title: Krakatoa

text: Indonesia has over 130 active volcanoes, the most of any nation. They make up the axis of the Indonesian island arc system produced by northeastward subduction of the Indo-Australian Plate. A majority of these volcanoes lie along Indonesia's two largest islands, Java and Sumatra. These two islands are separated by the Sunda Strait located at a bend in the axis of the island arc. Krakatau is directly above the subduction zone of the Eurasian Plate and the Indo-Australian Plate where the plate boundaries make a sharp change of direction, possibly resulting in an unusually weak crust in the region.


title: Krakatoa

text: At some point in prehistory, an earlier caldera-forming eruption had occurred, leaving as remnants Verlaten (or "Sertung"); Lang (also known as Rakata Kecil, or Panjang); Poolsche Hoed ("Polish Hat"); and the base of Rakata. Later, at least two more cones (Perboewatan and Danan) formed and eventually joined with Rakata, forming the main island of Krakatoa. At the time of the 1883 eruption, the Krakatoa group comprised Lang, Verlaten, and Krakatoa itself, an island long by wide. There were also the tree-covered islet near Lang (Poolsche Hoed) and several small rocky islets or banks between Krakatoa and Verlaten.


title: Krakatoa

text: There were three volcanic cones on Krakatoa island: Rakata, () to the south; Danan, () near the center; and Perboewatan, () to the north.


title: Krakatoa

text: The Javanese "" ("Pustaka Raja"), a 19th-century compilation of historical traditions from Central Java, records that in the year 338 Śaka (416 AD):


title: Krakatoa

text: The "Pustaka Raja" does not draw on primary sources for its description of this event, and its historical reliability is highly dubious. It is therefore impossible to verify its description of this eruption. There is no geological evidence of a Krakatoa eruption of this size around that time; it may describe the loss of land which previously joined Java to Sumatra across what is now the narrow east end of the Sunda Strait; or it may be a mistaken date, referring to a later eruption in 535 AD, for which there is some corroborating historical evidence.


title: Krakatoa

text: David Keys, Ken Wohletz, and others have postulated that a violent volcanic eruption, possibly of Krakatoa, in 535 was responsible for the global climate changes of 535–536. Keys explores what he believes to be the radical and far-ranging global effects of such a putative 6th-century eruption in his book "Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World". This eruption was believed to have been even more violent than Krakatoa's 1883 eruption, and also the one that created Krakatoa's original caldera, which resulted in the creation of Verlaten Island and Lang Island. However, there are other explanations for the climate change, including an eruption of Ilopango in El Salvador, in Central America.


title: Krakatoa

text: Thornton mentions that Krakatoa was known as "The Fire Mountain" during Java's Sailendra dynasty, with records of seven eruptive events between the 9th and 16th centuries. These have been tentatively dated as having occurred in 850, 950, 1050, 1150, 1320, and 1530.


title: Krakatoa

text: In February 1681, Johann Wilhelm Vogel, a Dutch mining engineer at Salida, Sumatra (near Padang), on his way to Batavia (now Jakarta) passed through the Sunda Strait. In his diary he wrote:


title: Krakatoa

text: Vogel spent several months in Batavia, returning to Sumatra in November 1681. On the same ship were several other Dutch travellers, including Elias Hesse, a writer. Hesse's journal reports:


title: Krakatoa

text: The eruption was also reported by a Bengali sea captain, who wrote of the event later, but had not recorded it at the time in the ship's log. Neither Vogel nor Hesse mention Krakatoa in any real detail in their other passages, and no other travellers at the time mention an eruption or evidence of one. (In November 1681, a pepper crop was being offered for sale by inhabitants.)


title: Krakatoa

text: Simon Winchester maintains, in his 2003 book "", that the 1680 eruption was depicted in an eighteenth-century etching by Dutch cartographer Jan van Schley called "Het Brandende Eiland", "The Burning Island," writing that "it was a depiction, without a doubt, of the otherwise little-chronicled eruption that supposedly took place in 1680."


title: Krakatoa

text: In 1880, Verbeek investigated a fresh unweathered lava flow at the northern coast of Perboewatan, which could not have been more than two centuries old.


title: Krakatoa

text: In February 1780, the crews of and , on the way home after Captain James Cook's death in Hawaii, stopped for a few days on Krakatoa. They found a freshwater and a hot spring on the island. They described the natives who then lived on the island as "friendly" and made several sketches (In his journal, John Ledyard calls the island "Cocoterra").


title: Krakatoa

text: Edmund Roberts calls the island "Crokatoa" in his journal. A paraphrased account follows: On 8 September 1832, US sloop-of-war "Peacock" anchored off the north end, also visiting Lang Island, in search of inhabitants, fresh water, and yams. It was found difficult to land anywhere, due to a heavy surf and to the coral having extended itself to a considerable distance from the shore. Hot springs boiling furiously up, through many fathoms of water, were found on the eastern side of Krakatoa, from the shore. Roberts, Captain Geisinger, and marine lieutenant Fowler visited Forsaken island, having mistaken the singing of locusts for the sound of running water. The boat glided over crystal clear water, over an extensive and highly beautiful submarine garden. Corals of every shape and hue were there, some resembling sunflowers and mushrooms, others cabbages from in diameter, while a third type bore a striking likeness to the rose. The hillsides were typical of tropical climate; large flocks of parrots, monkeys in great variety, wild-mango and orange groves—a superb scene of plants and flowers of every description, glowing in vivid tints of purple, red, blue, brown, and green—but not water or provisions.


title: Krakatoa

text: In 1620, the Dutch set up a naval station on the islands and somewhat later a shipyard was built. Sometime in the late 17th century, an attempt was made to establish a pepper plantation on Krakatoa, but the islands were generally ignored by the Dutch East India Company. In 1809, a penal colony was established at an unspecified location, which was in operation for about a decade. By the 1880s, the islands were without permanent inhabitants; the nearest settlement was the nearby island of Sebesi (about away) with a population of 3,000.


title: Krakatoa

text: Several surveys and mariners' charts were made, and the islands were little explored or studied. An 1854 map of the islands was used in an English chart, which shows some difference from a Dutch chart made in 1874. In July 1880, Rogier Verbeek made an official survey of the islands, but was allowed to spend only a few hours there. He was able to collect samples from several places, and his investigation later proved important in judging the geological impact of the 1883 eruption.


title: Krakatoa

text: While seismic activity around the volcano was intense in the years preceding the cataclysmic 1883 eruption, a series of lesser eruptions began on 20 May 1883. The volcano released huge plumes of steam and ash lasting until late August.


title: Krakatoa

text: On 27 August, a series of four huge explosions almost destroyed the island. The explosions were so violent that they were heard away in Perth, Western Australia, and the island of Rodrigues near Mauritius, away. The pressure wave from the third and most violent explosion was recorded on barographs around the world. Several barographs recorded the wave seven times over the course of five days: four times with the wave travelling away from the volcano to its antipodal point, and three times travelling back to the volcano; the wave rounded the globe three and a half times. Ash was propelled to a height of . The sound of the eruption was so loud it was reported that if anyone was within , they would have gone deaf.


title: Krakatoa

text: The combined effects of pyroclastic flows, volcanic ashes, and tsunamis had disastrous results in the region and worldwide. The death toll recorded by the Dutch authorities was 36,417, although some sources put the estimate at more than 120,000. There are numerous documented reports of groups of human skeletons floating across the Indian Ocean on rafts of volcanic pumice and washing up on the east coast of Africa up to a year after the eruption. Summer temperatures in the northern hemisphere fell by an average of in the year following the eruption.


title: Krakatoa

text: Verbeek, in his report on the eruption, predicted that any new activity would manifest itself in the region which had been between Perboewatan and Danan. This prediction came true on 29 December 1927, when a submarine lava dome in the area of Perboewatan showed evidence of eruptions (an earlier event in the same area had been reported in June 1927). A new island volcano rose above the waterline a few days later. The eruptions were initially of pumice and ash, and that island and the two islands that followed were quickly eroded away by the sea. Eventually, a fourth island, named Anak Krakatau (meaning "child of Krakatoa" in Indonesian), broke water in August 1930 and produced lava flows more quickly than the waves could erode them.


title: Krakatoa

text: On October 2, 1883, five weeks after the eruption, a Dutch soldier was repeatedly stabbed by a bearded, white-robed man while paying for tobacco in the small town of Serang. The would-be assassin was never captured, but a similarly-dressed man attacked a sentry at the garrison six weeks later, blaming the Dutch for bringing divine vengeance upon the area. The "extreme religious zeal" noted by the man's interrogators seen as widespread, and historians suggest it was exploited by rising Muslim conservatives and anticolonial leaders (such as Abdul Karim Amrullah) to foment the Banten Peasant's Revolt in 1888, and to prey upon the Dutch conscience made uneasy by "Max Havelaar" and subsequent revelations of abuses.


title: Krakatoa

text: The explosion was the first natural disaster whose effects were felt worldwide and whose cause was also known, following the development of transoceanic communication cables. Winchester suggests the disaster marks the birth of an era of global awareness.


title: Krakatoa

text: The islands have become a major case study of island biogeography and founder populations in an ecosystem being built from the ground up in an environment virtually cleaned.


title: Krakatoa

text: The islands had been little studied or biologically surveyed before the 1883 catastrophe—only two pre-1883 biological collections are known: one of plant specimens and the other part of a shell collection. From descriptions and drawings made by , the flora appears to have been representative of a typical Javan tropical climax forest. The pre-1883 fauna is virtually unknown but was probably typical of the smaller islands in the area.


title: Krakatoa

text: From a biological perspective, the "Krakatau problem" refers to the question of whether the islands were completely sterilized by the 1883 eruption or whether some indigenous life survived. When the first researchers reached the islands in May 1884, the only living thing they found was a spider in a crevice on the south side of Rakata. Life quickly recolonized the islands, however; Verbeek's visit in October 1884 found grass shoots already growing. The eastern side of the island has been extensively vegetated by trees and shrubs, presumably brought there as seeds washed up by ocean currents or carried in birds' droppings (or brought by natives and scientific investigators). However, the floral ecosystem on Rakata is considerably vulnerable to environmental factors, and has been damaged by recent eruptions at Anak Krakatau.


