9 - Neu!

Summary

This chapter discusses the musical and cultural impact of the Düsseldorf group Neu!, who consisted of Michael Rother (guitars) and Klaus Dinger (drums). The essay puts Neu!’s work in the context of how Krautrock music was part of the quest to establish a new sense of post-war West German cultural identity by establishing new musical forms that did not owe a debt to the Anglo-American blues tradition or conventional rock structures. Analysing their first three albums released in the first part of the 1970s – Neu!, Neu! 2, and Neu! ’75 – this chapter shows how Neu! arrived at a musical formula that reflected the opposite temperaments of the two group members, reflected in the ambient rock of Rother and the motorik beat of Klaus Dinger, creating an imaginary West German landscape travelling from the past, through the present to the future. The chapter concludes that although they were commercially unsuccessful at the time, Neu! were hugely influential and have established for all time a unique mode of rock musical being, West German in origin, which serves as a source of inspiration for present and future generations.