_

Login or Register

explore by.../genre/

Essay
Genre

Industrial Rock

Kieran McCarthy

So named for its resemblance to the eerie, dreary, repetitious and cacophonous sounds of factory life, industrial music isn't pretty, and it isn't for the feint of heart. Its main advocates have championed a nihilistic, abrasive world-view, as hopeless and rabid as any. Plus, in the hand of connoisseurs, it has earned a reputation as some of the loudest music on the planet. It is a genre that is hard to define, falling somewhere in between house, dance, synth-pop, and heavy metal. Rarely mainstream and often performed by artists with no aspirations for success, industrial relies as much on sampling and tape manipulation as guitars and vocals. Into the early '80s, it followed a progression similar to synth-pop and house, only deviating in the late '80s when Chicago's Wax Trax! label practically monopolized the heavier, guitar-leaning version of that sound. In the early '90s, two industrial acts, Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, went platinum. A good economy and the proliferation of bubblegum have impeded industrial's development in the late '90s, but many of the juggernauts are still around. Whether they can make a return to prominence is another question entirely. Many credit the New York-based band Suicide for the ambient darkness of the industrial sound. A duo with little commercial success, Martin Rev's minimalist keyboard's opened eyes to the potential of synthetic textures. His partner, Alan Vega, a provocateur of the first degree, also proved to be a harbinger of what would industrial would later become. London's Throbbing Gristle was the first to coin the term 'industrial.' They wallowed in the ugly, the obscene, the obnoxious, and the ridiculous. Their late '70s live shows, which they would begin and end by punching a time clock, were complete with feces, menstruation, and rants about fascism anything to pull their listeners' strings. Aggressive, antagonistic, and offensive, they were everything industrial would later become. But they were rarely melodic, especially in the early days. Like most industrial pioneers, they were performance artists first and musicians second. Over time, their influence, and the influence of Genesis POrridge's spin-off Psychic TV, expanded, and the demand for the earlier work ballooned. At the time, though, few thought that their garish behavior would influence anything. More musically proficient than Throbbing Gristle and Suicide, Cabaret Voltaire married industrial's musical nihilism with its synthetic, danceable beat. Formed in 1974 in Sheffield, England, CV took a while to hone their sound into professional quality. By the late '70s and early '80s, they had peppered the London underground with a funky new brand of industrial. About the same time, a couple of bands with moderate industrial leanings ( Soft Cell Dead or Alive) scored heavy radio play in England and America. In 1983, CV acquired Soft Cell keyboardist Dave Ball, crystallizing a change toward more danceable, listener friendly pop. They continued along this path until the mid-80s, when a new version of Chicago house music bombarded the London music scene. Jim Nash and Dannie Flesher, the charismatic co-founders of Wax Trax! records, moved their store from Denver to Chicago in 1975, where they would soon discover a booming underground dance scene. In 1979, they launched their new label by signing a 300-pound transvestite named Divine. A few years later, they met up with a more serious student of music, a talented young Cuban immigrant named Alain Jourgensen, who had been recording synth-based dance songs under the sobriquet Ministry. His first single for Wax Trax!, "Cold Life," exploded as a dance hit in Europe and the United States, providing the label the international exposure that Nash and Flesher had craved. Ministry soon left to join Arista Records, but Jourgensen kept close ties to his former bosses, returning to record multiple side projects that would bolster Wax Trax!'s reputation and sales. Over the course of the next five years, Jourgensen would meet up with the biggest names in the incipient industrial genre (and many others), including fellow magnate Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and ex-Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra, in 1000 Homo DJ's; Steven Mallinder and Richard Kirk of Cabaret Voltaire, in Acid Horse; and Ian MacKaye of Fugazi, in Pailhead. Jourgensen also recorded one ongoing side project, the Revolting Cocks, an ensemble which struck up enough notoriety and controversy in England to get banned by the British Parliament. Jourgensen's reputation served as an excellent starting point for Wax Trax!, but they weren't content to rest on their laurels. Using his name as bargaining power, Nash and Flesher visited Europe on scouting trips, where a strong industrial contingent had been growing on the continent. Although they couldn't sign the biggest name at the time, Einsturzende Neubauten, they recruited soon-to-be-powerhouses Front 242, KMFDM, and Young Gods. Front 242's anti-rock, devoid of lyrics, death-disco sound scared major labels, but suited Wax Trax! just fine. Their 1988 release, Front by Front became the label's biggest selling album, a mark that stands to this day. ( Front 242 later gained notoriety for being the biggest act to resist industrial's transformation toward metal).

