Autobahn occupies a strange place in the Kraftwerk canon. The German electronic music pioneers’ best-seller, it has by far the greatest name recognition and influenced everybody from David Bowie to Arthur Baker. For ‘proper’ Kraftwerk fans, though, it’s nowhere near their best album: Trans-Europe Express explored similar routes with more intensity.
Yet to listen to Autobahn now is to once again be dazzled by just how many of its ideas were embraced and expanded by key artists: once the underdog outsider, its ripples today dominate modern music. Its “weird” has become the norm.
