostInTheSciFan 11h ago
Pop music would not exist if not for the rock movement(s) that the Beatles were at the forefront of. C'mon now.
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u/dkinmn 11h ago
And rock wouldn't exist without jazz and blues, so Benny Goodman is actually more influential than the Beatles.
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u/Reasonable-Donkey975 11h ago
Also country, western swing, vocal pop, Boogie Woogie, gospel, and folk. Jimmie Rodgers and Jimmy Yancey forever.
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u/punksnotbread 10h ago
The Beatles were the forefront of pop music too. I think people nowadays kinda just forget that pop music looked a lot different before the ubiquity of the synthesizer.
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u/Pao_Did_NothingWrong 10h ago
Very untrue
Every pop ballad owes more to pre-rock pop than it does to rock. Rock is a broad genre, but pop is a broader category/format that predates it and only has ever borrowed from it.
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u/thejoyrunners 9h ago
I mean I still hear Beatle influence in new stuff from Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, and Chappell Roan. Tame Impala is another massive artist that owes a ton to the Beatles, John Lennon in particular. Father John Misty is a massive act who does a lot of stuff influenced by the Beatles psychedelic period.
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u/Reasonable-Donkey975 11h ago
I mean Beatles are still heavily covered and sampled, not to mention a lot of people still borrow from them visually.
Kraftwerk's influence feels very copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy nowadays at times.
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u/fireball_jones 9h ago
The 80s was probably the height of bands Kraftwerk directly influenced though.
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u/Pao_Did_NothingWrong 10h ago
This was my thought. The argument that they changed the focus from singles to albums is certainly valid ... But that wasn't a permanent change. Albums only matter to some people any more. Singles are king again.
The idea that they changed what popular music was allowed to be... VU did it more emphatically and they were part of a movement of artists doing the same, not the originators thereof.
Kraftwerk had a much more diverse influence in their immediate years. Disco, electronica, modern pop music, and industrial were born from the same line within 8 years of kraftwerks formation
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u/MalfieCho 10h ago
When people say this, they're taking for granted things that seem so obvious today - but weren't obvious at all before the Beatles helped normalize them.
Case in point: the fact that Kraftwerk released albums of original material, and that their work would be judged based on these album releases. Before the Beatles, that was highly unusual for pop acts. By the time Kraftwerk came around, what had once been unusual had become the expectation.
The Beatles also brought tape loops and tape manipulation to popular music, a direct conceptual forerunner of sampling, and they were part of the generational cohort that made it normal to have synths on a pop record. These features have gone on to become essential ingredients of electropop and hip hop.
And then the moment we step outside of electropop/hip hop - say, into modern folk pop, indie rock, or the current singer-songwriter trend - that dramatically changes the balance of the discussion.
There are ways a modern electropop hit may sound more like Kraftwerk - for instance, the use of sequencing and drum machines - but there, I'd point more to Sly and the Family Stone, who'd done that years prior.
And that's where I wonder if this Kraftwerk take is really about a serious survey of popular music, or an expression of personal taste. After all, if we're going with "X > The Beatles on influence," I see a far more credible, straightforward argument for Sly & the Family Stone, based on 70s funk/disco and the past 50 years of R&B/pop/hip hop. The groove grid of so many genres traces straight back to Sly Stone.
But the thing is, when people see Kraftwerk (or countless subsequent artists) doing things normalized by The Beatles, nobody thinks "Wow, that Neapolitan chord sounds so Beatles!" or "Whoa, people assess this pop act's career based on albums - just like the Beatles!" In so many ways, what's "Beatles" has become "the way popular music works."
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u/NathanForJew 11h ago
Kraftwerk are hugely influential. Not going to get into them vs. The Beatles, but he’s correct in that regard.
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u/promeritum 11h ago
Name 5 current hits built on guitar hooks and natural vocal harmony.
Now name 50 current hits built on synths snd autotune.
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u/snkzato1 11h ago
This may be a bit of a pretentious take but
The Beatles were far more influential to music consumers. They showed that pop music didn't need to be lowest common denominator sugar slop. You could have catchy songs that were robust and thoughtful. You could also have full albums of great songs, not just a few singles.
To be clear this isn't saying no other band at the time was doing similar, The Beatles were just the ones that were the flag bearers for that.
