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Krautrock


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39 minutes ago, Cuzzie said:

Derogatory term given by the British to a very wide genre of music that all the artists hated being called.

Snappy summarry!

However, I do think there is one common link which ties the music together.

It is the making of a form of rock which a) draws on German heritage/ideas and b) does not copy the style of UK/US rock music.

None of the bands bundled together under Krautrock sounded like UK/US rock.

No-one applied the term to e.g. Scorpians, so the term was at least somewhat selectively applied.

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4 hours ago, floFC said:

The word itself is derogatory indeed.it does however bring a very specific sound to my head and that is the sound of Neu! and Stereolab.

I cannot see any derogatory issue with this. We get called Limeys and Pommies by the Americans and Aussies respectively. I don't have any gripe with that. I myself have been called a sweaty sock which I know is just rhyming slang for Jock. Again, no problem with it.

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1 minute ago, ubit said:

I cannot see any derogatory issue with this. We get called Limeys and Pommies by the Americans and Aussies respectively. I don't have any gripe with that. I myself have been called a sweaty sock which I know is just rhyming slang for Jock. Again, no problem with it.

It's not a case of you don't have a problem with it, it's the fact that the majority do find it offensive. Has the Clapton thread revealed, there is still a long way to go with derogatory comments about different races and religions. 

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7 minutes ago, ubit said:

I cannot see any derogatory issue with this. We get called Limeys and Pommies by the Americans and Aussies respectively. I don't have any gripe with that. I myself have been called a sweaty sock which I know is just rhyming slang for Jock. Again, no problem with it.

It was obviously post war, UK rock wasn’t called Pommie or Limey rock, USA rock wasn’t called Deep fried fatties rock, The German artists as a collective did not like the label, therefore it’s offensive. I guarantee it was not said in an endearing way....

To also bundle everything into the ‘rock’ category is pretty lazy as there were elements or rock, prog, electronic etc

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Krautrock was essentially progressive German music. Can has been mentioned, but Tangerine Dream should also be named as the two bands leading this genre, Kraftwerk being a bit apart of if. Then came Die Neue Deutsche Welle initiated by ... Kraftwerk.

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It is historically a derogatory term but most people within Germany are oblivious to it. I spent the best part of 3 years touring and recording there in the early 80's as part of the German new wave scene (NDW) and never came across the term once other than used by those outside the country.

 

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We were in Darmstadt a few years ago and we went into a bar. A gentleman went to the toilet and one of our party joked that he might be away for a crap ( Don't ask, it must have been an in joke at the time) When he returned he said to us No, it is Kraut you say, Kraut! We looked at each other puzzled and he left. Then it dawned on us that he had overheard us and misheard the meaning. It was all very confusing and a little embarrassing. The point is right enough he certainly wasn't bothered about being called a Kraut.

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As someone of 50% Germanic parentage (Austrian to be precise) I don't care for the term 'krautrock' as in the UK the word 'kraut' is always used in a derogatory context. Also it's a lazy way of lumping a disparate bunch of musicians who only have their nationality in common. Apart from that I generally prefer the 'motorik' sound of Neu to other German bands of the late 60s-70s.

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