title: Krakatoa

text: In 1914, plans were to set aside Rakata as a nature preserve. In 1916, Johann Handl, a German "pumice collector", obtained a permit to mine pumice, against "strong community objections", apparently to get away from World War I. His lease of (basically the eastern half of the island) was to be for 30 years. Handl took up residence on the south coast of Rakata, where he built a house and planted a garden along with "four European families and about 30 coolies". Handl found un-burned wood below the 1883 ash deposits while digging, and fresh water was found below . He and his entourage stayed there for four years, but left due to "violation of the terms of the lease." It is his party that is believed to have inadvertently introduced the black rat to the island, which quickly proliferated.


title: Krakatoa

text: Krakatoa was declared as a nature reserve in 1921, corresponding to IUCN management category Ia (strict nature reserve). Along with several other nature reserves, it was proposed as a national park in 1980. In 1991, "Ujung Kulon National Park and Krakatau Nature Reserve" was inscribed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site, matching Natural criteria (vii) and (x). Ujung Kulon National Park was officially established in 1992, including Krakatoa.


title: Krakatoa

text: A large part of the 1947 children's novel "The Twenty-One Balloons" by William Pene du Bois takes place on Krakatoa, just before and then during the 1883 eruption. In Pene du Bois's tale, 25 families have established a fanciful colony drawing vast wealth from fictional diamond mines on the island until the eruption scatters the inhabitants and destroys the mines.


title: Krakatoa

text: Krakatoa has been featured as a subject and a part of the story in various television and film dramas. In the 1953 film "Fair Wind to Java", an American sea captain and a pirate leader race one another to recover a fortune in diamonds hidden on Krakatoa, which begins its final eruption as they search the island for the treasure. The island was a prominent part of the plot of '"Crack of Doom," episode six of the Irwin Allen television series "The Time Tunnel" in 1966. It was also featured as the main part of the story line in the 1969 film, "Krakatoa, East of Java" (retitled "Volcano" in a re-release in the 1970s; the title contains a rather large geographical error, as Krakatoa is "west" of Java), which depicts an effort to salvage a priceless cargo of pearls located perilously close to the erupting volcano.


title: Krakatoa

text: Krakatoa is referenced in SpongeBob SquarePants by the character Squidward Tentacles. In the episode Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V, Squidward adopts the persona of a superhero named Captain Magma whose catchphrase is "Krakatoa".


title: Krakatoa

text: An Indonesian martial arts action film, "Krakatau" (1977), starring Dicky Zulkarnaen and Advent Bangun, set the story on the mountain. In more recent years, it has been the subject of a 2006 television drama, "Krakatoa: Volcano of Destruction" and again in 2008 as "Krakatoa".


title: Krakatoa

text: In Klaus Teuber's board game "Seafarers of Catan", the "Krakatoa Variant" is a scenario involving an island composed of three volcano tiles.


title: Krakatoa

text: In 1973, the American progressive rock band Styx released a spoken-word track called "Krakatoa" on its album "The Serpent Is Rising." Written by then-guitarist John Curulewski along with Paul Beaver and Bernie Krause, the song tells the story of Krakatoa's eruption and the subsequent return of life to the island.


title: Krakatoa

text: The British heavy metal band Saxon also released a song about the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, called "Krakatoa", on the 2010 re-release of its 1985 album "Innocence Is No Excuse".


title: Dota 2

text: Dota 2 is a 2013 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game by Valve. The game is a sequel to "Defense of the Ancients" ("DotA"), a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's "." "Dota 2" is played in matches between two teams of five players, with each team occupying and defending their own separate base on the map. Each of the ten players independently controls a powerful character known as a "hero" that all have unique abilities and differing styles of play. During a match players collect experience points and items for their heroes to successfully defeat the opposing team's heroes in player versus player combat. A team wins by being the first to destroy the other team's "Ancient", a large structure located within their base.


title: Dota 2

text: Development of "Dota 2" began in 2009 when IceFrog, lead designer of "Defense of the Ancients", was hired by Valve to create a modernized remake for them in the Source game engine. It was released for Windows, OS X, and Linux via the digital distribution platform Steam in July 2013, following a Windows-only open beta phase that began two years prior. The game is fully free-to-play with no heroes or any other gameplay element needing to be bought or otherwise unlocked. To maintain it, Valve supports the game as a service, selling loot boxes and a battle pass subscription system called Dota Plus that offer non-gameplay altering virtual goods in return, such as hero cosmetics and audio replacement packs. The game was ported to the Source 2 engine in 2015, making it the first game to use it.


title: Dota 2

text: "Dota 2" has a large esports scene, with teams from around the world playing in various professional leagues and tournaments. Valve manages an event format known as the Dota Pro Circuit, a series of tournaments that award qualification points for earning direct invitations to The International, the game's premier tournament held annually. Internationals feature a crowdfunded prize money system that has seen amounts in upwards of 40 million, making "Dota 2" the most lucrative esport. Media coverage of most tournaments is done by a selection of on-site staff who provide commentary and analysis for the ongoing matches similar to traditional sporting events. In addition to playing live to audiences in arenas and stadiums, broadcasts of them are also streamed over the internet and sometimes simulcast on television, with peak viewership numbers in the millions.


title: Dota 2

text: Despite some criticism going towards its steep learning curve and overall complexity, "Dota 2" was praised for its rewarding gameplay, production quality, and faithfulness to its predecessor, with many considering it to be one of the greatest video games of all time. It has been one of the most played games on Steam since its release, with over a million concurrent players at its peak. The popularity of the game has led to official merchandise and media adaptations for it being produced, including comic books and an anime series, as well as promotional tie-ins to other games and media. The game also allows for the community to create their own gamemodes, maps, and cosmetics, which are uploaded to the Steam Workshop. Two spinoff games, "Artifact" and "Dota Underlords", were also released by Valve. "Dota 2" has also been used in machine learning experiments, with a team of bots known as the OpenAI Five showing the capability to defeat professional players.


title: Dota 2

text: "Dota 2" is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game in which two teams of five players compete to destroy a large structure defended by the opposing team known as the "Ancient" whilst defending their own. As in "Defense of the Ancients", the game is controlled using standard real-time strategy controls, and is presented on a single map in a three-dimensional isometric perspective. Ten players each control one of the game's 123 playable characters, known as "heroes", with each having their own design, strengths, and weaknesses. Heroes are divided into two primary roles, known as the core and support.


title: Dota 2

text: Cores, which are also called carries, begin each match as weak and vulnerable, but are able to become more powerful later in the game, thus becoming able to "carry" their team to victory. Supports generally lack abilities that deal heavy damage, instead having ones with more functionality and utility that provide assistance for their cores, such as providing healing and other buffs. Players select their hero during a pre-game drafting phase, where they can also discuss potential strategies and hero matchups with their teammates. Heroes are removed from the drafting pool and become unavailable for all other players once one is selected, and can not be changed once the drafting phase is over. All heroes have a basic attack in addition to powerful abilities, which are the primary method of fighting. Each hero has at least four of them, all of which are unique. Heroes begin each game with an experience level of one, only having access to one of their abilities, but are able to level up and become more powerful during the course of the game, up to a maximum level of 30. Whenever a hero gains an experience level, the player is able to unlock another of their abilities or improve one already learned. The most powerful ability for each hero is known as their "ultimate", which requires them to have an experience level of six in order to use.


title: Dota 2

text: In order to prevent abilities from being used without consequence, a magic system is featured in the game. Activating an ability costs a hero some of their "mana points", which slowly regenerates over time. Using an ability will also cause it to enter a cooldown period, in which the ability can not be used again until a timer resets. All heroes have three attributes: strength, intelligence, and agility, which affect health points, mana points, and attack speed, respectively. Each hero has one primary attribute out of the three, which adds to their non-ability basic damage output when increased, among other minor buffs. Heroes also have an ability augmentation system known as the "Talent Tree", which allow players more choices on how to develop their hero. If a hero runs out of health points and dies, they are removed from active play until a timer counts down to zero, where they are then respawned in their base with only some gold lost.


title: Dota 2

text: The two teams—known as the Radiant and Dire—occupy fortified bases in opposite corners of the map, which is divided in half by a crossable river and connected by three paths, which are referred to as "lanes". The lanes are guarded by defensive towers that attack any opposing unit who gets within its line of sight. A small group of weak computer-controlled creatures called "creeps" travel predefined paths along the lanes and attempt to attack any opposing heroes, creeps, and buildings in their way. Creeps periodically spawn throughout the game in groups from two buildings, called the "barracks", that exist in each lane and are located within the team's bases. The map is also permanently covered for both teams in fog of war, which prevents a team from seeing the opposing team's heroes and creeps if they are not directly in sight of themselves or an allied unit. The map also features a day-night cycle, with some hero abilities and other game mechanics being altered depending on the time of the cycle. Also present on the map are "neutral creeps" that are hostile to both teams, and reside in marked locations on the map known as "camps". Camps are located in the area between the lanes known as the "jungle", which both sides of the map have.


title: Dota 2

text: Neutral creeps do not attack unless provoked, and respawn over time if killed. The most powerful neutral creep is named "Roshan", who is a unique boss that may be defeated by either team to obtain special items, such as one that allows a one-time resurrection if the hero that holds it is killed. Roshan will respawn around ten minutes after being killed, and becomes progressively harder to kill as the match progresses over time. Runes, which are special items that spawn in set positions on the map every few minutes, offer heroes temporary, but powerful power-ups when collected, such as double damage and invisibility.


title: Dota 2

text: In addition to having abilities becoming stronger during the game, players are able to buy items from set locations on the map called shops that provide their own special abilities. Items are not limited to specific heroes, and can be bought by anyone. In order to obtain an item, players must be able to afford it with gold at shops located on the map, which is primarily obtained by killing enemy heroes, destroying enemy structures, and killing creeps, with the latter being an act called "farming". Only the hero that lands the killing blow on a creep obtains gold from it, an act called "last hitting", but all allies receive a share of gold when an enemy hero dies close to them. Players are also able to "deny" allied units and structures by last hitting them, which then prevents their opponents from getting full experience from them. Gold can not be shared between teammates, with each player having their own independent stash. Players also receive a continuous, but small stream of gold over the course of a match.


