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Florian Schneider

Photo by Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images

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Kraftwerk Co-Founder Florian Schneider Dies At 73 kraftwerk-co-founder-and-lifetime-achievement-winner-florian-schneider-dies-73

Kraftwerk Co-Founder And Lifetime Achievement Winner Florian Schneider Dies At 73

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The renowned electronic influence known for tracks like “Autobahn” and “Computer World” had been battling cancer, according to Sony
Onaje McDowelle
GRAMMYs
May 6, 2020 - 2:02 pm

German electronic artist and the co-founder of pioneering band Kraftwerk Florian Schneider has died at the age of 73, as confirmed by a Billboard report.

According to a statement from the band's co-founder Ralf Hütter, Schneider passed away due to a bout with cancer, having just recently celebrated his birthday days ago. The duo originally connected in 1968 and went on to establish Düsseldorf’s famous Kling-Klang-Studio, eventually forming and launching their band Kraftwerk in 1970.

Schneider helped to push the needle of electronic and dance sounds through recordings with the group including albums Autobahn, Radio Activity, The-Man Machine and others before departing from the band in 2008 to pursue a solo career.

Along with Kraftwerk, Schneider became well known for fusing his instrumentation on synthesizer and vocoder with dance and pop sensibilities to create heavily industrial takes on electronic, garnering multiple Billboard chart placements including two number ones, six Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominations and over 700,000 sold copies of his music worldwide, according to Nielsen Music data compiled since its founding in 1991.

The group’s notable creative direction, digital art and 3-D visuals also became extremely popular touchstones of its signature.

In a statement, Chair of the Board and Recording Academy Interim President/CEO Harvey Mason Jr. wrote, "Florian Schneider was a pioneer in the electronic music community. His innovative music left a lasting legacy and his work will continue to exert influence across various genres for years to come. Florian’s creativity knew no bounds, and our culture is richer thanks to this artist."

Schneider was first nominated for a GRAMMY in 1981 for the track "Computer World" in the Best Rock Instrumental Performance category. Over two decades later, he was recognized again by the Academy, receiving a Best Electronic/Dance Album Minimum Maximum, released in 2005.

Following these recognitions, Schneider, alongside Kraftwerk, received the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014 for his profound impact on the electronic genre, as well as his dynamic influence on the sound direction of many pop and dance records that would follow. Kraftwerk’s 1974 album Vertigo was also admitted into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame in 2015.

Kraftwerk won its first GRAMMY at the 60th annual awards in 2017 for their album 3-D The Catalogue in the Best Dance/Electronic Album category.

According to the report, Kraftwerk was set to head out on a North American summer tour in celebration of the group’s 50th anniversary this year, which was eventually cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Millie Small, Jamaican Singer-Songwriter Of Global Hit “My Boy Lollipop” And Ska Pioneer, Dies At 72

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Kraftwerk in 1981

Photo by Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images

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Remembering Kraftwerk’s Florian Schneider kraftwerk%E2%80%99s-florian-schneider-made-music-humans-not-robots

Kraftwerk’s Florian Schneider Made Music For Humans, Not For Robots

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The synth pioneer’s computerized sounds belied the band’s big, beating heart
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
May 6, 2020 - 2:30 pm

Quick, rattle off music’s worst, most obvious clichés: country music is exclusively about trucks, the Beach Boys only sang about waves, Yoko Ono broke up the Beatles. Then, add Kraftwerk, and their late founding synthesist Florian Schneider, to the list of the wronged. The prevailing narrative that the German electronic music pioneers are cold, calculated, lacking a megabyte of soul—a quality only unlocked by real instruments, mind you—similarly begs to be dragged to the Recycle Bin.

The Village Voice’s Robert Christgau described Kraftwerk’s 1975 album Autobahn as "a melody or two worth hearing twice emanated from a machine determined to rule all music with a steel hand and some mylar." About its 1975 follow-up Radio-Activity, Rolling Stone offered that "maintaining an icy detachment from its popularity... might have been the best attitude to assume." In a 2013 live review, Space March described the sight of them as "four oldish, unanimated German men standing in a row behind their black, faceless synth workstations."

