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5 - The Sound of Krautrock

from Part I - Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 October 2022

Uwe Schütte
Affiliation:
Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany
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Summary

In terms of musical style, the sizeable catalogue of music that falls under the label of Krautrock is as diverse as it is experimental. The difficulty in pinning down a specific ‘sound‘ for this diverse body of music can be traced to its roots in the period of cultural revival in the 1950s and 1960s. The chapter discusses how the desire to create a new German identity, distanced from the crimes of the Nazi present and freer from the influence of American culture, was reflected in this music: Krautrock musicians began to abandon the characteristics of both Anglo-American popular musics such as beat and rock ‘n’ roll, and the prevailing German style of the time, Schlager, endeavouring to create something entirely original. The chapter demonstrates how Krautrock was initially better defined by what it was not, rather than what it specifically was. However, these radically different approaches to newness shared certain characteristics. As the chapter argues, Krautrock musicians embraced innovative approaches to instrumentation, timbre, the voice, texture, and form, generating a new musical vocabulary that they could call their own.

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Chapter
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Recommended Reading

Adelt, U, Krautrock: German Music in the Seventies (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2016), pp. 1110.Google Scholar
Albiez, S, Sounds of Future Past: From Neu! to Numan, in Phelps, T (ed.), Klangtexturen in der Pop- und Rockmusik: Basics, Stories, Tracks (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2003), pp. 129–52.Google Scholar
Kutschke, B & Norton, B (eds.), Music and Protest in 1968 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 188204.Google Scholar
Stubbs, D, Future Days: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany (London: Faber, 2014), pp. 151208, 277311.Google Scholar

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  • The Sound of Krautrock
  • Edited by Uwe Schütte, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Krautrock
  • Online publication: 20 October 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009036535.006
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • The Sound of Krautrock
  • Edited by Uwe Schütte, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Krautrock
  • Online publication: 20 October 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009036535.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Sound of Krautrock
  • Edited by Uwe Schütte, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Krautrock
  • Online publication: 20 October 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009036535.006
Available formats
×