Are Nine Inch Nails any good? (/the Industrial Continuum)

[Corpsey]

I'm appreciative of Trent Reznor's Fincher soundtracks ('The Social Network' and 'Gone Girl') and I always hear NIN's name bandied about, but I've never listened to them and I'm not sure I should even.

A good jumping off point to talk about Industrial music past, present and future, too, perhaps?

 

[sadmanbarty]

I think Caberet Voltaire and throbbing gristle are considered the pioneers of the genre.

I recommend Caberet Voltaire's The Voice of America

 

[sadmanbarty]

From this year:

B.YHZZ




Non Worldwide

 

[Mr. Tea]

NIN are definitely at the pop end of industrial. I used to really like the first album and the Quake soundtrack is actually a pretty decent bit of ambient-industrial, if you dig that sort of thing.

So yeah, if you like danceable pop tunes then investigate the early stuff, which owes a good deal to Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and so on. I don't know his later stuff well but it went very concept-album-y (so, er, not so pop then, I guess) and self-consciously serious, albeit in an adolescent sort of way.

I stopped bothering with them after I got more into the Ministry/Revolting Cocks and Front 242 side of things. (Having mentioned Ministry, I now predict that mistersloane is going to pop up and say "Don't listen to Ministry, they're boring, listen to Foetus instead".)

SMB is right of course, TG and CV basically invented the genre and between them produced a body of work that varies from unsettling ambient weirdness to harsh walls of noise to slick dancefloor disco tunes. Another early group worth checking out is Einsturzende Neubauten, although they're sonically very different - think metal-on-metal percussion, found sounds and screeching punk guitars rather than synths and drum machines. There's also bunch of great stuff from the late 80s/early 90s from Mark Stewart/Gary Clail/Tackhead, all of which was produced by Adrian Sherwood, and which sits somewhere in between industrial proper, hard rock, funk, dub and hip-hop.

Edit: should add I've recently started listening to Skinny Puppy too, another stalwart of the '80s EBM-industrial scene. Unfortunately many of the tracks suffer from the perennial Curse Of Industrial, to whit: great music, shame about the vocals.

 

[Corpsey]

All industrial bands should be called something along the lines of 'Einsturzende Neubauten'.

Thanks for your help guys.

Quake! I loved that game.

 

[Mr. Tea]

All industrial bands should be called something along the lines of 'Einsturzende Neubauten'.

Oh-ho, if you like over-the-top band names, industrial-dance outfits outdo even Scandinavian metal bands. Kevorkian Death Cycle! Holocaust Reactor! Velvet Acid Christ! Synthetic Meat Crisis! I've made a couple of those up and I bet you can't even tell which ones!

 

[Corpsey]

That's alright, but it would look better in German.

E.G. Synthetische Fleischkrise

 

[Mr. Tea]

That's alright, but it would look better in German.

E.G. Synthetische Fleischkrise

Well that's fine for Dissensian intelligentsia like you and me but might be a bit difficult for teenagers in Colorado.

 

[CrowleyHead]

lol Foetus is unlistenable dreck whereas Ministry were great.

The funny thing about industrial is who's looking for what. Are you looking for people who are using this for musical ideas (a la The Young Gods or Holger Hiller), people who are trying to make 'art' (Einsturzende), people who want to make tunes (Ministry, NIN).

Like for example I spent WAAAAAAAAAY too much time in goth/industrial dance parties in NYC when I was far too young to be there in the first place and when it's the turn of the century for a certain age group, I imagine the essential jams are preposterous to more post-punker generation members of the board.

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Like I have a warm spot in my heart for this, not that I listen to it regularly, but I'm imagining at least one dissensoid is gonna be like "FUCK ME, Crowley really doesn't deserve the ability to say fuck all about music does he?"

 

[Corpsey]

You're right - industrial has all sorts of horrible connotations. I'm picturing that scene from Blade 2, the sartorial influence of The Matrix and silly old Rammstein.

I guess I'm interested in this area of music cos most music I listen to these days is upbeat, on the pop end of things, but also that I recently listened to a bit of Brian Eno's 'On Land' and also watched the Reznor-soundtracked movies, aforementioned.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I've heard some Foetus that I've liked but never yet to the extent that's made me buy (or, y'know, download) a whole album. Ministry were great before they went straight-up metal - Twitch, TLORAH and Psalm 69 are pretty much unimpeachable.

Like for example I spent WAAAAAAAAAY too much time in goth/industrial dance parties in NYC when I was far too young to be there in the first place and when it's the turn of the century for a certain age group, I imagine the essential jams are preposterous to more post-punker generation members of the board.

Ha, I'm probably a few years older than you but I had plenty of fun stomping away to 'Du Hast', 'Dragula' and 'Head Like A Hole' while a member of the ROCK AND METAL SOCIETY eek:!) in my first year at uni.

 

[paolo]

Am I right in thinking that pretty much any electronic music (with or without guitars) that deals with dark subject matter could be considered 'industrial'?

 

[paolo]

And that doesn't have a 4/4 beat

 

[Mr. Tea]

Am I right in thinking that pretty much any electronic music (with or without guitars) that deals with dark subject matter could be considered 'industrial'?

This definition could include a very sizeable fraction of hip-hop, grime etc., could it not?

On a related note, industrial (aside from Tackhead?) has to be one of the whitest genres going, doesn't it? Even metal, via rock('n'roll), ultimately has some sort of attenuated connection with blues, at least.

And that doesn't have a 4/4 beat

Loads of industrial(ish) music has a 4/4 beat, it's mainly called EBM.

 

[Slothrop]

I used to be on the IDM list in the late nineties (since we're all confessing our questionable pasts), and there seemed to be a really obvious transatlantic divide between Americans who thought that industrial was a major influence on the genre and people in the UK who thought it was just about techno, jungle, ambient, hip hop etc.

 

[Leo]

(since we're all confessing our questionable pasts)

i was a huge foetus fan in years past, bought all his records and saw him a few times. a lot of his music was over the top, everything but the kitchen sink, some of it with faux-dramatic orchestration, pretty different from industrial stuff like wax tax, etc. then he went off in a few different directions, under a few pseudonyms, that were much more more experimental. he's since gone on to "fame" doing scores and soundtrack music (adult swim "venture bros." on the cartoon network). lives in DUMBO/brooklyn, still see him around at shows and record stores.

i was never much of an industrial fan in the US sense (aka, wax tax), but did secretly* like NIN's "the downward spiral", which is still a decent and varied album. i never bought much of his work after that so don't know how it compares.

was also a big tackhead fan but never considered them and all the on-u sound/fats comet/gary clail/mark stewart stuff to be industrial. it was more crazy fucked up dub/electronic.

* i say "secretly" because i was into the whole grunge thing at the time and it was pretty uncool to admit also liking NIN.

 

[luka]

Industrial music is just goth music in disguise but more camp. There's nothing worth saving there. Erase it.