Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider met as students at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf in the late 1960s. They formed Kraftwerk in 1970; the name is the German word for “power plant.”
After making three all-instrumental albums, they decided to move in a more pop direction, which meant singing. Autobahn was their first song with lyrics, released on the album of the same name in 1974. The title refers to Germany’s highway system, literally translating to “car trail” or “car track”.
