Industrial music, historically, has always been hard to describe... It dates back a quarter century, yet few people have ever heard of it. Music journalists toss the name around frivolously, referring to anything harsh as "industrial". Meanwhile, fans of industrial music, the so-called "rivetheads", can't seem to agree on what industrial music really is, anyway.
Industrial music sprang from the same urban disdain of pop music that led to the foundation of punk in the mid-1970's. It was a strange sister genre of the punk movement: the clubs were the same, the clothes were the same, it was the message that made all the difference. It was more frightening and visceral, less musical; 50% performance art and 50% noise.
Those who consider themselves industrial music historians can't seem to agree on much of anything, but the general consensus will admit that "industrial music" as a term came from the seminal industrial performance art terrorists Throbbing Gristle. Their leader, a British ex-hippie going by the moniker of Genesis P. Orridge, designed an idea of a new musical genre, based not around the African-inspired rock and roll music, but something truly modern, what he considered modern slave music for slaves to factories and industry. So, this music integrated the factory noise of daily life into screeching tributes to urban sprawl, decay, and the pestilence of city life. This was a true soundtrack for Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and ideals that went beyond insipid love songs and the "make love, not war" anthems of earlier in the decade.
Interviews with P. Orridge are contradictory, but he seems to have come across the name "industrial" during a lunch with friend and artist Monte Cazzaza to whom he was explaining his musical theories. In telling Monte of his "industrial music for industrial people", Monte pointed out that "industrial music" was the title he was searching for.
At the same time, another British band, Cabaret Voltaire, began a similar path with slightly more musical performances and less bizarre theatrics.
Between the two, they managed to make a surprising mark onto the musical consciousness of the underground.
Modern industrial, of course, bears no similarities to the original forms. The evolution is hard to follow, but it is a subtle trail of continued influences and ideals that have made industrial music "industrial".
The next wave of industrial music, by far, had the greatest effect and influence over everything that would come afterward. In North America, Skinny Puppy began releasing its brand of industrial, using strange electronics, harshly distorted vocals, and Burroughs-esque cut-up, train-of-thought lyrics to start making their mark on dancefloors. The opposite was taking place in Europe. Front 242 was pioneering a techno-influenced style of industrial-dance, later to be called EBM, much more appropriate on the dancefloor and nowhere near as harsh as anything previous.
As Al was turned on more and more by the rock aspect of music, other tones came into play in the industrial genre. The days of pure noisiness had passed into harsh dance music akin to new wave, but now came bands like Nine Inch Nails, that fused the mainstream rock and industrial in the most palatable fashion.
Most industrial fans, having their own favorite subgenres, their own musical agendas, and an unusual subcultural elitism, will often refute Nine Inch Nail's true claim to being industrial. The same would later become true of such other mainstream successes as Marilyn Manson, Stabbing Westward, and Gravity Kills, but the integration of industrial textures and ideals into the music of these bands is undeniable and such nay-saying can usually be attributed to a fear of losing the "underground" to the "mainstream", a fear of a loss of individuality by having it co-opted by the masses.
This industrial-rock revolution bred many subgenres, such as synthcore, torture tech, and coldwave, none of which seemed to possess the marketability of Nine Inch Nails. Unlike other genres of music, industrial was not dragged into the daylight by one pioneering artist, like rock was exposed by Elvis or pop by the Beatles, but instead left the underground buried. This is almost unheard of in all other musical genres, but seems to be the fate of industrial music.
The late 1990's have seen the rise of EBM, an electronic dance-oriented form of industrial music, stemming off from the school of Front 242. Bands such as Funker Vogt, Velvet Acid Christ, Haujobb, VNV Nation, Noxious Emotion, and :wumpscut: have picked up where Front 242 left off during an early-1990's disbanding and hit the dancefloors hard with electro beats and distorted synths.
America's industrial music scene still flounders in the wake of the collapse of most of America's independent industrial labels. The mid- to late-1990's saw the disbanding of a plethora of very promising industrial-rock, synthcore, and coldwave acts that has left America very barren of industrial music, leaving the EBM of Europe as the only strong choice for industrial fans, though a growing number of fans reject any guitar-based or rock-oriented industrial music as being "true" industrial.
In the end, from all of this, what can be understood is that industrial music is not just one kind of music. The music is not JUST noise or electronics. One CAN characterize industrial as having electronics, but so does techno, which is very removed from the tone of industrial.
Industrial, as is obvious from the name itself, should have the quality of industrial-noise, something grinding to its sound. But moreso is the idea that it is a comment on our modern society. Above all things is a commentary, a social perspective being displayed. A disillusionment with our society and a desire to change things.
Industrial always has been and always will be the true music of rebellion, the ideals that the hippies failed at, to point out society's ills and man's folly, to deride religion, and to defy oppression of any kind...
By Ryan Speck
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/industrial_music/66470