KMFDM proved another tremendous boon to Wax Trax!. The German dance-synth-metal set produced over forty titles for between 1988 and 1999, the label's most prolific act. But they weren't alone. In the '80s, nearly everyone who was labeled or had been labeled industrial had recorded for Wax Trax!. The label's discography reads as a who's who of industrial: Ministry, Front 242, The Revolting Cocks, Young Gods, KMFDM, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Meat Beat Manifesto, and Foetus. Even the movement's forefathers, Suicide, Psychic TV, and Chris and Cosey re-released titles beneath the umbrage of Nash and Flesher. In the meantime, Ministry was moving toward less danceable, heavier, and louder arrangements. With the permanent addition of bassist Paul Barker in 1987, the tone of the group shifted away from the dance floor for good. This new direction was solidified with 1988's The Land of Rape and Honey, a critically lauded collection of focused three to six minute tracks. A variety of sampling gimmicks, catchy riffs, and hard-edged, distorted vocals preserved the freshness of each song while repetitious backbeats provided stability. It instigated a genre-wide shift toward industrial metal. Just a year later, he released a similarly powerful follow-up, A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste proving his earlier efforts were no fluke. Arista's success with Ministry gave major labels confidence that industrial could sell. In the next few years, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Skinny Puppy, Front 242, and Stabbing Westward (another Chicago band) signed with major labels, as did the group that would eventually cross industrial into the pop mainstream: Nine Inch Nails. Skinny Puppy and NIN were the two largest North American industrial acts not to come out of Chicago. A band that gained grassroots notoriety in the '80s, success arrived too late for Skinny Puppy. Although a powerful and cloying synth-based group, they were riddled by internal conflict, and were unable to reap the benefits of the boom. Nine Inch Nails had no such problems with internal conflict. The revolving door entourage of Trent Reznor, NIN has gone through more incarnations than Shirley MaClaine. But the lack of stability hasn't affected them, because Trent Reznor is the sole creative force in the group (if you want to call it that). Although 1989's NIN's debut Pretty Hate Machine would eventually snowball in popularity, it would take time for the ball to get rolling. Although he hadn't released anything in a while, Reznor was asked to piece together a touring lineup for the original Lollapalooza tour in 1991. When fans saw his relentless live shows, the buzz surrounding his work amplified. Soon, MTV was playing their video "Head Like a Hole", a full three years after it had been released. Meanwhile, industrial's other charismatic frontman, Alain Jourgensen, kept pushing the envelope into deeper, darker, and heavier territorty. On 1992's, Psalm 69, Ministry blasted out a couple of thunderous epic industrial-metal anthems, New World Order and Just One Fix, two of the loudest, most earth-shaking incantations of any genre. Although Psalm 69 was their bestselling album, the length of the disc couldn't claim the consistency or clarity of his earlier efforts, a hint of what was to come. By the time The Downward Spiral arrived in stores in 1994, Reznor's celebrity was pervasive. After "Closer" made it into regular rotation on MTV, Reznor could hobnob with rock royalty. In 1995, NIN co-headlined a tour with David Bowie. Although the tour itself could only be described as a moderate success, it had positive effect on both of their careers, by reconnecting Bowie to a younger audience, and, in turn, validating Reznor's work. About the same time, younger acts crossed industrial with the idioms of a more recent version of hard rock: grunge. Included in this number are Filter, Stabbing Westward, and God Lives Underwater. Filter, from Reznor's hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, boasted one of the original members of NIN, Richard Patrick. Their 1995 debut Short Bus featured a surprise hit "Hey Man, Nice Shot". Stabbing Westward tempered their industrial roots and adopted the look and feel of a rock band. They were rewarded with considerable radio and MTV airtime. God Lives Underwater were discovered and signed to producer Rick Rubin's American Records( Beastie Boys, Run DMC, and Slayer). By far the most danceable of the bunch, their first album Empty earned them a solid underground following, which has kept them going long after their counterparts have fallen by the wayside. By this time, industrial's founders were struggling to find their niche. In 1992, Wax Trax! filed for bankruptcy. Ironically enough, the success that they helped create led to their demise, as most of their biggest names left for the major labels. They were eventually saved when TVT, NIN's label, bought them out. But by then, the only band they had signed that was still profitable was KMFDM. Things looked bleak for industrial. Skinny Puppy disbanded in 1993. Young Gods, Foetus, and Front 242 were long past their creative zenith. Ministry, hamstrung by drug addiction and critical inertia, were flailing. Despite a gorgeous cover of Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay", critics and fans alike scorned their 1995 album, Filth Pig. A budding shock-jockey named Marilyn Manson, a Trent Reznor protigi, was ready to take their place. In 1995, he introduced himself to the world with a cover of the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of These). A throwback to the originators of industrial, he was as much a shock-hungry performance artist as a musician. Although 1996's Anti-Christ Superstar featured a couple of solid industrial-metal hits, it became apparent from the get-go that his appeal had far less to do with his music than with his image. His persona clashed with right-wing organizations across the country, from the Mormons to Southern Baptists, whom he fed off to get the attention he craved so dearly. After the success of Anti-Christ Superstar, Manson seemed more concerned with promoting his celebrity than with his music, even publishing a best-selling autobiography The Long Hard Road Out of Hell. But when news came forward that the perpetrators of the Columbine Massacre of 1999 had been fans of his music, a dark shroud hung over his once innocent-minded antics. For a time, people were afraid to shower him with publicity. When he returned with

Holy Wood (In the Valley of the Shadow of Death) in 2000, most of the commotion surrounding his music, both positive and negative, had simply faded out. And so the future remains uncertain for industrial music. Marilyn Manson, NIN, and Ministry all unveiled new albums in 2000, but little fanfare accompanied their releases. Whether upstart bands such as Orgy will be able to fill their shoes is anyone's guess. But as long as musicians combine the pulsating rhythms of dance with the power and energy of rock, industrial will never disappear. Kieran McCarthy