Listen and subscribe: Apple | Spotify | Google | Wherever You Listen

Sign up for our daily newsletter to get the best of The New Yorker in your inbox.

Kraftwerk—the pioneering electronic-music group that débuted more than half a century ago —has been touring the U.S., with stops planned in Europe this year. The staff writer Kelefa Sanneh calls them one of the most influential bands of all time, playing a formative role in hip-hop, techno, E.D.M., and much of popular music as we know it. Sanneh picks tracks from Kraftwerk’s repertoire and demonstrates how those sounds trickle out through history, from Afrika Bambaataa to Coldplay.

New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.