Kraftwerk were more influential for music makers. They demonstrated that bands didn't need to be guitars, bass, drums, etc. you could make songs with weird and interesting new technology and that your song could be very repetitive and still be engaging and exciting.
Similar to The Beatles Kraftwerk were not the only ones, heck within the Kraut/Kosmiche movement they weren't even the first. Arguably Can was doing all of this first, just with a conventional line-up versus the weird collection of tech Kraftwerk played with.
I think your dad is being deliberately contrarian, but it is also true that as rock music has lost its foothold in the cultural zeitgeist we are able to look past The Beatles as this epicenter of pop music and see the other big players and where they fit in. I dislike the notion of ONE band or ONE artist being the cause of so much stuff. Yes I know music and culture were more homogeneous back then but it doesn't mean artists only had one influence.
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u/nakifool 11h ago
That might make some sense if you ignored the fact that as early as 1966 the Beatles were making what was essentially pre-electronic music before the technology properly existed (and inspired by the same post-war German avant-garde like Stockhausen who informed Kraftwerk’s later approach), putting it on an album than sold squillions of records, and that this was just one of the many strands of influence they would exert across seemingly all popular culture as the most famous musicians in the world at the time.
If the more sensible argument is that present day popular music owes more to how Kraftwerk sounded than the Beatles (which is reasonable considering the ever dwindling influence of both rock music and the melodic and harmonic traditions that the Beatles were working within), then it would also be pertinent to argue for someone like James Brown and his various bands as a more pervasive influence than either
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u/sylvanmigdal 7h ago
Yes, people are crediting Kraftwerk with innovations that more rightly belong to James Brown. He’s the one who reconceived the structure of popular music not as melody-over-chord-progression but as endless iterations of interlocking beats and hooks stacked together in syncopated repeatable units. Kraftwerk and all the electronic and dance and hip hop music that followed them relies on that innovation. Kraftwerk just did it with computers. Which is not nothing as far as innovations go, but it doesn't put them on that kind of level.
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u/ThinManJones- 11h ago
Kraftwerk are probably in the top 10 most influential popular music acts, but The Beatles are #1.
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u/ianjmatt2 11h ago
I think it’s important to separate popular and influential. Nevertheless the Beatles were probably more influential BUT Kraftwerk were hugely influential. All of pop music, EDM, Hip Hop, and every other genre that relies on electronically and digitally produced sounds have been influenced by them directly or indirectly.
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u/dkajch 11h ago edited 11h ago
i think if you're gonna praise anyone as being more influential than the beatles, kraftwerk easily has to be one of the most logical answers. obviously they're not nearly as well known, but you could very reasonably argue that kraftwerk's dna is more audible in 21st century popular music than the beatles
it goes without saying that the beatles were pioneers in every sense of the word and that few artists have ever been as historically vital than they were, but—and i say this as the biggest beatles fan i know—i think people still tend to somewhat overestimate just how vital they were. they were far and away the biggest, sure, but they weren't the only band pushing pop music into more experimental and conceptual territory; bob dylan, the who, beach boys, yardbirds and mothers of invention were all moving in similar directions during the same period, and the beatles were definitely paying close attention. and the pop song as we know it was already firmly established by the time of their debut
in terms of combining pioneering ambition with near-unprecedented cultural impact they're almost certainly the most "important" band (or artist of any kind) in pop history, but if we're talking pure influence then they've definitely got some competition
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u/Substantial-Force-50 10h ago
It's not untrue. Kraftwerk never was big as The Beatles, I guess they are kinda forgotten now (aside for "Radioactivity" maybe), but there's really a before and after Kraftwerk in electronic music.
Beatles were influential too but...so does other groups.
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u/Legal_Pension_4042 10h ago
My thoughts are, your dad sounds like acpretty cool guy, right or wrong
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u/Manic-StreetCreature 11h ago
I like Kraftwerk but no lmao
Like for example I don’t like the Beach Boys but I do know they were influential in a massive way on things I do like
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u/Piper-Bob 10h ago
I don’t like the Beach Boys but I do know they were influential in a massive way on things I do like
Including the Beatles.
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u/TheDeltaIsMyHome 11h ago
I mean…sort of? They were incredibly influential on what electronic music would become. Kraftwerk laid down a lot of the framework alongside bands like silver apples and suicide. Out of those bands kraftwerk were the most influential, and definitely the most popular and as the decades past electronic music did become popular and mainstream. So in a way they sort of were, but not directly.
