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Kraftwerk's radical 1976 track

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Re: Kraftwerk's radical 1976 track

#41

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

emptybits wrote: post #39

If you like Kraftwerk and you're not aware of this book, I recommend it: "Kraftwerk: Future Music from Germany", by Uwe Schütte. It's packed with details of albums, songs, tours, equipment, and people. The anti-nuclear message in "Radio-Activity" certainly came later and was repeatedly updated, right into the Fukushima era [2011], but this was not the original sentiment [1976]. From the book: "At the time, Billboard…

Great story. Had no idea. Still love the name Uwe. One of those German names that doesn’t have an English equivalent unlike, say, Pieter.

Re: Kraftwerk's radical 1976 track

#42

Post by happymellon »

01100011 wrote: post #31
colechristensen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was largely our own governments wanting to scare us of nukes so we'd be scared of the Soviets, like in America with the schoolchildren doing duck and cover drills. Having enemies the population is afraid of is good for politicians and they'll take any enemies they can find, and they'll do so indiscriminately regardless of the real nuance of the issues. Immigrants, abortion, this religion or that, rock music, jazz…

I think it came from peaceniks and hippies mostly. You're talking about the equivalent of modern anti-vax liberals. Anti-science and given to conspiracies and mysticism. There was a pretty good reason to be scared of nukes when these folks were children in the 50s. The world was quite a different place back then. The US was lagging behind the Soviets, militarily speaking, and Communism was much more expansionary.

> anti-vax liberals

Just a small correction, but the anti-vax arguments are very conservative, not liberal.

Re: Kraftwerk's radical 1976 track

#43

Post by rectang »

AngryData wrote: post #38
rectang wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I distrust techno-optimist promises to manage ever-growing collections of spent nuclear fuel over millennia. We can hardly trust plant operators to manage it safely over decades. Will it actually get encased successfully, will it be stored onsite in environmentally sensitive areas because it’s too much trouble to move, will your children’s children uphold the commitments you foisted on them through the political and…

Because of anti-nuclear sentiments we are right now currently storing used nuclear waste in its most dangerous form in the most open and uncontained and open storage lots. Worrying about expanding nuclear and ending up putting the waste in a hole deep in the ground is such a nonissue to me. If humans blast themselves back to the neolithic era and 5,000 years from now some dudes die from walking into some old facility…

Seems to me that pro-nuclear sentiments have at least as much to do with ongoing accumulation of nuclear waste as anti-nuclear sentiments.

> Worrying about expanding nuclear and ending up putting the waste in a hole deep in the ground is such a nonissue to me.

Blithe minimization of the problem of storing nuclear waste over millenia feels like "Peak HN". :)

("Peak HN" jabs are a cheap shot, though — so let me engage more seriously...)

First, "coal vs nuclear" is a false dichotomy. Everybody I see advocating for nuclear power in this thread is advocating for it as a permanent solution rather than an interim solution — in which case there are other competitors.

Second, if nuclear waste is too dangerous for less-than-ideal storage conditions, that speaks negatively to the viability of nuclear power — because over the long term less-than-ideal storage is guaranteed by our inability to design incentive structures for responsible stewardship that persist over centuries.

Re: Kraftwerk's radical 1976 track

#44

Post by cluckindan »

01100011 wrote: post #25
ainch wrote: post #11

I love Kraftwerk, but contributing to anti-nuclear sentiment in Germany hasn't been a major success. If only more European countries had followed the French example and developed substantial nuclear fleets.

Like most backward looking judgements these days, such things require understanding the culture and zeitgeist of the mid 70s. I'm pro-nuclear as well, but understand that for many decades the "smart" thing to do was to oppose it. I wouldn't expect a musical artist to have a more nuanced opinion than most of their contemporaries.

More like the robot thing to do.

Anti-nuclear sentiment in Germany was entirely manufactured; it was the product of Gerhard Schröder and similar robots who enriched themselves on Russian oil and gas.

Ironically, it is also where the so-called Green Party began.

Re: Kraftwerk's radical 1976 track

#45

Post by Tepix »

ainch wrote: post #11

I love Kraftwerk, but contributing to anti-nuclear sentiment in Germany hasn't been a major success. If only more European countries had followed the French example and developed substantial nuclear fleets.

I, for one, am glad we don‘t have yet another 2600 square kilometers exclusion zone in densely populated Germany, like the one around Chernobyl.

Re: Kraftwerk's radical 1976 track

#46

Post by Tepix »

TurdF3rguson wrote: post #34
colechristensen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was largely our own governments wanting to scare us of nukes so we'd be scared of the Soviets, like in America with the schoolchildren doing duck and cover drills. Having enemies the population is afraid of is good for politicians and they'll take any enemies they can find, and they'll do so indiscriminately regardless of the real nuance of the issues. Immigrants, abortion, this religion or that, rock music, jazz…

The Soviets were parking nukes in Cuba in striking distance of the White House. If that's not legitimately terrifying to you, I just don't know.

