If you like Kraftwerk and you're not aware of this book, I recommend it:
"Kraftwerk: Future Music from Germany", by Uwe Schütte. It's packed with details of albums, songs, tours, equipment, and people.
The anti-nuclear message in "Radio-Activity" certainly came later and was repeatedly updated, right into the Fukushima era [2011], but this was not the original sentiment [1976]. From the book:
"At the time, Billboard magazine featured the most-played singles by the large network of radio stations under the heading 'Radio Action'. The band seemed to have misread or misremembered this as 'Radio-Activity'. 'Suddenly,' remembers Wolfgang Flür, 'there was a theme in the air, the activity of radio stations, and the title of 'Radioactivity is in the Air for You and Me' was born. All we needed was the music to go with it. ... The ambiguity of the theme didn't come until later.' Radio-Activity was intended to celebrate radio broadcasting as a convenient, easy and democratic means to listen to music and news."
Great story. Had no idea. Still love the name Uwe. One of those German names that doesn’t have an English equivalent unlike, say, Pieter.
Pieter is Dutch. German version of it is Peter.
I was told once Hugh is the nearest equivalent to Uwe, but i can't tell if thats correct.
Owen seems pretty close, especially considering the Nordic variant Ove.
I think that similarity is accidental though. Owen is a Welsh given name. Ove/Uwe is Germanic.
According to https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uwe, the only certainly known "relative" of Uwe is Ove, which is used in Scandinavian countries. Other than that, the origin of the name is unclear, and there is a theory it might be related to Oswald.
Doesn’t appear to be correct, assuming the information here is correct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh
“Hugo” would appear to be the German equivalent.
Currently reading it and I’d agree!
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