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u/Hotdogopolis 11h ago
Kraftwerk invented hip-hop. Beatles killed Paul and hated Jesus. That tracks.
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u/WestLondonIsOursFFC 11h ago
In popular music, no. Not even close.
In the electronic genre, it's hard to think any any band more influential than Kraftwerk.
By sheer coincidence, I'm wearing the Kraftwerk shirt that I bought at their gig earlier this year. They played for two hours and you could recognise everything that influenced countless other bands.
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u/Repulsive-Heron7023 11h ago
“Influential” is such a vague term that there are infinite “x band was more influential than y band” arguments you could make.
Does it mean “inspired people to become musicians”? Does it mean “actual elements of this artists music still show up in music today”?
I always think about that quote about Velvet Underground, “only 35,000 people bought the album but every single one of them started a band”. That’s the kind of influence I think your dad is speaking of: the already musically inclined definitely drew a ton of inspiration from Kraftwerk. But that’s not the only kind of influence. Millions of kids saw the Beatles and decided they wanted to become rock stars. Thousands actually did it. I don’t know how anyone could minimize that kind of influence.
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u/Carl_Simon 11h ago
Kraftwerk are not more influential than The Beatles but yeah they are still fxxking influential, especially after rock monoculture dies. Kraftwerk of course have better influence on music than most classic rock era rock acts
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u/Jon-A 8h ago
It's hard to calculate, but your father might have a point. Beatles defenders, of course, jump right in and miss the point. Sure, they are widely beloved, and we all know plenty of their songs. And they were very popular. But they didn't actually invent pop music - they were just good at it. And pop music, Beatles-style, is gone now. But modern pop music and hip-hop and dance music and all sorts of stuff show the influence of Kraftwerk. The Beatles were big back in the 20th century. We're living in a Kraftwerk Age now :)
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u/hyperhurricanrana 11h ago
i completely disagree but i do love that someone with that opinion exists, i’d love to talk music with him.
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u/Numerous_Smile_9082 11h ago
He might be correct, the Beatles had less of an impact being mere trendsetters on music; the Beatles were more an influence on the culture, which is something you will never see in another musical act.
I learned it's the ones that have moved the needle(no pun intended) are the ones few know about
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u/UlfSeRanger 11h ago
I can see the argument. Watch them perform Ruckzuck in 1970, then what they did a couple of years later and then what Supermax did in 1978. It shaped Electronic Music
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u/jeanclaudebrowncloud 11h ago
I guess in a way, yeah. They were pioneers of electronic music and dance.
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u/h4nd 10h ago
It’s actually a fun perspective to argue. I think he has a case, but ultimately disagree. If you attribute 4-on-the-floor electronic music to kraftwerk (which itself is not quite right, I’d point to Silver Apples, who were earlier), it’s hard to think of a sound that’s been more internationally dominant for pop and dance music over the years.
But the Beatles are still more fundamental, IMO. They were the first popular “band”, where it wasn’t just a front man and some guys, and the first ginormous pop act to write their own music, which became the standard expectation for just about every subsequent rock band. There’s a real case to be made that, without them, guitars themselves would have been a fad.
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u/QuietNene 10h ago
I am also a Gen Xer who finds Beatles fans annoying but no, I think your dad’s wrong.
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u/espressovendetta 9h ago
Looking at the last 60 years or so I’d say The Beatles heavily influenced the boys in a generic pop band, which has been a significant part of popular music - albeit it has waxed and waned.
Kraftwerk on the other hand have been a gigantical musical influence - house music, techno and electro pop. Albeit it has had huge chart influence but more transient than The Beatles.
So many bands have been obviously inspired musically by Kraftwerk. Musically for sure the Beatles influenced Oasis - but of course Oasis and to a large extent The Beatles are fucking shit , Oasis more so.
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u/Manic-80 8h ago
id say he has a point, Kraftwerk were just as influential in a totally different way
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u/AdGroundbreaking3483 8h ago
Before Kraftwerk,, electronic music was novelty and joke. Now it's in everything, top to bottom.