Which isn’t wrong, exactly. No band has computer love like Kraftwerk—they’re known for performing amid futuristic video projections, plasticine doppelgangers of the band members, and conspicuous exposed wires. "Along came this music that sounded as mechanized as a Ford assembly plant," a statement read when the band won the GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014, "and music would never be the same."

This wouldn’t be possible if their music was passive bleeps and bloops, the product of an app rather than a curious mind. Schneider’s passing of cancer "a few days after" his April 7 birthday at 73, as confirmed by the band and reported by The New York Times, serves as a chance for those on the fence about Kraftwerk to reexamine their run of 10 albums—which, as it turns out, aren’t tailored to robots' experiences, but humans'.

Like the by-all-accounts-bright Marilyn Monroe playing dimwitted dames so immaculately that viewers failed to separate fact from fiction, Schneider and co-founder Ralf Hütter did their bit so well that some likened them to a governmental task force hellbent on extracting humanity from music. But it’s worth noting that Kraftwerk wasn't predicated on computers from the beginning—far from it, actually.

An early version of the band (then called Pissoff) had a format not dissimilar to Jethro Tull—Hütter on Hammond organ, Eberhard Kranemann on bass, Paul Lovens on drums, and Schneider on flute. "I studied seriously up to a certain level, then I found it boring… I found that the flute was too limiting," he said in the 1993 book Kraftwerk: Man, Machine And Music. "Soon I bought a microphone, then loudspeakers, then an echo, then a synthesizer. Much later I threw the flute away."

Flute or no flute, the addition of gadgetry couldn't smother Kraftwerk's beating heart. Their greatest songs, like "Europe Endless," "The Model" and "Pocket Calculator," are full of wistfulness, playfulness, cheeky humor—qualities unreproducible by machines. "I find their music as impersonal as it is original," Can's keyboardist Irmin Schmidt admitted in the book, "but it is saved by its humorous side."

Take the former song, a co-write between Schneider and Hütter from their 1977 classic Trans-Europe Express, which is meant to evoke the feeling of traveling by commuter rail across Europe, watching the sights whiz by. "Promenades and avenues / Real life and postcard views," Hütter reports deadpan, answered by a lonely, percolating synth melody from Schneider. Almost everyone knows what it’s like to be gently hypnotized on public transport in an unfamiliar place; "Trans-Europe Express" nails it.

Then consider "The Model," a highlight from their 1978 album The Man-Machine. Here, their self-consciousness boils from mere artifice into laughs: the music is swanky yet devoid of swing, and Hütter sings about a seductive woman with his accent bleeding through: "She's going out tonight but drinking just champagne / And she has been checking nearly all the men." If Schneider added authentically sexy music, the joke wouldn’t land: the track seems to envision C-3PO on the dating market.

And Kraftwerk songs don’t get more delightful than "Pocket Calculator" from 1981’s Computer World. Over a danceable chiptune beat, Hütter warbles about all the things his Texas Instruments or Casio can do: add, subtract, control, compose. If you’re looking for a steely, forbidding electronic act, pick up an Autechre record; all the supercomputers on the planet couldn’t recreate the unfettered joy of this classroom-device jam.

It’s unclear if Kraftwerk will continue without Schneider co-manning the controls; while they haven’t released an album since 2003’s Tour de France Soundtracks, they continued to perform live well past his departure from the band in 2008. Whether or not they’ll continue to don Tron-style jumpsuits and churn out mechanical rhythms, don’t forget that their man-machine is far more the former than it is the latter.

Kraftwerk Co-Founder And Lifetime Achievement Winner Florian Schneider Dies At 73

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Ringo Starr

Photo: Michael Buckner/WireImage.com

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Top Moments From The 2014 Special Merit Awards Ceremony

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THE GRAMMYs
GRAMMYs
Dec 2, 2014 - 3:22 pm

2014 Special Merit Awards Ceremony Highlights

By Chuck Crisafulli

Spirits run high all throughout GRAMMY Week, but perhaps emotions are sweetest and deepest at the Special Merit Awards Ceremony & Nominees Reception. The GRAMMY Awards on Sunday will rightfully honor particular musical brilliance from the preceding year, but on Jan. 25 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles a group of exceptional artists and trailblazing innovators were recognized for their extraordinary achievements.

