cybersleaze and industrial (+ebm) as a vis-music genre
bring back rivethead culture holy shit! if there was any time for a rivethead revival it would be now holy shit! i missed out - im 22 and goddamnit i want to club with young ppl who actually have sensibilities like this. where the fuck did they all go did they all get old or something - the dystopia is STILL HERE guys and it is literally worse than ever. i know it looks way more boring than you expected it to but that's all the more reason to go MORE ABSTRACT and HARDER
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but yea! let me talk about industrial. someone asked me earlier why i didn't put cabaret voltaire in my experimental electronic postpunk list (lol) and thats because they really do ride the line between being industrial shlock and abstract avant-garde music. but hey ill get em down here and I want to rant about other industrial cybershlock music also! |
| 1 |  | PIG
Praise The Lard
I am utterly devoted and obsessed with this album - it is my religion as well as the sound of my soul. Anyone who fashions themselves a fan of challenging/art music owes it to themselves to give this a hearty shot - it is a post-industrial shlock concept album and a masterpiece in every sense of the word. The hard, pulsating electronic soundscapes it presents are equally accessible as they are thoroughly challenging and engrossing - I can promise you've never heard sounds like these before let alone used in such a powerfully STRONG and assertive way. It's as often tongue-in-cheek as it is indulging in its own trash - it is a thorough deconstruction as well as exploration of beauty in seedy, sleazy urban decay.
The album cover is such a fascinating contrast to the pandora's box of sound found within - Raymond Watts is a bonafide genius and a queer icon for the new age. I think we as a reality need to pick up from where this album left off.
my very favorite, u must listen to all 50 min. |
| 2 |  | Ministry
The Land of Rape and Honey
It's a classic and industrial metal staple - Al Jourgensen's earlier avant-garde work before With Sympathy is equally as important to me and worth checking out but overall this album is when he really brings his A game and perfects his trademark aggression and power.
Some of the hardest songs I've ever heard are off here. may come back to write more abt this |
| 3 |  | Front Line Assembly
Implode
I didn't even realize how formative and cool this was until years later when I still remember little bits and pieces of it re-emerging in weird fucking places. it can be a little uneven and meander-y but it's their most powerful work I think - if you want a more consistently good record do "tactical neural implant", and if you want their most experimental and ambitious voyage do "state of mind".
FLA is just a great ass band and make some truly amazing sonically innovative music. industrial shlock pioneers - i love them. this record is more electro/house than their other releases. |
| 4 |  | Chemlab
Burnout at the Hydrogen Bar
this is one band that I think most perfectly captured the unique and very distinctive vibe of early 90s cyberpunk, maybe at the expense of sounding a bit better than they otherwise could have. not "Art" with a capital "A" but still incredibly good cheesy industrial music. this one makes me think johnny mnemonic and shadowrun on snes |
| 5 |  | Skinny Puppy
Bites
torn between this one and "remission", though Bites is a more polished package and contains "Assimilate" which is an absolutely iconic track and defines everything I love about the strange otherworldly aesthetics that was late-80s rivethead/ebm culture.
IMO skinny puppy grew gradually less focused over time and "Too Dark Park" is insanely overhyped. the band would become less about otherworldly cyberhedonism and more gothic dark human truths. i like gothic aesthetics don't get me wrong, but I think the band's sound really hit hardest in this era. |
| 6 |  | KMFDM
Nihil
KMFDM is.... funny. extremely uneven but no less iconic. more about what their music stands for versus what their music actually is.... BUT if you ever wanted to prove someone who says such a thing wrong u can also show them this album, which is the closest they've ever come to sounding like they were in a league of their own and their industrial music that was deeper than its core message of "we're badass and angry and society sucks", which is usually how they sound like pretty much all the time. i cant help but love them for it though |
| 7 |  | Cabaret Voltaire
Micro-Phonies
The most post-punk/synthpop album on here and the least metal/rock.
As accessible as it is, it's also equally as challenging. It's not really "good listening" music per se (but it also has its share of clubby hits and fun singles) but it's one of the most effective visual soundscape albums I've ever heard. Sonically I think this one is very underrated - "Digital Rasta" and "James Brown" are hypnotic and absolutely mesmerizing - its so easy to get lost in their vivid cyberdystopic brush strokes.
(someone get me to do a review for this album bc it'd be good as shit) |
| 8 |  | Nitzer Ebb
That Total Age
this was actually my first ebm love. its like ebm for babies - depeche mode listeners and angry club-goers who like their avant-garde music more clubby than it is intellectual. that has its own time and place though - and nitzer ebb have certainly perfected that craft of angry clubbiness here |
| 9 |  | Front 242
Front By Front
front 242 always felt like what became the start of the modern synthpop/industrial like assemblage 23 and shit that my dad listens to, music for 80s kids who grew up with new wave and ministry and are out of touch with what made them so angry in the first place but still equally as passionate. anyway, key word is START, since front 242 is still very much 80s and very much awesome as the cybershlock it sets out to be.
lots of dystopia imagery, oppressive goverments and sci-fi/horror offerings. feels kind of shallow but is still very well-made and objectively fascinating sonically |
| 10 |  | My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult
Confessions Of A Knife
I love this band. this would be a good place to elaborate on how im using the word "shlock". i am using "shlock" like cheese / corny trash media. redlettermedia's Best of the Worst is a good shlock crashcourse to learn more (skdjfh)
anyway MLwtTKK is just shlock: the band and it's amazing. 13 Above the Night is a better record but leans more heavily into 50s horror and scifi movie tropes rather than industrial cybershlock like the rest of these. stuff's seedy, fun, and brimming with overly-edgy charm
cyberpunk 2077 sucked. it has all the worst aspects of 80s/90s industrial in the sense that it borrows from them aesthetically without any of their shlock-charm or lovable flaws and mixes them with the most milquetoast cyberpunk ideals from today (which SUCK btw, modern cyberpunk is so watered down and shallow it's basically just a shell of its former self. to be cyberpunk is to have blade runner set dressing now. makes me very upset after more or less living inside what it used to be) |
| 11 |  | Information Society
Hack
not technically part of this list but a fun bonus and side tangent - yall know information society? well they were the new waviest of new wave, and always leaning more toward the avant-garde prior to and after their self-titled release, which is where Kurt Harland and co. used their extensive musical smarts to make what almost feels like genetically-engineered club and radio hits and somehow that DIDNT propel them into universal stardom. a shame
anyway, HACK is where they tried to do industrial - and it comes off so naively, coming from a synthpop background that has only started to explore the genre's william gibsonny aesthetics and uncover its juicy insides. I liken it to the game "Synnergist", which occupies a similar space. If you like FMV adventure games then check out my article for it:
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/synnergist-ibm-pc-1996/
i am currently working on a youtube video reviewskit for that game and putting 110% into that video. pls keep up to date
peace |
| 12 |  | Acumen Nation
Transmissions from Eville
putting this one on here just cause. 90s dark industrial grunge
very uneven. the drop 3 minutes into Matador presents some real promise it never rly does anything with, but the sound itself is still extraordinarily unique. very dark very horror movie industrial |
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