#62: Autobahn by Kraftwerk
City: Hamilton, ON
Radio Station: CKOC
Peak Month: May 1975
Peak Position in Hamilton ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube: “Autobahn”
Lyrics: “Autobahn”
Kraftwerk is a band from Dusseldorf, Germany, formed in 1969. Ralf Hütter was born in 1946 in Krefeld, West Germany. He co-founded the band with Florian Schneider-Esleben. Schneider was born in 1947 in Öhningen, West Germany. In 1967 he was in the band Pissoff. Wolfgang Flür was born in Frankfurt, West Germany, in 1947. He was in a band called The Spirits of Sound in the mid-to-late 69s. He joined Kraftwerk in 1973. Klaus Röder was born in Stuttgart, West Germany, in 1948. He studied violin and piano, then began a study of sound engineering in 1968, later switching to part-time studies in composition and guitar at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf. He joined Kraftwerk in 1974. Kraftwerk was part of the emerging krautrock “cosmic music” scene in the early 1970s. This music was comprised of avant-garde, psychedelia, minimalistic rhythms, and electronic music.