title: Dota 2

text: "Dota 2" features multiple game types which mainly alter the way hero selection is handled; examples include "All Pick", which offer no restrictions on hero selection, "All Random", which randomly assigns a hero for each player, "Captain's Mode", where a single player on each team selects heroes for their entire team and is primarily used for professional play, and "Turbo", an expedited version of All Pick featuring increased gold and experience gain, weaker towers, and faster respawn times. Matches usually last around 30 minutes to an hour, although they can last forever as long as both Ancients remain standing. In Captain's Mode games, an additional "GG" forfeit feature is available to end games early. "Dota 2" also occasionally features limited-time events that present players with alternative game modes that do not follow the game's standard rules. Some of these included the Halloween-themed Diretide event, the Christmas-themed Frostivus event, and the New Bloom Festival, which celebrated the coming of spring. Other special game modes have also been created by Valve, including a ten-versus-ten mode, a Halloween-themed capture point mode "Colosseum", a combat arena mode "Overthrow", "Siltbreaker", a story-driven cooperative campaign mode, and "The Underhollow", a battle royale mode.


title: Dota 2

text: The move to the Source 2 engine in 2015 also added the "Arcade" feature, which allows for community-created game modes, with the more popular ones having dedicated server hosting by Valve. One popular example, known as "Dota Auto Chess", had over seven million in-game subscribers by April 2019. Owing to its popularity, Valve met with the mod's developers, the Chinese-based Drodo Studio, to discuss directly collaborating on a standalone version. However, the two companies were unable to come to an agreement, with them both stating that it was in their best interest to develop their own separate games. Valve's version, "Dota Underlords", was released in February 2020 and continued to use the "Dota" setting, while Drodo's game, "Auto Chess", was developed using no "Dota 2" assets.


title: Dota 2

text: The "Dota" series began in 2003 with "Defense of the Ancients" ("DotA")—a mod for Blizzard Entertainment's ""—created by the pseudonymous designer "Eul". An expansion pack for "Warcraft III", "The Frozen Throne", was released later that year; a series of "Defense of the Ancients" clone mods for the new game competed for popularity. "DotA: Allstars" by Steve Feak was the most successful, and Feak, with his friend Steve Mescon, created the official "Defense of the Ancients" community website and the holding company DotA-Allstars, LLC. When Feak retired from "DotA: Allstars" in 2005, a friend, under the pseudonym IceFrog, became its lead designer. By the late 2000s, "Defense of the Ancients" became one of the most popular mods worldwide, as well as a prominent esports game. IceFrog and Mescon later had a falling out in May 2009, which prompted the former to establish a new community website at playdota.com. Valve's interest in the "Dota" intellectual property began when several veteran employees, including "Team Fortress 2" designer Robin Walker and executive Erik Johnson, became fans of the mod and wanted to build a modern sequel. The company corresponded with IceFrog by email about his long-term plans for the project, and he was subsequently hired to direct a sequel. IceFrog first announced his new position through his blog in October 2009, with "Dota 2" being officially announced a year later.


title: Dota 2

text: Valve adopted the word ""Dota"", derived from the original mod's acronym, as the name for its newly acquired franchise. Johnson argued that the word referred to a concept, and was not an acronym. Shortly after the announcement of "Dota 2", Valve filed a trademark claim to the "Dota" name. At Gamescom 2011, company president Gabe Newell explained that the trademark was needed to develop a sequel with the already-identifiable brand. Holding the "Dota" name to be a community asset, Feak and Mescon filed an opposing trademark for "Dota" on behalf of DotA-Allstars, LLC (then a subsidiary of Riot Games) in August 2010. Rob Pardo, the executive vice president of Blizzard Entertainment at the time, similarly stated that the "Dota" name belonged to the mod's community. Blizzard acquired DotA-Allstars, LLC from Riot Games and filed an opposition against Valve in November 2011, citing Blizzard's ownership of both the "Warcraft III World Editor" and DotA-Allstars, LLC as proper claims to the franchise name. The dispute was settled in May 2012, with Valve retaining commercial rights to the "Dota" trademark, while allowing non-commercial use of the name by third-parties. In 2017, Valve's ownership of franchise was again challenged, after a 2004 internet forum post from Eul was brought to light by a Chinese company known as , who had released a mobile game in 2014 that used characters from the "Dota" universe. , who was previously involved in a lawsuit with Blizzard in 2015 for similar reasons, along with another Chinese company, Lilith Games, argued that the forum post invalidated any ownership claims of the intellectual property, stating that the "Dota" property was an open-source, collective work that could not be copyrighted by anyone in particular. Judge Charles R. Breyer denied 's motion for summary dismissal, with Blizzard filing motions to dismiss all claims against and Lilith with prejudice.


title: Dota 2

text: An early goal of the "Dota 2" team was the adaptation of "Defense of the Ancients" aesthetic style for the Source engine. The Radiant and Dire factions replaced the Sentinel and Scourge from the mod, respectively. Character names, abilities, items and map design from the mod were largely retained, with some changes due to trademarks owned by Blizzard. In the first Q&A session regarding "Dota 2", IceFrog explained that the game would build upon the mod without making significant changes to its core. Valve contracted major contributors from the "Defense of the Ancients" community, including Eul and artist Kendrick Lim, to assist with the sequel. Additional contributions from sources outside of Valve were also sought regularly for "Dota 2", as to continue "Defense of the Ancients" tradition of community-sourced development. One of the composers of "Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos", Jason Hayes, was hired to collaborate with Tim Larkin to write the original score for the game, which was conducted by Timothy Williams and performed and recorded by the Northwest Sinfonia at Bastyr University. Valve had "Half-Life" series writer Marc Laidlaw, science fiction author Ted Kosmatka, and Steam support employee Kris Katz write new dialog and background lore for the heroes. Notable voice actors for heroes include Nolan North, Dave Fennoy, Jon St. John, Ellen McLain, Fred Tatasciore, Merle Dandridge, Jen Taylor, and John Patrick Lowrie, among others.


title: Dota 2

text: The Source engine itself was updated with new features to accommodate "Dota 2", such as high-end cloth modeling and improved global lighting. The game features Steam integration, which provides its social component and cloud storage for personal settings. In November 2013, Valve introduced a coaching system that allows experienced players to tutor newer players with in-game tools. As with previous Valve multiplayer games, players are able to spectate live matches of "Dota 2" played by others, and local area network (LAN) multiplayer support allows for local competitions. Some of these events may be spectated via the purchase of tickets from the "Dota Store", which give players in-game access to matches. Ticket fees are apportioned in part to tournament organizers. The game also features an in-game fantasy sports system, which is modeled after traditional fantasy sports and feature professional "Dota 2" players and teams. Players are also able to spectate games in virtual reality (VR) with up to 15 others, which was added in an update in July 2016. The update also added a hero showcase mode, which allows players to see all of the heroes and their cosmetics full-size in virtual reality.


title: Dota 2

text: As part of a plan to develop "Dota 2" into a social network, Newell announced in April 2012 that the game would be free-to-play, and that community contributions would be a cornerstone feature. Instead, revenue is generated through the "Dota Store", which offers for-purchase cosmetic virtual goods, such as custom armor and weapons for their heroes. It was also announced that the full roster of heroes would be available at launch for free. Until the game's official release in 2013, players were able to purchase an early access bundle, which included a digital copy of "Dota 2" and several cosmetic items. Included as optional downloadable content (DLC), the "Dota 2" Workshop Tools are a set of Source 2 software development kit (SDK) tools that allow content creators to create new hero cosmetics, as well as custom game modes, maps, and bot scripts. Highly rated cosmetics, through the Steam Workshop, are available in the in-game store if they are accepted by Valve. This model was fashioned after Valve's "Team Fortress 2", which had earned Workshop designers of cosmetic items of that game over $3.5 million by June 2011. Newell revealed that the average Steam Workshop contributor for "Dota 2" and "Team Fortess 2" made approximately $15,000 from their creations in 2013. By 2015, sales of "Dota 2" virtual goods had earned Valve over $238 million in revenue, according to the digital game market research group SuperData. In 2016, Valve introduced the "Custom Game Pass" option for creators of custom game modes, which allows them to be funded by way of microtransactions by adding exclusive features, content, and other changes to their game mode for players who buy it.


title: Dota 2

text: "Dota 2" includes a seasonal Elo rating-based matchmaking system, which is measured by a numerical value known as "matchmaking rating" (MMR) that is tracked separately for core and support roles, and ranked into different tiers. MMR is updated based on if a player won or lost, which will then increase or decrease respectively. The game's servers, known as the "Game Coordinator", attempts to balance both teams based on each player's MMR, with each team having roughly a 50% chance to win in any given game. Ranked game modes with a separately tracked MMR are also available, which primarily differ from unranked games by making MMR publicly visible, as well as requiring the registration of a phone number to their accounts, which help foster a more competitive environment. To ensure that each player's ranking is up to date and accurate, MMR is recalibrated around every six months. Players with the highest possible medal rank are listed by Valve on an online leaderboard, separated into North American, European, Southeast Asian, and Chinese regions. The game also includes a report system, which allows players to punish player behavior that intentionally provides a negative experience. Players who get reported enough or leave several games before they conclude, a practice known as "abandoning", are then placed into low priority matchmaking, which remains on a player's account until they win a specific number of games, and only groups them with other players who also have the same punishment. Other features include an improved replay system from "Defense of the Ancients", in which a completed game can be downloaded in-client and viewed by anyone at a later time, and the "hero builds" feature, which provide integrated guides created by the community that highlight to the player on how to play their hero.


title: Dota 2

text: In June 2015, Valve announced that the entirety of "Dota 2" would be ported over to their Source 2 game engine in an update called "Dota 2 Reborn". "Reborn" was first released as an opt-in beta update that same month, and officially replaced the original client in September 2015, making it the first game to use the engine. "Reborn" included a new user interface framework design, ability for custom game modes created by the community, and the full replacement of the original Source engine with Source 2. Largely attributed to technical difficulties players experienced with the update, the global player base experienced a sharp drop of approximately sixteen percent the month following its release. However, after various updates and patches, over a million concurrent players were playing again by the beginning of 2016, with that number being the largest in nearly a year. The move to Source 2 also allowed the use of the Vulkan graphics API, released as an optional feature in May 2016, making "Dota 2" one of the first games to use it.