Below is a list of the top moments and quotes from the 2014 Special Merit Awards Ceremony that are sure to make you laugh, or cry — or both.

"I'm prone to emotional breakdowns at any time, that's your only warning," said Kent Knappenberger, the first-ever recipient of The Recording Academy and GRAMMY Foundation's Music Educator Award. "Music is a reminder of who we are, and an expression of who we'd like to be. Thank you for honoring and encouraging those of us on the front lines of music education."

Oliver Berliner, grandson of inventor Emile Berliner, who received the Technical GRAMMY Award, framed his grandfather's achievements this way: "What did my grandfather and his invention do? It created the record industry. That's why we're all here."

Photographer Amelia Davis accepted the Trustees Award for her late friend and fellow photographer Jim Marshall. "Jim was a really difficult human," she said. "You either loved him or hated him. As he used to say himself, if he loved you, he'd lay down in front of a truck for you. If he hated you, he'd be driving the truck that would run you down. But friend or enemy, everyone could agree that he was a genius."

Ralf Hütter of Lifetime Achievement Award recipients Kraftwerk used some of the band's lyrics to "The Robots" to accept their award: "We're charging our battery/And now we're full of energy/We're functioning automatic/And we are dancing mechanic/We are programmed just to do/Anything you want us to/We are the robots. Thank you."

Ernie Isley was coaxed to the microphone by brother Ronald Isley to accept the Isley Brothers' Lifetime Achievement Award. Ernie Isley couldn't speak until a hug from Ronald gave him the strength to continue: "I want to thank our parents, and the hand of divine providence that gave us such longevity. Not everybody gets that. And I want to thank Neil Portnow for a phone call that now I wish I had recorded."

Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Kris Kristofferson kept his acceptance short and sweet: "I can't say that I'm not moved, but I can say that I can't think of anything to say. The only thing I remember well these days is my wife, my kids and my songs. It means more than I can say that you would even think I deserve this award, so I better get off before I say something really stupid."

Ringo Starr received a rousing standing ovation accepting on behalf of the Beatles: "It's a Lifetime Achievement Award but I happen to think we've got a lot more life left in us." Earlier on the red carpet, Starr remarked that he preferred to think of it as a "Longtime Achievement Award."

Yoko Ono, who was there to accept on behalf of her late husband John Lennon, said, "I'm here today because I think John would want me to be here. … Now the Beatles music is waiting and ready to go to planets all over the universe. I'm very excited about that."

Olivia Harrison, the late George Harrison's wife, said, "Here's something you probably know: George was my favorite Beatle." Then, becoming very emotional, she continued, "But here's something you might not know. Aside from their music — as people — they are the most supportive and generous friends in my life. The Beatles are extraordinary people, and I'm thankful to be part of this extraordinary family."

As the event came to a close, Ono snuck back to the mike one more time to address the crowd: "Can I just say that I love you? I love you."

But, insisting on the last word, Starr jumped to the mike and added: "I really want to say thank you. So, thank you."

(Additional 2014 Special Merit Award honorees included zydeco king Clifton Chenier, Mexico-born singer/songwriter Armando Manzanero and American violinist Maud Powell, who received Lifetime Achievement Awards, and composer Ennio Morricone and producer Rick Hall, who were honored with Trustees Award. Audio manufacturer Lexicon received the Technical GRAMMY Award.)

"Little" Louie Vega smiles at the camera while wearing his merchandise

Louie Vega

Photo: PYMCA/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

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Explore "Little" Louie Vega's Legendary Career record-how-little-louie-vega-built-name-big-enough-stretch-four-decades

For The Record: Explore The Decades-Long Career Of Legendary Producer "Little" Louie Vega

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In the latest episode of For The Record, GRAMMY.com examines the legendary career of GRAMMY-winning producer, DJ and remixer "Little" Louie Vega
Taj Mayfield
GRAMMYs
Sep 16, 2021 - 7:23 pm

Simply put, Louie Vega is a living legend behind the turntables.

