Kraftwerk (power station) is a group formed in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany during 1970, by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely regarded as innovators and pioneers of electronic music, they were among the first successful artists to popularize the genre. The band began as part of the German experimental krautrock scene of the early '70s, before fully embracing electronic instrumentation, including synthesizers, drum machines, and vocoders.