title: Dota 2

text: "Dota 2" was first made available to the public at Gamescom in 2011, coinciding with the inaugural International championship, the game's premier esport tournament event. At the event, Valve began sending out closed beta invitations to "DotA" players and attendees. Although the game was originally meant to publicly release in 2012, Valve later scrapped that plan as it would have kept the game in its closed beta state for over a year. Owing to that, Valve lifted the non-disclosure agreement and transitioned the game into open beta in September 2011, allowing players to discuss the game and their experiences publicly.


title: Dota 2

text: Following nearly two years of beta testing, "Dota 2" was officially released on Steam for Windows on July 9, 2013, and for OS X and Linux on July 18, 2013. The game did not launch with every hero from "Defense of the Ancients". Instead, the missing ones were added in various post-release updates, with the final one, as well as the first "Dota 2" original hero, being added in 2016. Two months following the game's release, Newell claimed that updates to "Dota 2" generated up to three percent of global internet traffic. In December 2013, the final restrictions against unlimited global access to "Dota 2" were lifted after the game's infrastructure and servers were substantially bolstered. In order to abide by the standards set by the economic legislation of specific countries, Valve opted to contract with nationally based developers for publishing. In October 2012, Chinese game publisher Perfect World announced they had received distribution rights for the game in the country. The Chinese client also has a region-specific "Low Violence" mode, which removes most depictions of blood, gore, and skulls in order for the game to follow censorship policies of the country. In November 2012, a similar publishing deal was made with the South Korea-based game company Nexon to distribute and market the game in the country, as well as in Japan. Three years later, Nexon announced they would no longer be operating servers for "Dota 2", with Valve taking over direct distribution and marketing of the game in those regions.


title: Dota 2

text: In December 2016, "Dota 2" was updated to gameplay version 7.00, also known as "The New Journey" update. Prior to the update, the "Dota" series had been in version 6."xx" for over a decade, marking the first major revision since IceFrog originally took over development of the original mod in the mid-2000s. The New Journey update added and changed numerous features and mechanics of the game, including adding the first original hero not ported over from "Defense of the Ancients", a reworked map, a redesigned HUD, a pre-game phase that allows for players to discuss their team strategy, and a "Talent Tree" ability augmentation system. In April 2017, Valve announced changes to the game's ranked matchmaking system, with the main one requiring the registration of a unique phone number to a player's account in order to play them, an anti-griefing and smurfing practice they had previously implemented in their first-person shooter game, "". Further changes to the game's matchmaking were brought in an update in November 2017, where the old numerical MMR system was replaced by a seasonal one based on eight ranked tiers that are recalibrated around every six months, a move that brought the game's ranked system closer to ones used in other competitive games such as "Global Offensive", "StarCraft", and "League of Legends".


title: Dota 2

text: For most of 2018, Valve decided to handle gameplay balance updates for the game in a different way. Instead of releasing larger updates irregularly throughout the year, smaller ones would be released on a set schedule of every two weeks. Around the same time, the game also introduced the "Dota Plus" monthly subscription system that replaced the seasonal battle passes that were released to coincide with a Major tournament. In addition to offering everything battle passes previously did, Dota Plus added new features such as a hero-specific achievement system that reward players who complete them with exclusive cosmetics, as well as providing hero and game analytics and statistics gathered from thousands of recent games.


title: Dota 2

text: To ensure that enough "Defense of the Ancients" players would take up "Dota 2" and to promote the game to a new audience, Valve invited sixteen accomplished "Defense of the Ancients" esports teams to compete at a "Dota 2"-specific tournament at Gamescom in August 2011, which later became an annually held event known as The International. From The International 2013 onward, its prize pool began to be crowdfunded through a type of in-game battle pass called the "Compendium", which raises money from players buying them and connected lootboxes to get exclusive in-game cosmetics and other bonuses offered through them. 25% of all the revenue made from Compendiums go directly to the prize pool, with sales from the 2013 battle pass raising over 2.8 million, which made it the largest prize pool in esports history at the time. From 2015 until 2021, each iteration of the International surpassed the previous one's prize pool, with The International 2021 peaking at $40 million.


title: Dota 2

text: During its beta phase in the early 2010s several other esport events would begin hosting "Dota 2" events, including the Electronic Sports World Cup, DreamHack, World Cyber Games, and ESL. By the end of 2011, "Dota 2" was already one of the highest-paying esport games, second only to "StarCraft II". At E3 2013, South Korean company Nexon announced the investment of 2 billion (approximately 1.7 million) into local leagues in the country, which coincided with their distribution partnership with Valve for the game. In February 2015, Valve sponsored and held the "Dota 2" Asia Championships in Shanghai, with a prize pool of over $3 million raised through compendium sales. In total, professional "Dota 2" tournaments had earned teams and players over $100 million by June 2017, with over half of that being awarded at Internationals, making it the highest earning esport game by a margin of nearly $60 million at the time.


title: Dota 2

text: From late 2015 until early 2017, Valve sponsored a series of smaller-scale, seasonally held tournaments known as the Dota Major Championships, which all had fixed prize pools of 3 million. Their format was based on the that Valve also sponsored for their first-person shooter game, "". Including The International 2016 and 2017, which were considered to be the cumulative Major of their respective seasons, the series had five other events, which were the Frankfurt Major, Shanghai Major, Manila Major, Boston Major, and Kiev Major. Following the International 2017, the Majors were replaced with the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) format due to criticism by teams and fans for Valve's non-transparent and unpredictable nature for handing out International invitations.<ref name="Majors/Minors"></ref><ref name="Majors/Minors PC Gamer"></ref><ref name="Majors/Minors Kotaku"></ref> In the DPC, teams are awarded qualification points for their performance in sponsored tournaments, with the top twelve earning direct invites to that season's International. To avoid conflicting dates with other tournaments, Valve directly manages the scheduling of them.


title: Dota 2

text: The primary medium for professional "Dota 2" coverage is through the live streaming platform, Twitch. For most major events, tournament coverage is done by a selection of dedicated esports organizations and personnel who provide on-site commentary, analysis, and player interviews, similar to traditional sporting events. Coverage of "Dota 2" tournaments have also been simulcast on television networks, such as ESPN in the United States, BBC Three in the United Kingdom, Sport1 in Germany, TV 2 Zulu in Denmark, Xinwen Lianbo in China, Astro in Malaysia, and TV5 in the Philippines.


title: Dota 2

text: "Dota 2" received "universal acclaim" according to review aggregator Metacritic, and has been cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. In a preview of the game in 2012, Rich McCormick of "PC Gamer" thought that "Dota 2" was "an unbelievably deep and complex game that offers the purest sequel to the original "Defense of the Ancients". Rewarding like few others, but tough." Adam Biessener, the editor who authored the announcement article for "Dota 2" for "Game Informer" in 2010, praised Valve for maintaining the same mechanics and game balance that made "Defense of the Ancients" successful nearly a decade prior and Quintin Smith of Eurogamer described "Dota 2" as the "supreme form of the MOBA which everyone else working in the genre is trying to capture like lightning in a bottle". The most frequently praised aspects of the game were its depth, delivery, and overall balance. Chris Thursten of "PC Gamer" described the gameplay as being "deep and rewarding".


title: Dota 2

text: Martin Gaston of "GameSpot" complimented Valve for the artistic design and delivery of "Dota 2", citing the execution of the user interface design, voice acting, and characterization as exceeding those of the game's competitors. Phill Cameron of "IGN" and James Kozanitis of "Hardcore Gamer" both praised "Dota 2" for its free-to-play business model including only cosmetic items in contrast to other games such as "League of Legends", which charges to unlock better "heroes" to play as, with Kozanitis stating that "Dota 2" was "the only game to do free-to-play right". Nick Kolan of "IGN" also agreed, comparing the game's business model to Valve's "Team Fortress 2", which uses a nearly identical system. Post-release additions to the game were also praised, such as the addition of virtual reality (VR) support in 2016. Ben Kuchera of "Polygon" thought that spectating games in VR was "amazing", comparing it to being able to watch an American football game on television with the ability to jump onto the field at any time to see the quarterback's point of view. Chris Thursten of "PC Gamer" agreed, calling the experience "incredible" and unlike any other esports spectating system that existed prior to it. Sam Machkovech of "Ars Technica" also praised the addition, believing that the functionality could "attract serious attention from gamers and non-gamers alike".


title: Dota 2

text: While the majority of reviewers gave "Dota 2" highly positive reviews, a common criticism was that the game maintains a steep learning curve that requires exceptional commitment to overcome. While providing a moderately positive review that praised Valve's product stability, Fredrik Åslund from the Swedish division of "Gamereactor" described his first match of "Dota 2" as one of the most humiliating and inhospitable experiences of his gaming career, citing the learning curve and players' attitudes as unwelcoming. Benjamin Danneberg of "GameStar" alluded to the learning curve as a "learning cliff", calling the newcomer's experience painful, with the tutorial feature new to the "Dota" franchise only being partially successful. In a review for "Metro", "Dota 2" was criticized for not compensating for the flaws with the learning curve from "Defense of the Ancients", as well as the often hostile community. Peter Bright of "Ars Technica" also directed criticism at the ability for third-party websites to allow skin gambling and betting on match results, similar to with Valve's "". Using "Dota 2" as an example, Bright thought that Valve had built gambling elements directly into their games, and had issues with the unregulated practice, which he said was often used by underage players and regions where gambling is illegal. Australian senator Nick Xenophon had similar sentiment, stating that he wanted to introduce legislation in his country to minimize underage access to gambling within video games, including "Dota 2". In response to the controversy, Valve and "Dota 2" project manager Erik Johnson stated that they would be taking action against the third-party sites as the practice was not allowed by their user agreements or API.


