Listening to Kraftwerk

My three-part guide.

• Part 1: 1974-1975. Albums: Autobahn, Radio-Activity. The best way to discover what they were trying to do is to listen to their live is Köln from 1975, which was recorded and released by some Italian bootleg radio.
• Part 2: 1977-1978. Building the crib for industrial music. Trans-Europe Express is the cold hand, Die Mensch-Machine is the warm hand.
• Part 3: 1981-onwards. The stuff that inspired electronic dance music. Album: Computer World. Their last versions (Tour de France, Minimum Maximum) are funny tribute: “look guys, we're also doing techno now—But you invented it in the first place!”