Vega received his first GRAMMY nomination, for Remixer of the Year, Non-Classical​, at the 41st GRAMMY Awards in 1999; he received his most recent GRAMMY nomination, for Best Remixed Recording, at the 63rd GRAMMY Awards in 2021.

To put Vega's iconic music career into perspective, the producer/DJ/remixer has been getting nominated for GRAMMYs for as long as the euro has been accepted as currency.

After starting his career in the '80s and gaining widespread success in the nightlife arena, Vega, commonly referred to as "Little" Louie Vega, became an even bigger artist in the '90s, thanks to collaborations with a diverse group of superstars like Curtis Mayfield, Luther Vandross, Madonna, and Janet Jackson.

Explore "Little" Louie Vega's Legendary Career

Watch the clip above to find out how Vega, always destined for musical greatness, burst onto the scene in the '80s and continues to dominate dance floors worldwide decades later.

Click below to dig through the crates of For The Record and find out how some of the biggest names in music made their climb.

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For The Record
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How Britney Spears Shed Her Teen-Pop Image

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Seth Troxler On His Detroit DJ Education & The Rich Black History—& Future—Of Dance Music

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Kampire DJs a party

Kampire

Photo: Courtesy of SoundCloud

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Explore East Africa's Underground Music Scene explore-east-african-underground-music-scene-soundcloud-scenes-series

Explore East Africa's Underground Music Scene In SoundCloud's "SCENES" Series

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East Africa's burgeoning underground music movement, and Nyege Nyege's powerful influence in the region and beyond, are unveiled in the latest episode of SoundCloud's "SCENES"
Gabrielle Nicole Pharms
GRAMMYs
Aug 31, 2021 - 12:30 pm

East Africa’s rising underground music scene is not only impacting the continent, but also expanding its influence across the globe. SoundCloud's latest episode of their "SCENES" music discovery series introduces viewers to some Ugandan, Kenyan, and Tanzanian artists shaking things up.

“SCENES: East African Underground” (watch below) comes with companion album Music for the Eagles, released via famed Kampala-based label, Nyege Nyege Tapes.

“‘SCENES’ and compilations like Music for the Eagles are focused on driving global music discovery around the trailblazing communities of artists and passionate music fans who are propelling mainstream music trends of tomorrow,” said Leon Sherman, Director of Editorial of SoundCloud.

“SCENES: East African Underground” highlights artists creating forward-thinking, multi-faceted music by pushing the boundaries of hip-hop, experimental electronic, dance, and regional sounds. The video features commentary from musical trendsetters of the region including Vibrant, Kampire, DJ Slikback, Respected, Aunty Rayzor, KMRU and Nyege Nyege Festival co-founder Derek Debru. U.S.-based artist and supporter of the movement Suzi Analogue also appears.

Nyege Nyege Tapes · Music for the Eagles

Music for the Eagles features 14 exclusive tracks across a variety of distinctive genres. The line-up includes Nairobi-based rapper, singer and producer Boutross; traditional adungu and nanga harp expert and singer Otim Alpha and Tanzanian producer Jay Mitta, with his interpretation on the sound of singeli. The album also presents rising talents such as Kenyan future-pop artist KABEAUSHÉ; Ugandan grime, hip-hop and punk guru MC Yallah and rapper Ecko Bazz. It also features artists beyond East Africa including Durban’s Phelimuncasi with their signature style of Gqom, plus many more artists from an array of diverse underground scenes.

Remembering Reggae Legend Lee "Scratch" Perry, The Dub Afrofuturist

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Some of the content on this site expresses viewpoints and opinions that are not those of the Recording Academy and its Affiliates. Responsibility for the accuracy of information provided in stories not written by or specifically prepared for the Academy and its Affiliates lies with the story's original source or writer. Content on this site does not reflect an endorsement or recommendation of any artist or music by the Recording Academy and its Affiliates.