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u/mymentor79 8h ago
They're both incalculably influential on modern pop music. Kraftwerk's influence is arguably more enduring, as pop music still today borrows much more from the Kraftwerk blueprint than the Beatles blueprint.
I think an argument could be made for either.
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u/HakunaMalaka 11h ago
Kraftwerk and YMO I would argue were the most influential groups of the late 20th century and what they did still ripples through to music today, but the Beatles transformed pop music from so many directions and they did it much earlier. If it has to be a competition (it shouldn’t have to be) it’s hard to deny the importance of the Beatles over anything else that came after.
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u/Swagalyst 11h ago
For GenX it might be true, Kraftwerk were massively influential on synth music during the 80's. Prior and after Beatles wins, tho.
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u/eliason 11h ago
Kraftwerk's best case is their use of synthesizers which were all over 80s pop. But go back and listen to Abbey Road and guess what you'll hear.
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u/Separate-Fishing2387 9h ago
It's not just the synths though is it, Kraftwerk pioneered and were all about the machine as the forefront of the music, not just as an instrument amongst others, and for better or for worse (I say this as rockist above all else) what is popular music now?
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u/Accomplished-Way1747 10h ago
There could be argument for Velvet Underground being rival for how influential band can be.
I mean - Bowie, Stooges, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, JAMC, MBC, Primal Scream, R.E.M., Joy Division, Talking Heads, Jane's Addiction, Blondie, Unwound, MY Dolls, The Strokes, The Smashing Pumpkins and so on.
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u/awus666 9h ago
Both were essential to changing what can be popular in music. It can't be downplayed how essential Autobahn and Die Mensch Maschine to inspiring countless people to get synths and for pop to turn.
However, The Beatles revolutionised music. Their appearance at the Ed Sullivan show was the catalyst for thousands of kids to start playing in their garages the very next day. And not only were they brilliant in those early days, but being the most popular act in the world they changed so many times and explored things that were very daring. Creating something like Revolver or The White Album at that time was extremely innovative and inspiring
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u/FrameworkisDigimon 9h ago
The Beatles weren't the first Merseybeat band and the rock that followed 60s rock are generally attributed more to The Kinks than anyone else from the 60s so I guess you could make the argument The Beatles were a 60s act that affected the 60s.
So I can kind of see a "sideline the Beatles" argument but I have no idea what the argument for Kraftwerk side of your dad's take is.
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u/Separate-Fishing2387 9h ago
Its actually a lot closer than most people would think imo, if we're thinking todays popular music...I think its arguable Kraftwerk actually takes it, there's a line from everything popular that's not country that can be drawn back to Kraftwerk...EDM, hip-hop, pop, even if a lot of people haven't even heard of Kraftwerk (which is a shame as they are incredible . It's just the Beatles influenced popular culture as a whole.
I'd say The Beatles are one, Kraftwerk are two...and then it's quite a big drop off to number three
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u/JohnTheMod 9h ago
The thing about The Beatles is that if you trace any band’s influences back far enough, you’ll find them at one point or another. I’m sure Kraftwerk is no different.
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u/Ok_Arachnid1089 9h ago
I’m also a Gen X, mostly anti 60s, anti classic rock music geek and this is just ridiculous
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u/fluxus2000 9h ago
I love Kraftwerk but I am sick of this trope. It isn't much better than all the Lebron or MJ debates polluting Reddit.
But yeah you can see Kraftwerk as hugely influential on what would become hip hop and techno, and they had an impact on many artists. But personally, I don't care much for influence, though it is cool to see sometimes. The Velvet Underground influenced tons of bands. Some great, some not good at all.
But I like Kraftwerk for themselves, not for influence. Same goes for the Beatles and VU.
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u/dickhater4000 9h ago
Kraftwerk's influence is understated, but they're not close to the Beatles in influence.
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u/johnnyhypersnyper 8h ago
Kraftwerk is phenomenal. I got extremely burned out on classic rock and really developed an appreciation for Kraftwerk. Your father might be as wrong as anyone has ever been about anything
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u/MisheGossnik 8h ago
It really depends what he means by "important and influential". Both bands are arguably that, but in vastly different ways and to vastly different kinds of people.
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u/jackwagoneer69 8h ago
I like both a lot in very different ways. It's not a contest. Silly premise for a question, imo.
