Written by:	jupitreas
Published:	October 12, 2004

What exactly is industrial music?

This is a very interesting question.
Its not as easy as it seems - industrial is a catch-all phrase in today's music world and its used to describe any rock band that has a sort of aggressive electronica touch to their music. Bands like Stabbing Westward, Gravity Kills, White Zombie or Static-X come to mind. Most industrial purists would never call these bands industrial.

What industrial really is is something a lot more ambitious. The term originates from the name of Throbbing Gristle's record label (Industrial Records) and Throbbing Gristle is officially considered to have started the style back in about 1976. It is a form of anti-music, descendant of da-da, surrealist and performance art and an artistic (yet intellectual) manifestation of nihilism. Being a subset of the avant-garde and a musical form dealing primarily with ideas, industrial was the thinking man's alternative to punk music. As an artistic movement, it has formed due to the simultaneous fear and fascination of how the information revolution and the effects of the age of mechanical reproduction affects the human condition and social consciousness. As the purpose of all art is to expand the beholder's perception, so was the purpose of industrial music to help the listener achieve a better understanding and awareness of how the advent of technology influences his view of the world. Thus, industrial was a form of anti-music - often focusing on the most shocking ideas and using the most unlistenable musical elements to convey its message.

Soon after the birth of industrial music, the music journalist John Savage, who was an integral part of the movement, formed the 5 areas that characterized industrial music which summed up most of what the early bands were doing and was later even called the industrial manifesto. These five areas were:

1.Access to Information
Industrial 'songs' often seemed like sonic equivalents of the stream of consciousness and deconstructionist approaches of authors such as William Burroughs (who later recognized this fact and collaborated with some industrial artists). One of the ideals of industrial was free access to all information, something that television and other mediums do not give human beings. Thus, the most controversial topics were overtaken and sampling was used extensively, to show the authenticity of said information. As was said before, industrial was also a fascination with modern technology and thus the paradox in such methods can easily be seen.

2.Shock Tactics
Inspired by surrealism, the industrial artists knew that to achieve a higher level of communication with the receiver, one must shatter the automatization barrier formed by living in a world filled with modern media. Thus, shock tactics were used. The afore mentioned controversial themes fall into this category, as well as the robotic, almost fascistic nature of the music.

3.Organisational Autonomy
Industrial music separated itself completely from the mainstream show business and relied solely on its own means of distribution. "Industrial Records" was the first label established to distribute industrial records and others followed shortly. Probably the most famous label of this sort in the 80's was Wax Trax, co-owned by Ministry's Al Jourgensen and being the label to distribute most of the important industrial records of that era.

4.Use Of Extra Musical Elements
Also known as multimedialism, the industrial music artists did not limit their message to just music. Often, a particular performance show was used, as was the case with Throbbing Gristle and Laibach. Video technology was also used and industrial video clips are some of the first to ever have been recorded. Some artists, such as Throbbing Gristle's Genesis P.Orrige expanded to even wider areas of social influence and designed its own Religion/Philosophy in the Temple Ov Physick Youth.

5.Use Of New Musical Technology and Anti-Music
To separate itself from commercial music (dominated by rock artists at the time), industrial artists adapted new technology to become a form of anti-music. Gone were the phallic guitars, the charismatic front men and the bombastic drum sets. Vocals were very often distorted, making it difficult for the listener to identify with the vocalist and thus allowing for him to approach the music on a more intellectual level, rather than a narcissistic one.

Ultimately, industrial music was a rusty nail in the self-limiting world constantly being created by the mass media. Thus, it served as a way to achieve a higher level of human consciousness and played a small role in the prevention of our world limiting itself to a collaborative "result of a selection, a montage, a taking of views" (Graeme Revell (S.P.K.)).

Naturally, as all other musical genres, industrial music evolved over the years. Due to the fact that it was an artistic movement, industrial music's face changed very drastically. By the mid-eighties bands such as Skinny Puppy, Frontline Assembly, Die Krupps and KMFDM (amongst many others) started to play a much more commercial form of industrial music, often dubbed EBM (Electronic Body Music) or Industrial Rock. The original ideals of industrial music were still very much intact; however, experimentation was introduced on the musical level as well (as opposed to only the ideal level) and thus a link with commercial music must have been made, in order for the experiments to make sense. This had a dual effect on industrial music - while it allowed it to explore new areas of how technology affects the human condition, it also made the music more listenable and many counter-culture subcultures such as punk or goth started to embrace the style, taking away from its original uniqueness.

In 1988 a band called Ministry recorded a mile-stone album called "The Land Of Rape And Honey" which forever changed the face of industrial music. It incorporated metal guitars along with industrial noise and electronic beats. Thus, a link between industrial and metal was made, and this was a link that proved impossible to break. Caught into the metal 'genre machine', industrial suddenly became more limited and also got a place on the map of mainstream alternative music, which was just about to receive its boom in the early 90s. When alternative music suddenly went to the top of the charts, the nature of industrial music (or industrial metal, as it was now usually called) changed significantly. Its debatable whether Ministry and its followers (NIN, Gravity Kills, Stabbing Westward etc.) can still be called industrial by the old Throbbing Gristle definition. Purists of the original style's artistic ideal prefer to call such bands sampler rock or sampler metal (or alternatively electronic rock and metal) as indeed, these bands are simply rock bands that use electronic and industrial elements to enhance their (platinum-selling) music.

I think that although many of these bands are indeed an example of sampler rock rather than industrial, a select few still uphold the industrial ideals while also being some form of rock. The bands are rare and include Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Velvet Acid Christ and Wumpscut, among others. Interestingly enough, some bands that do not identify themselves as industrial actually display industrial ideals. These bands include Neurosis, Today Is The Day and Mr. Bungle. Their aim seems to be exactly that of industrial music.

On the other hand, such bands as NIN, White Zombie, Stabbing Westward, God Lives Under Water, Filter, Static-X, Gravity Kills, Fear Factory, Rammstein, Oomph!, Spineshank, Marylin Manson, Godhead, Strapping Young Lad, etc. have nothing to do with the genres' original ideals and the only thing they have in common with it is the detached, cold electronic feel often prevalent in industrial music. Nonetheless, the masses know better. Today, this is what is called industrial and it seems like nothing can be done about it.