title: Dota 2

text: Comparisons of "Dota 2" to other MOBA games are commonplace, with the mechanics and business model compared to "League of Legends" and "Heroes of the Storm". Contrasting it with "League of Legends", T. J. Hafer of "PC Gamer" called "Dota 2" the "superior experience", stating that he thought the game was "all about counterplay", with most of the heroes being designed to directly counter another. Hafer also preferred the way the game handled its hero selection pool, with all of them being unlocked right from the start, unlike in "League of Legends". Comparing "Dota 2" to "Heroes of the Storm", Jason Parker of CNET said that while "Heroes of the Storm" was easier to get into, the complexities and depth of "Dota 2" would be appreciated more by those who put in the time to master it. Further comparing it to "Heroes of Newerth", players from the professional "Dota 2" team OG said that most "Heroes of Newerth" players were able to transition over easily to the game, due to the strong similarities that both games share. Similar to other highly competitive online games, "Dota 2" is often considered to have a hostile and "toxic" community. In 2019, a report by the Anti-Defamation League found that up to 79% of the game's playerbase had reported being harassed in some way while playing it, which topped their list.


title: Dota 2

text: Following its reveal in 2011, "Dota 2" won IGN's People's Choice Award. In December 2012, "PC Gamer" listed "Dota 2" as a nominee for their Game of the Year award, as well as the best esports game of the year. In 2013, "Dota 2" won the esport game of the year award from "PC Gamer" and "onGamers". GameTrailers also awarded the game the award for Best PC Game of 2013, with IGN also awarding it the Best PC Strategy & Tactics Game, Best PC Multiplayer Game, and People's Choice Award. Similarly, "Game Informer" recognized "Dota 2" for the categories of Best PC Exclusive, Best Competitive Multiplayer and Best Strategy of 2013. The same year, "Dota 2" was nominated for several awards by "Destructoid". While the staff selected "", "Dota 2" received the majority of the votes distributed between the nine nominees. "Dota 2" was later nominated for the best multiplayer game at the 10th British Academy Games Awards in 2014, but lost to "Grand Theft Auto V", and was nominated for Esports Game of the Year at The Game Awards at its events from 2015 to 2019, while winning the award for best MOBA at the 2015 Global Game Awards. The game was also nominated for the community created "Love/Hate Relationship" award at the inaugural Steam Awards in 2016. In the late 2010s, the game was nominated for Choice Video Game at the 2017 Teen Choice Awards, for Esports Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards, and as "IGN" best spectator game.


title: Dota 2

text: A month prior to its official launch, "Dota 2" was already the most played game on Steam with a concurrent player count of nearly 330,000, which outweighed the number of players for the rest of platform's top ten most-played games combined. It remained as the most played game by concurrent players on the platform for four years, having a peak of over one million and never dropping below first place for any extended period of time until being surpassed by "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" in 2017. Viewership and followings of professional "Dota 2" leagues and tournaments are also popular, with peak viewership numbers of some events reaching upwards in the millions. Some Asian schools and universities, such as the Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation in Malaysia, have held courses teaching students the fundamentals and core skills to use for the game. "Dota 2" has also been a part of multi-sport events in Asia, such as the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games and Southeast Asian Games.


title: Dota 2

text: The popularity of "Dota 2" led Valve to produce apparel, accessories, figurines, and several other products featuring the heroes and other elements from the game. In addition, Valve secured licensing contracts with third-party producers; the first of these deals concerned a "Dota 2" themed SteelSeries mousepad, which was announced alongside the game at Gamescom 2011. In September 2012, Weta Workshop, the prop studio that creates the "Aegis of Champions" trophy for winners of The International, announced a product line that would include statues, weapons, and armor based on characters and items from the game. In February 2013, the National Entertainment Collectibles Association announced a new toy line featuring hero-themed action figures at the American International Toy Fair. At Gamescom 2015, an HTC Vive virtual reality (VR) tech demo based around the shopkeeper of the game's item shop was showcased, allowing participants to interact with various items and objects from the game in VR. The demo, known as "Secret Shop", was later included the following year on "The Lab", Valve's virtual reality compilation game. After the conclusion of The International 2015, Valve awarded the Collector's Aegis of Champions, a brass replica of the Aegis of Champions award trophy, to those with compendiums of 1,000 levels or more. Valve awarded the Collector's Aegis again the following year for The International 2016, as well as selling a limited edition "Dota 2" themed HTC Vive virtual reality headset during the event. In July 2017, an 18-track music soundtrack was released by Ipecac Recordings, including a version on vinyl. A digital collectible card game based on the universe of "Dota 2" and designed by "" creator Richard Garfield and Valve, "Artifact", was released in November 2018.


title: Dota 2

text: Promotional tie-ins to other video games and media have been added to "Dota 2", including custom "Half-Life 2", "Bastion", "Portal", "The Stanley Parable", "Rick and Morty", "Fallout 4", "", and "Darkest Dungeon" announcer packs, which replace the game's default announcer with ones based on those franchises. In addition to announcer packs, well-known musical artists have written music packs that can replace the game's default soundtrack, such as electronic music artist deadmau5 and Singaporean songwriter JJ Lin. To coincide with the Windows release of Square Enix's "Final Fantasy Type-0 HD" in August 2015, a bundle containing a custom loading screen, a Moogle ward, and a Chocobo courier were added the same month. In April 2016, Valve announced a cross-promotional workshop contest for Sega's "", with the winning entries being included in the game later that year. In 2017, a cosmetic set based on the Companion Cube from the "Portal" series was released as part of that year's International battle pass for the hero known as "Io". In December of the same year, the character Amaterasu from Capcom's "Ōkami" was included as a courier for those who had pre-ordered the PC release of the game.


title: Dota 2

text: A documentary on the game and its professional scene was produced by Valve and released in March 2014. Known as "Free to Play", the film follows three players during their time at the first International in 2011. American basketball player Jeremy Lin, who was a media sensation at the time, had a guest appearance in the film and called the game "a way of life". Lin later compared the game and the esports scene in general to basketball and other traditional sporting events, saying that there was not much of a difference between the two, while also comparing various NBA all-stars, such as Stephen Curry, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James, to different heroes in the game. Starting in 2016, Valve began producing an episodic documentary series titled "True Sight", a spiritual successor to "Free to Play". The first three episodes followed the professional teams Evil Geniuses and Fnatic during the Boston Major tournament in late 2016. Several more episodes have since been produced. Valve have also endorsed cosplay competitions featuring the game's heroes, which take place during downtime at some "Dota 2" tournaments and feature prize pools of their own. Creation of "Dota 2"-themed animations and CGI videos, mostly created by the community with Source Filmmaker, also take place. Similar to the cosplay competitions, Valve holds short film contests every year at The International, with winners of the competition also being awarded prize money. In addition, Valve have created free webcomics featuring some of the heroes, further detailing their background lore. A physical collection of the comics was released as "Dota 2: The Comic Collection" by Dark Horse Comics in August 2017. An anime streaming television series based on the game, "", premiered on Netflix in March 2021. The series was produced by Studio Mir and Kaiju Boulevard.


title: Dota 2

text: "Dota 2" has also been used in machine learning experiments, with the American artificial intelligence research company OpenAI curating a system, known as the OpenAI Five, that allows bots to learn how to play the game at a high skill level entirely through trial-and-error algorithms. The bots learn over time by playing against itself hundreds a times a day for months in a system that OpenAI calls "reinforcement learning", in which they are rewarded for actions such as killing an enemy and destroying towers. Demonstrations of the bots playing against professional players have occurred at some events, such as Dendi, a professional Ukrainian player of the game, losing to one of them in a live 1v1 matchup at The International 2017. A year later, the ability of the bots had increased to work together as a full team of five, known as the OpenAI Five, who then played and won against a team of semi-professional players in a demonstration game in August 2018. Shortly after, OpenAI Five then played two live games against more skilled players at The International 2018. Although the bots lost both games, OpenAI considered it successful as playing the bots against some of the best players in "Dota 2" allowed them to analyze and adjust their algorithms for future games.


title: Kraftwerk

text: Kraftwerk (, "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize the genre. The group began as part of West Germany's experimental krautrock scene in the early 1970s before fully embracing electronic instrumentation, including synthesizers, drum machines, and vocoders. Wolfgang Flür joined the band in 1974 and Karl Bartos in 1975, expanding the band to a quartet.


title: Kraftwerk

text: On commercially successful albums such as "Autobahn" (1974), "Trans-Europe Express" (1977), "The Man-Machine" (1978), and "Computer World" (1981), Kraftwerk developed a self-described "robot pop" style that combined electronic music with pop melodies, sparse arrangements, and repetitive rhythms, while adopting a stylized image including matching suits. Following the release of "Electric Café" (1986), Flür left the group in 1987, followed by Bartos in 1990. Founding member Schneider left in 2008.


title: Kraftwerk

text: The band's work has influenced a diverse range of artists and many genres of modern music, including synth-pop, hip hop, post-punk, techno, house music, ambient, and club music. In 2014, the Recording Academy honoured Kraftwerk with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. They later won the Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Album with their live album "3-D The Catalogue" (2017) at the 2018 ceremony. In 2021, Kraftwerk was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the early influence category. As of 2022, the band continues to tour, with the members' live performances celebrating Kraftwerk's fiftieth anniversary.


title: Kraftwerk

text: Florian Schneider (flutes, synthesizers, violin) and Ralf Hütter (organ, synthesizers) met as students at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf in the late 1960s, participating in the German experimental music and art scene of the time, which "Melody Maker" jokingly dubbed "krautrock".


title: Kraftwerk

text: They joined a quintet known as Organisation, which released one album, "Tone Float" in 1970, issued on RCA Records in the UK, and split shortly thereafter. Schneider became interested in synthesizers, deciding to acquire one in 1970. While visiting an exhibition in their hometown about visual artists Gilbert and George, they see "two men wearing suits and ties, claiming to bring art into everyday life. The same year, Hütter and Schneider started bringing everyday life into art and form Kraftwerk".


title: Kraftwerk

text: Early Kraftwerk line-ups from 1970 to 1974 fluctuated, as Hütter and Schneider worked with around a half-dozen other musicians during the preparations for and the recording of three albums and sporadic live appearances, including guitarist Michael Rother and drummer Klaus Dinger, who left to form Neu!. The only constant figure in these line-ups was Schneider, whose main instrument at the time was the flute; at times he also played the violin and guitar, all processed through a varied array of electronic devices. Hütter, who left the band for eight months to focus on completing his university studies, played synthesizer and keyboards (including Farfisa organ and electric piano).


