well now, here is the thing i promised, a small post about industrial, ind. subgenres and some good bands
First of all, the term "industrial" started aparently from the phrase "industrial music for industrial people" used by Monte Cazazza to describe Throbbing Gristle. Then, in 1976, T.G. founded Industrial Records, that remained active until the mid 80's, and when the band disbanded, died also. This record label influenced a whole musical revolution, being directly involved in the massive development of the experimental electronic music. Along with Throbbing Gristle were SPK (who later changed their style)
The first wave of industrial music was closer to what would become noise, to be more concrete, that would be the art of abstract and noise (as the name very well suggests us). DO NOT CONFUSE noise and noisecore (which is a more chaotic grindcore -> A.C., Reincarnation) Industrial, by nature is not cult, or academic music, and does not imply great virtuosity or amazing musical knowledge. However, it is based on technique, and on a good understanding of the devices (whichever those may be). Industrial is of urban nature, decading, and initially produced in DIY spirit, unlike the experimental music that was then (which was too sophisticated and pretentious)
Anyhow, around 1980 appeared the record label Come Organisation, and throught it, bands like Whitehouse or Sutcliffe Jugend stopped being called industrial (later they became catalogued PE -> Power Electronics). In Japan, the first noise record label was founded by non other then Masami Akita (Merzbow) around 1982, even thouch then, noise didnt really exist as an independent musical style). The popularity Industrial got in Europe and USA is due to Relapse Records, who helped with a lot of good records. Today industrial is generally very rhythmic (MZ 412, Mental Destruction, Silk Saw). The electro-industrial side, more close to EBM is represented by bands similar to Frontilne Assembly.
It is very hard to do an exact clasiffication, due to the diverse colaborations between different bands, and to the huge discographies of some artists (Merzbow for instance played with Psychic TV, Autechre, Consumer Electronics, Jazzkammer, Gore Beyond Necropsy, Mike Patton, etc)
Anyhow, i think that this would be enough as an intro. As for the musical terminology and clasification, we would have
Noise (i`ve done that in my reviews, i`m too lazy to type that again, check them out ) Artists : Merzbow, Masonna,
Power Electronics (PE) - can be replaced with the term Death-Industrial. Whitehouse started this genre, and they appeared around 1980. PE is industrial music, with a very linear structure, very little variations, it uses a lot of high pitched sounds, and distorted vocals. Its main characteristic would be its sadist and violent themes, along with a morbid imagination. If you wanna check out PE bands, you could try : Sutcliffe Jugend, Con-Dom, Atrax Morgue, Murder Corporation, Brighter Death Now, Navicon Torture Technologies, etc. Modern PE can be rythmic, but WITHOUT beats.
Power Noise - it is not a form of noise (i have no idea, why it is called that way) but more like a harsh form of EBM. It is something like hard techno, EBM industrial elements and a lot of distors. Ex : Noisex
EBM - stands short for Electronic Body Music. It is an industrial derivated musical style, which you can dance to. Front 242 are the band that spawned EBM. EBM is today the same thing with Cybergoth and some other artists would be Blutengel, L'ame Immortelle, etc.
Electro-industrial - similar to EBM, but with a more complex structure. Usually you cannot dance on it. Must have a rhythm, although there are no tempo restrictions. Very rare, it is experimental, and then it is called simply electro.
Musique Concrete - compared to dadaist art, it is a style based on musical experiments. Sound collages, non musical recordings, stuff like that. The most important realisation of Musique Concrete would have to be throwing of a piano over a cliff, and the recording of the produced sound. Ex : Pierre Schaeffer
Darkwave - i covered that before
Ethereal - same
Ambient - same
Well now, it may not be perfect, but it's all i can think about right now ... i know it covers just a tiny bit of the industrial history...also it may be short, but i`m pretty sure it's corect, and after all, that's what matters. I'm too lazy to write more, and even too lazy to think about something else to write here, so this is it.
Hope it will help you guys, if you wanna know anything else about industrial and i can help, i`ll gladly do it.
cheers
ps - i like Suicide Commando, very good dark electro there