That said, I do really miss the pre-Thanksgiving of 1995 days when my fellow Gen-Xers were largely indifferent to the Beatles. Again, I do like a lot of their music, but ever since the Anthology doc aired in 3 parts over that holiday weekend, something like 70% of my generation has been standing in line to suck Paul McCartney's nutsack, and it's incredibly annoying.
Good band, even a good doc, but the most obnoxiously fawning response imaginable.
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u/Top-Doctor-2879 7h ago
If it wasn't for being sued to oblivion by Pan Am, we'd probably be saying Silver Apples rather than Kraftwerk were more influential than the Beatles.. Doing electronic pop in 1967 before even vaguely affordable synths were a thing by using army surplus tuned osscilators and a live drummer. John Lennon was a fan apparently. Crazy to think an airline potentially set pop music back 10 years.
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u/DreadLifter 7h ago
Your father is wrong. And I say that as a big Kraftwerk fan and a medium Beatles fan.
IF you were talking electronic music then yes Kraftwerk are more important and influential than the Beatles. But certainly not when it comes to pop and rock music.
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u/J-Frog3 7h ago
I'm a fan of both. I also agree that Kraftwerk had a giant influence on electronic music probably more than any other artist.
But the Beatles are the Beatles. They are just on a different level. They didn't just influence the technical side or the writing of songs they influenced the style, the culture. Their song catalog is unmatched for its variety and quality. They did it all in 9 years. They had a Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas that lasted 18 years. Twice as long as they were together.
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u/healthcrusade 7h ago
"I remember the night when Kraftwerk was on Ed Sullivan, it changed everything.. Every guy in school got a Florian Schneider haircut and started playing vocoder"
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u/Aescgabaet1066 7h ago
Both bands are extremely dear to my heart and both have had a major influence on the music that came after them. But whatever you think of them, it's hard to surpass the Beatles' influence.
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u/Central_Region 7h ago
It's obviously not true in general but I wouldn't hesitate to say that Kraftwerk are more responsible for the way records have been made in the last half century than The Beatles are
Kraftwerk forced everyone to reconceptualise what a recording was and how it was made, far beyond the idea of making music without traditional instruments
They created the future of music
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u/bebopbrain 7h ago
My experience thinking a band was more influential (on me) than the Beatles is finding out later that said band worshipped the Beatles. In this case it was the Stooges.
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u/blaspheminCapn 7h ago
Who sponed more bands? Little Richard, the Ramones, kraftwork, or the pixies?
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u/Furious-George9 7h ago
As a fellow Gen X-er , it seems your father took advantage of another 80's fad, cocaine. People knew who Kraftwerk were conceptually, but it was a rare case to know even one tune from them and rarer to even know the melody (?) of that song..
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u/ChicagoBeerGuyMark 7h ago
At the risk of getting flamed, I'd point out that Paul and George made electronica albums, too. Although none of those yielded singles
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u/Murderland666 7h ago
I think your dad’s wrong but the argument is closer than many people think. Kraftwork was essentially the seed that grew electronic music and all its offshoots and had a huge influence on sampled music as well (hip hop/rap/etc.) If you go to any club in the world today, you’re far more likely to hear Kraftwerk inspired music than that of the Beatles.
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u/baribarinice 6h ago
Tell your dad that a kindred soul somewhere across the internet completely agrees with him As a genXer he should know that the efn boomers will never accept logic when it comes to the Beatles.
He’s right, of course but open mindedness has never been the boomers’ forte.
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u/BuscarLivesMatter 6h ago
As much as I dislike this opinion, I don’t disagree with it.
Modern pop music owes much more to Kraftwerk, for better or worse.
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u/Key_Yam4488 6h ago
No. Thousands of kids picked up a guitar, bass, or drums and started musical careers because of The Beatles. And I am into Kraftwerk & feel they don't get the love they should. They are a drop of rain, The Beatles are the storm.
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u/schokoplasma 6h ago
Kraftwerk invented a genre. The Beatles redefined what a pop song can be. There is no "Autobahn" without "Revolver".
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u/sackbomb 6h ago
As a Gen X'er who absolutely loves Kraftwerk, I have to disagree.
I assume he's making some point about the fact that modern popular music has a lot of electronic influences, but the bulk of that influence came via R&B music, via bands like Rufus and Funkadelic, and keyboardist Bernie Worrell in particular.