title: Kraftwerk

text: The band released two free-form experimental rock albums, "Kraftwerk" (1970) and "Kraftwerk 2" (1972). The albums were mostly exploratory musical improvisations played on a variety of traditional instruments including guitar, bass, drums, organ, flute, and violin. Post-production modifications to these recordings were used to distort the sound of the instruments, particularly audio-tape manipulation and multiple dubbings of one instrument on the same track. Both albums are purely instrumental. Live performances from 1972 to 1973 were mostly made as a duo, using a simple beat-box-type electronic drum machine with preset rhythms taken from an electric organ. Occasionally, they performed with bass players as well. These shows were mainly in Germany, with occasional shows in France. Later in 1973, Wolfgang Flür joined the group for rehearsals, and the unit performed as a trio on the television show "Aspekte" for German television network ZDF.


title: Kraftwerk

text: With "Ralf und Florian", released in 1973, Kraftwerk began to rely more heavily on synthesizers and drum machines. Although almost entirely instrumental, the album marks Kraftwerk's first use of the vocoder in the song "Ananas Symphonie" (Pineapple Symphony,) which became one of its musical signatures. According to English music journalist Simon Reynolds, Kraftwerk were influenced by what he called the "adrenalized insurgency" of Detroit artists of the late '60s MC5 and the Stooges.


title: Kraftwerk

text: The input, expertise, and influence of producer and engineer Konrad "Conny" Plank was highly significant in the early years of Kraftwerk. Plank also worked with many of the other leading German electronic acts of that time, including members of Can, Neu!, Cluster, and Harmonia. As a result of his work with Kraftwerk, Plank's studio near Cologne became one of the most sought-after studios in the late 1970s. Plank co-produced the first four Kraftwerk albums.


title: Kraftwerk

text: The release of "Autobahn" in 1974 saw Kraftwerk moving away from the sound of its first three albums. Hütter and Schneider had invested in newer technology such as the Minimoog and the EMS Synthi AKS, helping give Kraftwerk a newer, "disciplined" sound. "Autobahn" was also the last album that Conny Plank engineered. After the commercial success of "Autobahn" in the US, where it peaked at number 5 in the Billboard Top LPs & Tapes, Hütter and Schneider invested in updating their studio, thus lessening their reliance on outside producers. At this time the painter and graphic artist Emil Schult became a regular collaborator, designing artwork, cowriting lyrics, and accompanying the group on tour.


title: Kraftwerk

text: The year 1975 saw a turning point in Kraftwerk's live shows. With financial support from Phonogram Inc., in the US, they were able to undertake a tour to promote the "Autobahn" album, a tour which took them to the US, Canada and the UK for the first time. The tour also saw a new, stable, live line-up in the form of a quartet. Hütter and Schneider continued playing keyboard synthesizers such as the Minimoog and ARP Odyssey, with Schneider's use of flute diminishing. The two men started singing live for the first time, and Schneider processing his voice with a vocoder live. Wolfgang Flür and new recruit Karl Bartos performed on home-made electronic percussion instruments. Bartos also used a Deagan vibraphone on stage. The Hütter-Schneider-Bartos-Flür formation remained in place until the late 1980s and is now regarded as the classic live line-up of Kraftwerk. Emil Schult generally fulfilled the role of tour manager.


title: Kraftwerk

text: After the 1975 "Autobahn" tour, Kraftwerk began work on a follow-up album, "Radio-Activity" (German title: "Radio-Aktivität"). After further investment in new equipment, the Kling Klang Studio became a fully working recording studio. The group used the central theme in radio communication, which had become enhanced on their last tour of the United States. With Emil Schult working on artwork and lyrics, Kraftwerk began to compose music for the new record. Even though "Radio-Activity" was less commercially successful than "Autobahn" in the UK and United States, the album served to open up the European market for Kraftwerk, earning them a gold disc in France. Kraftwerk made videos and performed several European live dates to promote the album. With the release of "Autobahn" and "Radio-Activity", Kraftwerk left behind avant-garde experimentation and moved towards the electronic pop tunes for which they are best known.


title: Kraftwerk

text: In 1976, Kraftwerk toured in support of the "Radio-Activity" album. David Bowie was among the fans of the record and invited the band to support him on his "Station to Station" tour, an offer the group declined. Despite some innovations in touring, Kraftwerk took a break from live performances after the "Radio-Activity" tour of 1976.


title: Kraftwerk

text: After having finished the Radio-Activity tour Kraftwerk began recording "Trans-Europe Express" (German: "Trans-Europa Express") at the Kling Klang Studio. "Trans-Europe Express" was mixed at the Record Plant Studios in Los Angeles. It was around this time that Hütter and Schneider met David Bowie at the Kling Klang Studio. A collaboration was mentioned in an interview (Brian Eno) with Hütter, but it never materialised. The release of "Trans-Europe Express" in March 1977 was marked with an extravagant train journey used as a press conference by EMI France. The album won a disco award in New York later that year.


title: Kraftwerk

text: In May 1978 Kraftwerk released "The Man-Machine" (German: "Die Mensch-Maschine"), recorded at the Kling Klang Studio. Due to the complexity of the recording, the album was mixed at Studio Rudas in Düsseldorf. The band hired sound engineer Leanard Jackson from Detroit to work with Joschko Rudas on the final mix. "The Man-Machine" was the first Kraftwerk album where Karl Bartos was cocredited as a songwriter. The cover, produced in black, white and red, was inspired by Russian artist El Lissitzky and the Suprematism movement. Gunther Frohling photographed the group for the cover, a now-iconic image which featured the quartet dressed in red shirts and black ties. After it was released Kraftwerk did not release another album for three years.


title: Kraftwerk

text: In May 1981 Kraftwerk released "Computer World" (German: "Computerwelt") on EMI Records. It was recorded at Kling Klang Studio between 1978 and 1981. Much of this time was spent modifying the studio to make it portable so the band could take it on tour. Some of the electronic vocals on "Computer World" were generated using a Texas Instruments language translator. "Computer Love" was released as a single backed with the "Man-Machine" track "The Model". Radio DJs were more interested in the B-side so the single was repackaged by EMI and re-released with "The Model" as the A-side. The single reached number one in the UK, making "The Model" Kraftwerk's most successful song in that country. As a result, the "Man-Machine" album also became a success in the UK, peaking at number 9 in the album chart in February 1982. The band's live set focused increasingly on song-based material, with greater use of vocals and the use of sequencing equipment for both percussion and music. In contrast to their cool and controlled image, the group used sequencers interactively, which allowed for live improvisation. Ironically, Kraftwerk did not own a computer at the time of recording "Computer World".


title: Kraftwerk

text: Kraftwerk returned to live performance with the "Computer World" tour of 1981, where the band effectively packed up its entire Kling Klang studio and took it along on the road. They also made greater use of live visuals including back-projected slides and films synchronized with the music as the technology developed, the use of hand-held miniaturized instruments during the set, and the use of replica mannequins of themselves to perform on stage during the song "The Robots".


title: Kraftwerk

text: In 1982 Kraftwerk began to work on a new album that initially had the working title "Technicolor" but due to trademark issues was changed to "Electric Café" for its original release in 1986 (for a remastered re-release in 2009, it was retitled again after its original working title, "Techno Pop"). One of the songs from these recording sessions was "Tour de France", which EMI released as a single in 1983. This song was a reflection of the band's new-found obsession for cycling. After the physically demanding "Computer World" tour, Ralf Hütter had been looking for forms of exercise that fitted in with the image of Kraftwerk; subsequently he encouraged the group to become vegetarians and take up cycling. "Tour de France" included sounds that followed this theme including bicycle chains, gear mechanisms and the breathing of the cyclist. At the time of the single's release Ralf Hütter tried to persuade the rest of the band that they should record a whole album based on cycling. The other members of the band were not convinced, and the theme was left to the single alone. "Tour de France" was released in German and French. The vocals of the song were recorded on the Kling Klang Studio stairs to create the right atmosphere. "Tour de France" was featured in the 1984 film "Breakin'", showing the influence that Kraftwerk had on black American dance music.


title: Kraftwerk

text: In May or June 1982, during the recording of "Tour de France", Ralf Hütter was involved in a serious cycling accident. He suffered head injuries and remained in a coma for several days. During 1983 Wolfgang Flür was beginning to spend less time in the studio. Since the band began using sequencers his role as a drummer was becoming less frequent. He preferred to spend his time travelling with his girlfriend. Flür was also experiencing artistic difficulties with the band. Though he toured the world with Kraftwerk as a drummer in 1981, his playing does not appear on that year's "Computer World" or on the 1986 album "Electric Café". In 1987 he left the band and was replaced by Fritz Hilpert.


title: Kraftwerk

text: After years of withdrawal from live performance Kraftwerk began to tour Europe more frequently. In February 1990 the band played a few secret shows in Italy. Karl Bartos left the band shortly afterwards. The next proper tour was in 1991, for the album "The Mix". Hütter and Schneider wished to continue the synth-pop quartet style of presentation, and recruited Fernando Abrantes as a replacement for Bartos. Abrantes left the band shortly after though. In late 1991, long-time Kling Klang Studio sound engineer Henning Schmitz was brought in to finish the remainder of the tour and to complete a new version of the quartet that remained active until 2008.


title: Kraftwerk

text: In 1997 Kraftwerk made a famous appearance at the dance festival Tribal Gathering held in England. In 1998, the group toured the US and Japan for the first time since 1981, along with shows in Brazil and Argentina. Three new songs were performed during this period and a further two tested in soundchecks, which remain unreleased. Following this trek, the group decided to take another break.


title: Kraftwerk

text: In July 1999 the single "Tour de France" was reissued in Europe by EMI after it had been out of print for several years. It was released for the first time on CD in addition to a repressing of the 12-inch vinyl single. Both versions feature slightly altered artwork that removed the faces of Flür and Bartos from the four-man cycling paceline depicted on the original cover. In 1999 ex-member Flür published his autobiography in Germany, "Ich war ein Roboter". Later English-language editions of the book were titled "Kraftwerk: I Was a Robot".


title: Kraftwerk

text: In 1999, Kraftwerk were commissioned to create an a cappella jingle for the Hannover Expo 2000 world's fair in Germany. The jingle was subsequently developed into the single "Expo 2000", which was released in December 1999, and remixed and re-released as "Expo Remix" in November 2000.


