For an act so strongly associated with sleek surfaces stretching on into the horizon, it’s fitting that Kraftwerk’s first international hit was 1975’s “Autobahn,” a playful ode to Germany’s speed-stoking highway system. Pared back from the 22-minute original, the single version introduced the Düsseldorf quartet’s talent for coaxing sleek, hypnotic grooves out of newfangled synths and drum machines. Another distinctly modern form of transport—Europe’s international railway system—inspired 1977’s “Trans-Europe Express,” a plinking earworm that infiltrated both the New York club scene and later the nascent hip-hop community via Afrika Bambaataa’s 1982 interpolation “Planet Rock.” The 1977 album of the same name appears on Apple Music’s 100 Best Albums list, a testament to Kraftwerk’s long-lasting impact on techno and its myriad subgenres. Meanwhile, 1978’s “The Robots” and 1981’s “Computer Love” drew the robotic blueprint for the thrumming decade of synth-pop and New Wave to come, with the latter topping the UK chart and finding unexpected warmth in its array of controlled, synthetic textures. By the dawn of the 1990s, Kraftwerk became content to update or re-release previous work and devote themselves to extensive tours featuring new audiovisual techniques. And by then, acts like Daft Punk, Aphex Twin, and Underworld were already taking their ideas to thrilling new places, while the reverent sampling continued via heady hip-hop artists like Mos Def, DJ Shadow, Jurassic 5, and Dr. Octagon.