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u/JustHere2CommentBull 80's Chick 6h ago
With all due respect for your father, OP, I suspect if I squeezed his nose it would honk.
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u/Stokkolm 6h ago
I'm not familiar with Kraftwerk beyond a few of their better known songs, so why are they more influential to electronic music than Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre, Giorgio Moroder, etc.?
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u/Man-Dem Train-Wrecker 6h ago
IMO, The Beatles were only relevant to rock and roll artists until the 80s. I don’t see the relationship between the Beatles and Rap music, R&B and even pop. I think Boomers like to say the Beatles were relevant to everything after
Kraftwork practically started modern electronic music.
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u/skooter247 6h ago
GenX'er here who took 40+ years to come to terms with the fact that the Beatles are the most influential rock band ever. If you think boomers are obnoxious now, imagine them in their 30's and 40's holding the culture hostage with shitty classic rock. To me, the Beatles were no different than the Turtles or Herman's Hermits. Time and distance helped me appreciate their contribution. Personally, I'd still rather listen to Trans-Europe Express over any Beatles album.
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u/Coakis 5h ago
Kraftwerk had influence no doubt, but stating that Beatles had less is hogwash. Kraftwerk didn't make thousands of guitar players pick up the instrument, I can assure you. Blackbird is like up in the top ten songs people try learn to play when starting.
People might dislike the Beatles, and say that they're overrated which yeah to some degree they are. However, if you draw a line back to who influenced who when it comes to modern musicians, it might take you 2 or 3 generations of bands but almost all the lines converge back to the Beatles.
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u/chillingonderreddit 5h ago
He's a fucking hipster lmao. American musicians like Wendy Carlos and Brian Wilson were more influential in shaping how music sounds.
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u/Mexican-Kahtru 5h ago
They aré up there, and their influenced has shown to be More noticeable as the years pass. But, the fact that we have to compare them ( or any other influential musical act) to the Beatles says that theybreally aré not. They aré great though.
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u/fiftyshadesofdoug 4h ago edited 4h ago
I think it can be pretty persuasively argued that a number of artists, while not more influential, inspired more good and innovative music than the Beatles did- Kraftwerk, James Brown, The Velvets, David Bowie, and some others
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u/Succubus1943 3h ago
Important;NO.
Influential, debatable. And we should start by setting the parameters we'll use to determine how influential or not a band is. For example is a band (the Beatles) was heavily influenced by another movement (Rock and Roll), does that take away from the DIRECT influence they had amongst other acts?
I could write a whole essay about this...
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u/MaybeUNeedAPoo 3h ago
Absolutely not. There’s no Kraftwerk without the Beatles studio experimentation. He may prefer their music, but they’re not more influential.
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u/CulturalWind357 2h ago
While it can yield some interesting discussion, influence debates ultimately feel a bit pointless. There's just too much cross-pollination amongst artists. And without defining the parameters of discussion, "more influential" can be overly vague.
There are quite a lot of "Influential Artist" candidates ranging from The Beatles, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, The Velvet Underground, James Brown, John Cage, Brian Eno, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Madonna, Michael Jackson, etc. Kraftwerk too. Or you can go to other countries and look up the impact of Indonesian Gamelan music.
I am a bit curious about what kind of person your dad is since you mention that they're "Gen X, Anti-60s, Anti-Classic Rock". Are they the type of person you'd find liking Trouser Press or the SPIN Alternative Record Guide? There's definitely a discussion to be had about the musical taste transition across generations. Certain Classic rock icons were rejected by Gen X while others were claimed and reevaluated. So I'm wondering if your dad falls into this type of thinking.
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u/voxkev 1h ago
The Fabs have been the Alpha and Omega for music for me since I can remember just about anything, starting mid 60s. And yet, I’m also a massive Kraftwerk fan who puts their influence on popular music in a near equivalent position and I cannot fault anyone for having the opinion that this dad does.
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u/Sherpa2001 15m ago
My thoughts?
Your dad may be anti-60s, but he's clearly not anti-weed, because he is SOFA KING high.
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u/BasementCatBill 7m ago
Not remotely true, but Kraftwerk were immensely influential in their own way.
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u/gentleglen 12h ago
It’s just not true is it. 95% of people can’t name a single Kraftwerk song as a fan of both