title: Kraftwerk

text: In August 2003 the band released "Tour de France Soundtracks", its first album of new material since 1986's "Electric Café". In January and February 2003, before the release of the album, the band started the extensive "Minimum-Maximum" world tour, using four customised Sony VAIO laptop computers, effectively leaving the entire Kling Klang studio at home in Germany. The group also obtained a new set of transparent video panels to replace its four large projection screens. This greatly streamlined the running of all of the group's sequencing, sound-generating, and visual-display software. From this point, the band's equipment increasingly reduced manual playing, replacing it with interactive control of sequencing equipment. Hütter retained the most manual performance, still playing musical lines by hand on a controller keyboard and singing live vocals and having a repeating ostinato. Schneider's live vocoding had been replaced by software-controlled speech-synthesis techniques. In November, the group made a surprising appearance at the MTV European Music Awards in Edinburgh, Scotland, performing "Aerodynamik". The same year a promotional box set entitled "12345678" (subtitled "The Catalogue") was issued, with plans for a proper commercial release to follow. The box featured remastered editions of the group's eight core studio albums, from "Autobahn" to "Tour de France Soundtracks". This long-awaited box-set was eventually released in a different set of remasters in November 2009.


title: Kraftwerk

text: In June 2005 the band's first-ever official live album, "Minimum-Maximum", which was compiled from the shows during the band's tour of spring 2004, received extremely positive reviews. The album contained reworked tracks from existing studio albums. This included a track titled "Planet of Visions" that was a reworking of "Expo 2000". In support of this release, Kraftwerk made another quick sweep around the Balkans with dates in Serbia, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Turkey, and Greece. In December, the "Minimum-Maximum" DVD was released. During 2006, the band performed at festivals in Norway, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Spain, Belgium, and Germany.


title: Kraftwerk

text: In April 2008 the group played three shows in US cities Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Denver, and were a coheadliner at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. This was their second appearance at the festival since 2004. Further shows were performed in Ireland, Poland, Ukraine, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore later that year. The touring quartet consisted of Ralf Hütter, Henning Schmitz, Fritz Hilpert, and video technician Stefan Pfaffe, who became an official member in 2008. Original member Florian Schneider was absent from the lineup. Hütter stated that he was working on other projects. On 21 November, Kraftwerk officially confirmed Florian Schneider's departure from the band; "The Independent" commented: "There is something brilliantly Kraftwerkian about the news that Florian Schneider, a founder member of the German electronic pioneers, is leaving the band to pursue a solo career. Many successful bands break up after just a few years. It has apparently taken Schneider and his musical partner, Ralf Hütter, four decades to discover musical differences." Kraftwerk's headline set at Global Gathering in Melbourne, Australia, on 22 November was cancelled moments before it was scheduled to begin, due to a Fritz Hilpert heart problem.


title: Kraftwerk

text: In 2009, Kraftwerk performed concerts with special 3D background graphics in Wolfsburg, Germany; Manchester, UK; and Randers, Denmark. Members of the audience were able to watch this multimedia part of the show with 3D glasses, which were given out. During the Manchester concert (part of the 2009 Manchester International Festival) four members of the GB cycling squad (Jason Kenny, Ed Clancy, Jamie Staff and Geraint Thomas) rode around the Velodrome while the band performed "Tour de France". The group also played several festival dates, the last being at the Bestival 2009 in September, on the Isle of Wight. 2009 also saw the release of "The Catalogue" box set in November. It is a 12 inch album-sized box set containing all eight remastered CDs in cardboard slipcases, as well as LP-sized booklets of photographs and artwork for each individual album.


title: Kraftwerk

text: Although not officially confirmed, Ralf Hütter suggested that a second boxed set of their first three experimental albums—"Kraftwerk", "Kraftwerk 2" and "Ralf and Florian"—could be on its way, possibly seeing commercial release after their next studio album: "We've just never really taken a look at those albums. They've always been available, but as really bad bootlegs. Now we have more artwork. Emil has researched extra contemporary drawings, graphics, and photographs to go with each album, collections of paintings that we worked with, and drawings that Florian and I did. We took a lot of Polaroids in those days." Kraftwerk also released an iOS app called Kraftwerk Kling Klang Machine. The Lenbach House in Munich exhibited some Kraftwerk 3-D pieces in Autumn 2011. Kraftwerk performed three concerts to open the exhibit.


title: Kraftwerk

text: Kraftwerk played at Ultra Music Festival in Miami on 23 March 2012. Initiated by Klaus Biesenbach, the Museum of Modern Art of New York organized an exhibit titled "Kraftwerk – Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8" where the band performed their studio discography from "Autobahn" to "Tour de France" over the course of eight days to sell-out crowds. The exhibit later toured to the Tate Gallery as well as to K21 in Düsseldorf. Kraftwerk performed at the No Nukes 2012 Festival in Tokyo, Japan. Kraftwerk were also going to play at the Ultra Music Festival in Warsaw, but the event was cancelled; instead, Kraftwerk performed at Way Out West in Gothenburg. A limited edition version of the "Catalogue" box set was released during the retrospective, restricted to 2000 sets. Each box was individually numbered and inverted the colour scheme of the standard box. In December, Kraftwerk stated on their website that they would be playing their "Catalogue" in Düsseldorf and at London's Tate Modern. Kraftwerk tickets were priced at £60 in London, but fans compared that to the $20 ticket price for tickets at New York's MoMA in 2012, which caused consternation. Even so, the demand for the tickets at The Tate was so high that it shut down the website.


title: Kraftwerk

text: In March 2013, the band was not allowed to perform at a music festival in China due to unspecified "political reasons". In an interview in June after performing the eight albums of "The Catalogue" in Sydney, Ralf Hütter stated: "Now we have finished one to eight, now we can concentrate on number nine." In July, they performed at the 47th Montreux Jazz Festival. The band also played a 3-D concert on 12 July at Scotland's biggest festival – T in the Park – in Balado, Kinross, as well as 20 July at Latitude Festival in Suffolk, and 21 July at the Longitude Festival in Dublin.


title: Kraftwerk

text: In October 2013 the band played four concerts, over two nights, in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The venue, Evoluon (the former technology museum of Philips Electronics, now a conference center) was handpicked by Ralf Hütter, for its retro-futuristic UFO-like architecture. Bespoke visuals of the building, with the saucer section descending from space, were displayed during the rendition of "Spacelab."


title: Kraftwerk

text: In 2014, Kraftwerk brought their four-night, 3D "Catalogue" tour to the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and at NYC's United Palace Theatre. They also played at the Cirkus in Stockholm, Sweden and at the music festival Summer Sonic in Tokyo, Japan. In November 2014 the 3D "Catalogue" live set was played in Paris, France, at the brand new Fondation Louis-Vuitton from 6 to 14 November. and then in the iconic Paradiso concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where they played before in 1976. In 2015, Ralf Hütter, being told that the Tour de France would be starting that year in the nearby Dutch city of Utrecht, decided that Kraftwerk would perform during the "Grand Depart". Eventually the band played three concerts 3 and 4 July in TivoliVredenburg performing "Tour de France Soundtracks" and visited the start of the Tour in-between.


title: Kraftwerk

text: In April 2017, Kraftwerk announced "3-D The Catalogue", a live album and video documenting performances of all eight albums in "The Catalogue" that was released 26 May 2017. It is available in multiple formats, the most extensive of which being a 4-disc Blu-ray set with a 236-page hardback book. The album was nominated for the Grammy Awards for Best Dance/Electronic Album and Best Surround Sound Album at the ceremony that took place on 28 January 2018, winning the former, which became the band's first Grammy win.


title: Kraftwerk

text: On 20 July 2018, at a concert in Stuttgart, German astronaut Alexander Gerst performed "Spacelab" with the band while aboard the International Space Station, joining via a live video link. Gerst played melodies using a tablet as his instrument alongside Hütter as a duet, and delivered a short message to the audience.


title: Kraftwerk

text: On 20 July 2019, Kraftwerk headlined the Saturday night lineup on the Lovell Stage at Bluedot Festival, a music and science festival held annually at Jodrell Bank Observatory, Cheshire, UK. The 2019 festival celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.


title: Kraftwerk

text: On 21 April 2020, Florian Schneider died at age 73 after a brief battle with cancer. On 3 July 2020, the German-language versions of "Trans Europe Express", "The Man Machine", "Computer World", "Techno Pop" and "The Mix", alongside "3-D The Catalogue", were released worldwide on streaming services for the first time.


title: Kraftwerk

text: On 21 December 2020, Parlophone/WEA released "Remixes", a digital compilation album. It includes remixed tracks taken from singles released 1991, 1999, 2000, 2004 and 2007, plus the previously unreleased "Non Stop", a version of "Musique Non-Stop" used as a jingle by MTV Europe beginning in 1993. The cover re-uses the cover from "Expo Remix". The compilation was released on CD and vinyl in 2022.


title: Kraftwerk

text: On 30 October 2021, Kraftwerk were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In November 2021, the band announced plans for a 2022 North American tour. With the members' live performances celebrating Kraftwerk's fiftieth anniversary, the "Remixes" compilation album came out on compact disc and vinyl for the first time in addition.


title: Kraftwerk

text: Kraftwerk have been recognized as pioneers of electronic music as well as subgenres such as electropop, art pop, house music, synth-pop and electronic rock. In its early incarnation, the band pursued an avant-garde, experimental rock style inspired by the compositions of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Hütter has also listed the Beach Boys as a major influence. The group was also inspired by the funk music of James Brown and, later, punk rock. They were initially connected to the German krautrock scene. In the mid-1970s, they transitioned to an electronic sound which they described as "robot pop". Kraftwerk's lyrics dealt with post-war European urban life and technology—traveling by car on the Autobahn, traveling by train, using home computers, and the like. They were influenced by the modernist Bauhaus aesthetic, seeing art as inseparable from everyday function. Usually, the lyrics are very minimal but reveal both an innocent celebration of, and a knowing caution about, the modern world, as well as playing an integral role in the rhythmic structure of the songs. Many of Kraftwerk's songs express the paradoxical nature of modern urban life: a strong sense of alienation existing side by side with a celebration of the joys of modern technology.


