This is like No Doubt versus Thr Specials. Yeah, one had more hits but the original basically CREATED the genre (not to mention, stated relevant in it).
Kraftwerk by a country mile. The fact that they are in the RRHOF is basically disgraceful.
Without these cats, you have:
-No techno
-Virtually no house music or any of its sub-genres.
-No freestyle (Cause every single song from that genre is basically the "Planet Rock" sample. Every.Single.Song.)
-Rap would be fundamentally different. No "Planet Rock", no "Rockit", no booty bass, so quite possibly no Southern hip hop (maybe New Orleans survives...they rode that Triggerman beat to riches)
-And so would R&B, because after disco, boogie bridged the gap between R &B/soul & new jack swing/hip-hop soul. And without Kraftwerk, no boogie to replace disco's dominance (So no Michael Jackson, no "I Feel For You", no "You're The One For Me"...etc.)
-No europop. I know that most of y'all could care less but about 80% of pop music from the 80s till now is basically modified europop. Why you think all these Swedish producers got credits all over the place (so everything from A Flock Of Seagulls to Duran Duran to Depeche Mode to Erasure to Britney Spears to the boy band renaissance to Rihanna...gone).
That's the influence of Kraftwerk. Art Of Noise is bad but so was Tom Tom Club. Give Kraftwerk the respect they deserve.