Kraftwerk - Pop Art

Only for Kraftwerk fans.

A documentary on German band Kraftwerk, pioneers in electronic pop. Via archive footage and interviews with musicians and music critic, we see their history and their influence.

Quite dry and dull, and not at all objective. The history part is pretty much paint-by-numbers. The interviewees are incredibly biased and could easily be the PR department for the band. Yes, most documentaries, especially on art figures, are like that, but this takes it to the extreme. When the documentary has a critic saying that Kraftwerk were more influential and important than the Beatles, you know that you're in the realm of empty flattery.

I watched this because I am a fan of music and have a broad music taste and selection but have never gotten into Kraftwerk. Despite liking music which is clearly descended from Kraftwerk (from Depeche Mode and Devo to LCD Soundsystem), this documentary did nothing to convert me. Their music seems pretentious and, to a degree, dull. These feelings are more than aided and abetted by the documentary.

Billing this as the life of the band is a bit misleading. Let's see it more as a tribute and celebration.

The producers initially run into a big problem. As noted, Kraftwerk are reclusive – they don't do interviews. And, most of their seminal work was in the mid-late 1970s and was only noticed by an inquisitive few. So not many people available to track the life of the group.

We get Paul Morley (fan, music journo, record company exec, all round authority), Francois Kevorkian (legendary remixer and member of the "inner circle") and Derrick May (co-founder of Detroit techno and much influenced by Kraftwerk). We see different aspects of Kraftwerk's output (the music, the art, the influence) with these three chipping in along with other contributors.

It is a bit difficult to take all the gushing praise (especially from Morley) however there is value in seeing/hearing all the group's works gathered together and assessing the relevance they have today. I'll leave it up to the individual viewer to work out what we would not have today without Kraftwerk.

While I did get irritated by aspects of the programme I also enjoyed the overall presentation immensely. Not a huge fan (or huge disliker) of Kraftwerk it was a good opportunity to see how far ahead of the game they were back in the 1970s. Some would say they wrote the rules!

There is that joke in Only Fools and Horses where Trigger gets an award from the council for saving money by using the same brush for 20 years. 'This old broom has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles in its time.'

By the same token the line up of Kraftwerk has changed over the years but so anonymous are the members of the band that only the fervent fan can tell who even the long established ones are. The new replacements are probably manufactured in some factory in Rhineland.

The only other constant about Kraftwerk is that no documentary about the band mentions their number 1 single in the UK, The Model. It seems they are probably embarrassed with their hit record and sometimes at a push, their other hit single Tour de France gets a mention as it does here.

This documentary tells the the story of the reclusive German electronic/techno/industrial experimentalists called Kraftwerk who according to the journalist Paul Morley have been more influential that the Beatles.

It features the band performing live tracks filmed at their Tate Modern shows in London in February 2013 mixed with expert analysis and archive footage of the group going back to 1970 when they were long haired rockers with real instruments.

Enthralling to anyone who wishes to know more about the band and their legacy. Non fans will be left none the wiser. They can get on their bikes as members of Kraftwerk usually do.