Their nukes are still within striking distance.

Re: Kraftwerk's radical 1976 track

#47

Post by JuniperMesos »

01100011 wrote: post #25
ainch wrote: post #11

I love Kraftwerk, but contributing to anti-nuclear sentiment in Germany hasn't been a major success. If only more European countries had followed the French example and developed substantial nuclear fleets.

Like most backward looking judgements these days, such things require understanding the culture and zeitgeist of the mid 70s. I'm pro-nuclear as well, but understand that for many decades the "smart" thing to do was to oppose it. I wouldn't expect a musical artist to have a more nuanced opinion than most of their contemporaries.

I quite enjoy the 1979 Dan Fogelberg song Face the Fire from a purely musical perspective, despite it being an anti-nuclear-power anthem written in the wake of three mile island. There's no reason to expect that Kraftwork's poltical ideas are good ones or were good ones at the time, even if it resulted in some good music.

Re: Kraftwerk's radical 1976 track

#48

Post by vanderZwan »

One of the things whose non-existence I'm mildly surprised by: a mash-up between Kraftwerk's Radioactivity and Imagine Dragons Radioactive. Sure, they're extremely different songs melody-wise but that never stopped people from successfully mashing up songs before, and the underlying beat is almost the same but reversed, which is kinda interesting[0][1].

Also, has anyone ever compared the cultural context and zeitgeist of both songs? Probably would be a fun high school assignment, haha. Kraftwerk's song came out in the same decade that the Club of Rome published its Limits To Growth report[2], so when fears about humanity's future really started to become A Thing that was impossible to ignore. Later versions of the song turning it into a protest song encapsulate Cold War fears for a nuclear apocalypse of the time (presumably, I wasn't really around yet back then).

The main audience for the Imagine Dragons song was a generation fully born after the fall of the Berlin Wall. One that grew up playing the Fall Out games. It also came out in 2012, right after the 2008 crisis kick-started the "oh the previous generation will leave us with nothing huh?" Doomer mentality among millennials and Gen Z kids. Remember the media going nuts over the "Ok, Boomer" expression for a while? (which still feels like the media intentionally dividing a community to stop it from actually fixing things me, tbh, but let's not get too side-tracked)

In that context, when put side by side the ID song almost feels like a Doomer generation follow-up and implicit critique of how nothing seems to have actually be done about to prevent the impending apocalypse that the Kraftwerk song's generation was supposedly so worried about, turned into a fantasy about living in that post-apocalyptic planet.

It's "vibe" is weirdly hopeful too, especially compared to the Kraftwerk song as well. Instead of fearing an apocalypse, it's set after one and embraces living within it.

At least, that's how the two songs come across to me, which probably says more about me than anything else. Apparently Dan Reynolds, main singer on ID and one of writers of the song, has said that in retrospect after almost a decade, he had realized that it was actually about him "not giving up hope after losing faith in Mormonism."[3]. Which makes sense as a personal experience of going through feeling doomed and figuring out how to survive and embrace living on in a "post-apocalyptic" world on a personal, social level.

I think that's what annoys me about the Kraftwerk song's status as a protest song, and a lot of other music from the same era: it doesn't feel like it's insisting on a better future. It's passive late 70s, early 80s pessimism.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3viBe2Q0P8

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyXeJZJUFHE

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_%28Imagine_Dragons...

Re: Kraftwerk's radical 1976 track

#49

Post by thombat »

TurdF3rguson wrote: post #34
colechristensen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was largely our own governments wanting to scare us of nukes so we'd be scared of the Soviets, like in America with the schoolchildren doing duck and cover drills. Having enemies the population is afraid of is good for politicians and they'll take any enemies they can find, and they'll do so indiscriminately regardless of the real nuance of the issues. Immigrants, abortion, this religion or that, rock music, jazz…

The Soviets were parking nukes in Cuba in striking distance of the White House. If that's not legitimately terrifying to you, I just don't know.

Which directly followed the USA stationing Jupiter missiles in Turkey with the range to strike Moscow. As part of the mutual climb down from the missile crisis the USA removed the Jupiters, as both sides then understood the wisdom of avoiding hot brinkmanship

Re: Kraftwerk's radical 1976 track

#50

Post by secretsatan »

happymellon wrote: post #42
01100011 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it came from peaceniks and hippies mostly. You're talking about the equivalent of modern anti-vax liberals. Anti-science and given to conspiracies and mysticism. There was a pretty good reason to be scared of nukes when these folks were children in the 50s. The world was quite a different place back then. The US was lagging behind the Soviets, militarily speaking, and Communism was much more expansionary.

> anti-vax liberals Just a small correction, but the anti-vax arguments are very conservative, not liberal.

There is undeniably a middle class anti vax wellness leftist movement whether it was originally conservative or not, unfortunately.
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