The influence of Neu!

How could one band be so influential? Neu! only put out three albums, but anyone who is listening knows that those three albums helped to change the face of modern music. Neu! is credited, along with Kraftwerk and some others, of basically starting down the road which would lead to New Wave in the late 70’s. The first album has some of the greatest proto-new wave riffs, perfect for driving. If you’ve never heard the song “Hallogallo,” you need to get up right now and find a copy of their first album. And listen to it while you drive.But a lot people have also discovered something else: Neu! is responsible for much more than that. Neu! 2 is an album that fans are split on, due to the fact that only some of it is new material, and the rest consists of physical manipulation of the material itself (playing it at different speeds, messing with the tape as it was playing, that sort of thing). Today this doesn’t sound all that great, but this album came out in 1973, well before this was commonplace. Some people think it was just a waste of space, while others go so far as to call it one of the original “re-mix” albums! (not my personal favorite, but it has interesting moments).Their third album, Neu! 75, continues the ideas of early new wave, but also adds something I wasn’t expecting—early punk. I never would have thought that those two distinct sounds could be traced back to the same place, but this album changed that. This album has the perfect-driving sound of the other ones, but some songs have a distinctive harder edge that to me is clearly one of the early examples of what I the late ‘70’s would become known as punk. (and yes, I know there were others before and after as well, just so you know). If you haven’t heard them, you guys need to check this band out.