“People never believe me that Kraftwerk created Atomic Kitten”: OMD’s Andy McCluskey says that it was an electronic music legend who advised him to form the ‘00s girlband who would hit number 1 with Whole Again

(L-R) Kerry Katona, Natasha Hamilton and Liz McClarnon of English girl group Atomic Kitten, 2000. (Photo by Roberta Parkin/Redferns/Getty Images).

You might be aware that the driving force behind ‘00s UK girlband Atomic Kitten was Andy McCluskey of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), but did you know that the person who advised McCluskey to form the group was none other than Kraftwerk’s Karl Barthos.

It seems unlikely, but McCluskey has repeated the claim in a new interview with The Guardian, explaining that he decided he needed to do something different in the mid-’90s when it started to feel like, commercially at least, OMD were fighting a losing battle.