Awesome Kraftwerk

Eight Minutes Upside Down has created a fantastic series of videos which explore the many tracks that sampled sounds from other musicians. In this episode, you’ll hear how electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk influenced artists from Beck to Sir Mix-a-Lot to The Chemical Brothers to Miley Cyrus.

Kraftwerk’s 1978 The Robots is an electronic music masterpiece. But it was originally performed by four musicians robots. Doctor Mix shows us how to perform the track with a single Arturia Matrixbrute synthesizer, which is able to perfectly replicate all of the the classic sounds.

Musician/technician Giuseppe Acito aka Opificio Sonico created a tiny set of bandmates using LEGO Bionicle robots he’s programmed to play a mix of sensors, smartphones, and other inputs. Here, they perform Kraftwerk’s The Robots and Daft Punk’s Da Funk.

One of our favorite 1980’s guilty pleasures is the music of German synth-pop band Kraftwerk. Andy Westphal feels the same way, and performed a fun cover of their track The Robots with the help of his son Hudson. Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance.

German grade school teacher Lars Reimers decided to teach his students Kraftwerk’s 1978 technopop classic Die Roboter (The Robots), and had them perform it in the best possible way – dressed in cardboard robot costumes they made themselves.