Page "Krautrock" Paragraph 14

By the early 1970s experimental West German rock styles had crossed the border into East Germany, and influenced the creation of an East German rock movement referred to as Ostrock.

On the other side of the Wall, these bands tended to be stylistically more conservative than in the West, to have more reserved engineering, and often to include more classical and traditional structures ( such as those developed by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht in their 1920s Berlin theatre songs ).

These groups sang in German, often featuring poetic lyrics loaded with indirect double-meanings and deeply philosophical challenges to the status quo.

The best-known bands representing these styles in the GDR were The Puhdys and Karat.

Krautrock must generally be regarded, however, as a primarily West German phenomenon ; the East German musical avant-garde may be argued to have been more genuinely represented by, for example, political singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann, whose work more aptly bears comparison to Woody Guthrie or early Bob Dylan than to any progressive rock artists.