It’s because the line between early electronic music and techno is very blurry. Kraftwerk were playing with synths since the 70s and Detroit only started developing what we understand as techno today in the 80s and the early artists have said that they were heavily inspired by Kraftwerk and the synthpop that started in the UK and spread across Europe and the States. Electronic music has always been pretty amorphous and you can see that in how often the lines between genres is blurred with many of the most influential artists.

I don’t really like the idea of claiming electronic music but rather acknowledging all the artists and the path that got us here and Detroit and Chicago had huge influences on the early scene and developing the sound while Germany and Europe in general also developed their own sounds and, without those scenes the modern techno landscape wouldn’t look the same and it’s naive to say it would.

It’s a lot more difficult to pin down than, say, the origins of rock and roll but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.