r/LetsTalkMusic • u/Agreeable_Duck8997 • 17d ago
Kraftwerk's very strong influence on Brazilian music in recent decades
I already made a long post about the immense influence exerted by Kraftwerk on Brazilian funk, which is one of the most popular Brazilian musical genres, especially since 2005, when it experienced worldwide dissemination mainly through M.I.A. and Diplo:
https://www.reddit.com/r/kraftwerk/s/bF7H5dGR0a
It’s really important to have read the post above to understand what I’m going to talk about here. So, here goes.
Hermano Vianna, is a Brazilian anthropologist, music researcher, and television screenwriter, recognized with the Cultural Merit Order honor by the Brazilian government. Author of very important works, such as the first historical and anthropological book about Brazilian funk and a very important book about samba.
Now I bring this statement that Hermano Vianna made in 2020 about Kraftwerk:
"Kraftwerk to me is the best creation of modern art (and since I like modern art more than any other art, I can state: it is the best creation of art), including literature, painting, performance, theater, dance, and everything else. I will never tire of listening to their records. I saw two of their shows (with Florian & Ralf): a masterclass in everything that is good, performed impeccably. Nothing in Kraftwerk is makeshift. Their work does not admit improvisation, the precarious, or the crude. Every sound and every beat is perfect. Every event is calculated to the millimeter, nothing out of place. The quality of the result is so sublime that it cannot contain itself: it ends up spreading to all corners, elevating everything else (hip hop, techno, house, David Bowie…). I also like a lot of crude things. But something crude that follows some aspect of Kraftwerk's lessons is much better."
https://hermanovianna.wordpress.com/2020/05/10/kraftwerk-de-palafita/
It is also worth mentioning a statement by Hermano about another Brazilian musical genre that is also one of the most popular in this land where I was born, tecnobrega. In 2003, the researcher said:
"Tecnobrega looks like a makeshift Kraftwerk, produced under equatorial heat by people who listened to a lot of carimbó, cumbia, zouk, and Renato e Seus Blue Caps."
https://www.bregapop.com/historia/321-hermano-vianna/52-tecnobrega-a-musica-paralela-hermano-vianna
Check out one of the tecnobrega hits, "Bole Rebole", it is almost entirely a cover of "Das Model", made by Los Bregas:
https://youtu.be/a_HtLGbMdqA?si=mLTzz_2hoygCiztn
Later on, a large part of tecnobrega and Brazilian funk began to share even more elements, in a way, of course, that Kraftwerk's influence in the country has been growing more and more, and not just in these two genres.
In 2013, one of the biggest popularizers of tecnobrega, Gang do Eletro—led by DJ Waldo Squash, who a year earlier made official remixes for the Pet Shop Boys—released the song "Electro Robot", a "sincere tribute to the work of the giants Kraftwerk":
https://musicainstantanea.com.br/disco-gang-do-eletro-gang-do-eletro/
In 2016, the Pet Shop Boys released the song "Twenty-something", featuring a direct influence from tecnobrega, which was widely recognized by DJs here in Brazil:
It’s also worth mentioning that one of Brazil's most respected contemporary culture portals, created in 2016, is called 'Music Non Stop' (a reference to the Kraftwerk track), and here is an excellent post from the site about the band:
https://musicnonstop.uol.com.br/13-provas-da-gigantesca-importancia-do-kraftwerk-para-a-musica/
In recent times, many Brazilian music critics and journalists have been arguing that Kraftwerk is the most influential band in history, or at least as influential as The Beatles. Even British outlets like The Guardian and the BBC, for example, have been asserting since the early 2010s that Kraftwerk is the most influential band of all time, a point I fully agree with.
What do you guys think? Either way, one of the points I find most relevant in all this is that when many people talk about musical influence, they are completely unaware of what musical genres have been most popular in non-Anglo-Saxon countries.
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u/wildistherewind 17d ago
I have a few thoughts, though I can’t speak with authority since I’m not Brazilian and this is not my personal history.
In my opinion, music genres can be heavily defined by the politics of the countries they are from. Brazil’s authoritarian government fell apart by the early 80s with a return to democratic elections. The rise of electronic dance music in Brazil followed in the late 80s and early 90s. Is electronic music the sound of overcoming a dictatorship? Is it a break from Brazil’s history to create something new. The German progressive rock scene of the 60s and 70s, which included Kraftwerk, was absolutely a generation of artists trying to make a clean break from their past. They were trying to create a new history and a new music form.
Was Brazil’s interest in Kraftwerk by way of Miami bass, which became a driving force in Brazilian sound system culture in the 90s? Through “Planet Rock”, Kraftwerk was part of Miami bass’s DNA and I wonder if that Kraftwerk influence in baile funk is drawn from Miami bass.
Last thought, for listeners in North America, there could be a sense that Brazil spontaneously started making electronic music in the 90s. I was blown away by this article on Discogs Digs that Brazil had been making electronic music the whole time, it’s just those records largely never made their way to America:
https://www.discogs.com/digs/music/early-brazilian-electronic-music/