‘Spoon’: the track that made Can the kings of krautrock
Whatever you feel about krautrock, it’s undeniably cool to like Can these days. Maybe it’s the post-industrial kling-klang now synonymous with German electronic music that gives the genre its edge. Or maybe its resurgence in hip-hop added some urban credibility. Either way, those seminal krautrock LPs—like Silver Apples’ self-titled debut or Faust IV—are now gold dust for record collectors worldwide.
Interestingly, krautrock was born, at least in part, from a post-war cultural insecurity that lingered in Germany for decades after the Second World War. It emerged as an attempt to reinterpret and assimilate British and American progressive music into a distinctly German context, seeking legitimacy within the broader Western canon of popular music in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Despite being a German band, Can never wrote music in their native language, opting instead for English. It’s clear where in the world they wanted to be popular and perhaps didn’t want those consumers to know where they came from.
For German artists during this time, their success depended on their appeal to British and American markets. Perhaps the most demonstrable case of this came later in 1978 when Kraftwerk released The Man Machine. It was the first album the group released in English and is still by far their most successful LP to date. Uwe Schütte’s book Kraftwerk: Future Music From Germany does a much better job of explaining this in far more detail.
In many ways, Kraftwerk owed a significant part of their commercial success outside of Germany to Can. For the latter, however, their third studio album, Ege Bamyasi, played a pivotal role, particularly the first single from the album, ‘Spoon’. In a stroke of good fortune, the track was chosen as the theme song for the German television series Das Messer. This exposure propelled ‘Spoon’ into the public eye, and it quickly became a hit, reaching number six on the German singles chart and selling over 300,000 copies.
The success of ‘Spoon’ in Germany attracted a new wave of foreign press interest, which Can hadn’t yet experienced. In a contemporary review of the album, the British publication Melody Maker wrote, “Can are without doubt the most talented and most consistent experimental rock band in Europe, England included.” What an accolade for a German group to receive at the time. You can almost sense the writer’s disbelief as they credit them as being even better than their homegrown British ones; it really was a scandalous claim!
Can’s influence on alternative guitar music today is somewhat unmatched. Pavement, Sonic Youth and Portishead are but a few groups who have cited Can as a major influence. Perhaps the most obvious devotees are Spoon, the Austin rockers who took their name directly from this seminal track title. Although the krautrock Hall of Fame is constantly gaining new members due to our renewed interest in the genre, Can have and will always occupy the largest throne.