title: Kraftwerk

text: Starting with the release of "Autobahn", Kraftwerk began to release a series of concept albums ("Radio-Activity", "Trans-Europe Express", "The Man-Machine", "Computer World", "Tour de France Soundtracks"). All of Kraftwerk's albums from "Trans Europe Express" onwards, except "Tour de France Soundtracks", have been released in separate versions: one with German vocals for sale in Germany, Switzerland and Austria and one with English vocals for the rest of the world, with occasional variations in other languages when conceptually appropriate. Live performance has always played an important part in Kraftwerk's activities. Also, despite its live shows generally being based around formal songs and compositions, live improvisation often plays a noticeable role in its performances. This trait can be traced back to the group's roots in the first experimental Krautrock scene of the late 1960s, but, significantly, it has continued to be a part of its playing even as it makes ever greater use of digital and computer-controlled sequencing in its performances. Some of the band's familiar compositions have been observed to have developed from live improvisations at its concerts or sound-checks.


title: Kraftwerk

text: Throughout their career, Kraftwerk have pushed the limits of music technology with some notable innovations, such as home-made instruments and custom-built devices. The group has always perceived their Kling Klang Studio as a complex music instrument, as well as a sound laboratory; Florian Schneider in particular developed a fascination with music technology, with the result that the technical aspects of sound generation and recording gradually became his main fields of activity within the band. Alexei Monroe called Kraftwerk the "first successful artists to incorporate representations of industrial sounds into non-academic electronic music".


title: Kraftwerk

text: Kraftwerk used a custom-built vocoder on their albums "Ralf und Florian" and "Autobahn"; the device was constructed by engineers P. Leunig and K. Obermayer of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt Braunschweig. Hütter and Schneider hold a patent for an electronic drum kit with sensor pads, filed in July 1975 and issued in June 1977. It must be hit with metal sticks, which are connected to the device to complete a circuit that triggers analog synthetic percussion sounds. The band first performed in public with this device in 1973, on the television program "Aspekte" (on the all-German channel Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen), where it was played by Wolfgang Flür. They created drum machines for "Autobahn" and "Trans-Europe Express"


title: Kraftwerk

text: On the "Radio-Activity" tour in 1976 Kraftwerk tested out an experimental light-beam-activated drum cage allowing Flür to trigger electronic percussion through arm and hand movements. Unfortunately, the device did not work as planned, and it was quickly abandoned. The same year Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider commissioned Bonn-based "Synthesizerstudio Bonn, Matten & Wiechers" to design and build the Synthanorma Sequenzer with Intervallomat, a 4×8 / 2×16 / 1×32 step-sequencer system with some features that commercial products couldn't provide at that time. The music sequencer was used by the band for the first time to control the electronic sources creating the rhythmic sound of the album "Trans-Europe Express".


title: Kraftwerk

text: Since 2002, Kraftwerk's live performances have been conducted with the use of virtual technology (i.e. software replicating and replacing original analogue or digital equipment). According to Fritz Hilpert, "the mobility of music technology and the reliability of the notebooks and software have greatly simplified the realization of complex touring setups: we generate all sounds on the laptops in real time and manipulate them with controller maps. It takes almost no time to get our compact stage system set up for performance. [...] This way, we can bring our Kling-Klang Studio with us on stage. The physical light weight of our equipment also translates into an enormous ease of use when working with software synthesizers and sound processors. Every tool imaginable is within immediate reach or just a few mouse clicks away on the Internet."


title: Kraftwerk

text: The band is notoriously reclusive, providing rare and enigmatic interviews, using life-size mannequins and robots to conduct official photo shoots, refusing to accept mail and not allowing visitors at the Kling Klang Studio, the precise location of which they used to keep secret.


title: Kraftwerk

text: Another notable example of this eccentric behavior was reported to Johnny Marr of the Smiths by Karl Bartos, who explained that anyone trying to contact the band for collaboration would be told the studio telephone did not have a ringer since, while recording, the band did not like to hear any kind of noise pollution. Instead, callers were instructed to phone the studio precisely at a certain time, whereupon the phone would be answered by Ralf Hütter, despite never hearing the phone ring.


title: Kraftwerk

text: Chris Martin of Coldplay recalled in a 2007 article in "Q" magazine the process of requesting permission to use the melody from the track "Computer Love" on "Talk" from the album "X&Y". He sent a letter through the lawyers of the respective parties and several weeks later received an envelope containing a handwritten reply that simply said "yes".


title: Kraftwerk

text: According to music journalist Neil McCormick, Kraftwerk might be "the most influential group in pop history". "NME" wrote: The Beatles and Kraftwerk' may not have the ring of 'the Beatles and the Stones', but nonetheless, these are the two most important bands in music history". AllMusic wrote that their music "resonates in virtually every new development to impact the contemporary pop scene of the late 20th century".


title: Kraftwerk

text: Kraftwerk's musical style and image can be heard and seen in 1980s synth-pop groups such as Gary Numan, Ultravox, John Foxx, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, The Human League, Depeche Mode, Visage, Soft Cell, Yellow magic orchestra. Kraftwerk influenced other forms of music such as hip hop, house, and drum and bass, and they are also regarded as pioneers of the electro genre. Karl Hyde of Underworld has referenced Kraftwerk as a prominent influence. Most notably, "Trans Europe Express" and "Numbers" were interpolated into "Planet Rock" by Afrika Bambaataa & the Soul Sonic Force, one of the earliest hip-hop/electro hits. Kraftwerk helped ignite the New York electro-movement. Techno was created by three musicians from Detroit, often referred to as the 'Belleville three' (Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson & Derrick May), who fused the repetitive melodies of Kraftwerk with funk rhythms. The Belleville three were heavily influenced by Kraftwerk and their sounds because Kraftwerk's sounds appealed to the middle-class black people residing in Detroit at this time.


title: Kraftwerk

text: Depeche Mode's composer Martin Gore said: "For anyone of our generation involved in electronic music, Kraftwerk were the godfathers". Daniel Miller, founder of Mute Records, purchased the vocoder used by Kraftwerk in their early albums, comparing it to owning "the guitar Jimi Hendrix used on 'Purple Haze. Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys, founding members of OMD, have stated that Kraftwerk was a major reference on their early work, and covered "Neon Lights" on the 1991 album, "Sugar Tax". The electronic band Ladytron were inspired by Kraftwerk's song "The Model" when they composed their debut single "He Took Her to a Movie". Aphex Twin noted Kraftwerk as one of his biggest influences and called "Computer World" as a very influential album towards his music and sound. Björk has cited the band as one of her main musical influences. Electronic musician Kompressor has cited Kraftwerk as an influence. The band was also mentioned in the song "Rappers We Crush" by Kompressor and MC Frontalot ("I hurry away, get in my Chrysler. Oh, the dismay!/Someone's replaced all of my Backstreet Boys with Kraftwerk tapes!"). Dr. Alex Paterson of the Orb listed "The Man-Machine" as one of his 13 most favourite albums of all time. According to "NME", Kraftwerk's pioneering "robot pop" also spawned groups like The Prodigy and Daft Punk.


title: Kraftwerk

text: Kraftwerk inspired many acts from other styles and genres. David Bowie's "V-2 Schneider", from the 1977's "Heroes" album, was a tribute to Florian Schneider. Post-punk bands Joy Division and New Order were heavily influenced by the band. Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis was a fan, and showed his colleagues records that would influence their music. New Order also sampled "Uranium" in its biggest hit "Blue Monday". Siouxsie and the Banshees recorded a cover of "Hall of Mirrors" on their 1987 album "Through the Looking Glass", which was lauded by Ralf Hütter: "In general, we consider cover versions as an appreciation of our work. The version of 'Hall of Mirrors' by Siouxsie and the Banshees is extraordinary, just like the arrangements of Alexander Bălănescu for his Balanescu Quartet release [of "Possessed", 1992]. We also like the album "El Baile Alemán" of Señor Coconut a lot." Members of Blondie have admitted on several occasions that Kraftwerk were an important reference for their sound by the time they were working on their third album "Parallel Lines". The worldwide hit "Heart of Glass" turned radically from an initial reggae-flavoured style to its distinctive electronic sound in order to imitate the technological approach of Kraftwerk's albums and adapt it to a disco concept. Simple Minds and U2 each recorded cover versions of "Neon Lights"; Simple Minds' version was included on their 2001 all-covers album Neon Lights and U2 included "Neon Lights" as the B-side of their 2004 single "Vertigo". LCD Soundsystem song called "Get Innocuous!" is built on a sample of "The Robots". Rammstein also covered their song "Das Modell", releasing it as a non-album single in 1997. John Frusciante cited the ability to experiment of the group as an inspiration when working in a recording studio.


title: Kraftwerk

text: In 1989, a speeded up version of Kraftwerk's song "Electric Café" began appearing as the theme song for a series of sketches on "Saturday Night Live" called "Sprockets", a German television spoof by Mike Myers. The 1998 comedy "The Big Lebowski" features a fictional band called Autobahn, a parody of Kraftwerk and their 1974 record "Autobahn".


title: Kraftwerk

text: In January 2018, BBC Radio 4 broadcast the 30-minute documentary "Kraftwerk: Computer Love", which examined "how Kraftwerk's classic album "Computer World" has changed people's lives."


title: Kraftwerk

text: In October 2019, Kraftwerk were nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for 2020. On 12 May 2021, Kraftwerk were announced as an official inductee into the Hall, for the class of 2021.


title: Toyota Land Cruiser Prado

text: The is a full-size four-wheel drive vehicle in the Land Cruiser range produced by the Japanese automaker Toyota. The Prado is one of the smaller vehicles in the Land Cruiser range. From 2009, the Prado is based on Toyota's J150 platform. In some countries it is available as the equivalent Lexus GX.


title: Toyota Land Cruiser Prado

text: The Prado may also be referred to as Land Cruiser LC70, LC90, LC120 and LC150 depending on the platform. In some markets, it is known simply as the Toyota Prado or Toyota Land Cruiser.


title: Toyota Land Cruiser Prado

text: In North America, the Prado is not part of the Land Cruiser range; the rebadged Lexus GX occupies the Prado's position in luxury trim. The GX uses practically identical body panels and V8 engine.