scatmanjohn3001
3 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2020–2025
4:57 · 1.9M views · Aug 2, 2009
Kraftwerk's 'Pocket Calculator' from the album Computer World, a synth-pop track built around a handheld calculator as an instrument.
Posted as a favorite Kraftwerk song or an obligatory link in threads about Kraftwerk and calculators.
3 comments from Hacker News
I really don't think so. Punk had exploded after the Summer of Hate and in its wake we got Talking Heads, The B-52's, and Blondie at CBGB's. In parallel we have early Joy Division in Manchester which is going to inspire U2 to eventually become the biggest band in the world for the next 20 or something years. Martin Hannett is going to be a key figure in the development of EDM with his use of samplers and, "using the studio as an instrument." Check out the beginning of, "Transmission." He'll later go on to produce The Happy Mondays who are, "the" seminal Manchester dance group in the early 90's in lieu of an army of Stone Roses fans throwing lemons at me. [LINK] If you look at how Johnny Rotten was listening to Neu! and X-Ray Spex (as well as The Monkees and Herman Hermits) and what Bowie was doing after he moved to Berlin with Iggy Pop it's not outlandish to say that Electronic Music wouldn't have existed without being preempted by Punk, Glam, and the emergent, "not progressive" guitar music of the 1970's especially in how it paralleled the development of Krautrock. Disco didn't evolve into EDM; Disco gave DJ Kool Herc a set of turntables to invent Hip Hop with. Techno literally came out of, "a certain guy who might be called Gerald" listening to Kraftwerk; Afrika Bammbatta's, "Planet Rock" samples Kraftwerk directly. "I'm the operator with mine pocket calculator." this video
Legend. I saw Kraftwerk live years ago and it was one of the most overwhelming performances I’ve ever seen in my life. Beneath the bouncy, poppy hooks there was a massive darkness — the pairing of visuals with the music really drove that home. (The only other live musical performance that I recall giving me a similar feeling was the band ‘Godspeed You Black Emperor‘, who also made use of projected imagery in such a tightly-coupled fashion.) One of my favorite Kraftwerk songs is probably “pocket calculator.” [1] 1: this video
Obligatory direct link to Kraftwerk's Pocket Calculator : this video as an excuse to sideload a link to the Balanescu Quartet's cover of Kraftwerk's The Robots : [LINK]