Why does most electronic Industrial music follow such a similar formula?

[melomood]

[Synthack]

And then theres absolute crap nobody will buy let alone listen to for free

[machinesworking]

I thought parts of KORN Path to totality sounded quite industrial.

Full disclosure, I can't stand Nu Metal. But, it came from Faith No More, who were well aware of Industrial, the bass player in that band played me Laibach the first time I heard them. Basically Nu Metal knew all about genre mashing, they just decided to do it in the most suburban teenagers emulating their favorite styles way. Then godflesh, Ministry, and early Pitchshifer all were informed by Industrial for sure.

IMO for the most part it's always been the case that once a genre is formulated it loses any transgressive revolutionary spark it once had. That's why for the most part the bands that interest me today get badly labeled because they don't fit that well into a single one.

[BONES]

@Bones I quickly listened to a few seconds of each track you presented, and they all sound very much the same except your last one which was interesting. Out of all the 4 on the floor examples presented i thought the Nitzer Ebb stuff was probably the best. However even that gets boring after about a minute.

Rubbish! It has structure and flow. Like us, they basically write rock songs and there is as much or as little variety in it as you care to find. Ebbhead is the classic example -

I also know Skinny puppy isn't EBM but i was making an argument that there is way too much of that shit now whenever I look up electronic industrial.

So your problem is with the genrefication of music, something I have long hated. Unfortunately, in this day and age you have to call it something and you have to put as many tags on your music as you think might be appropriate. It's inescapable. But you are really just highlighting a general problem, which is that it's increasingly hard to find good new music in any genre because it's too easy to flood the market with garbage. But it's there if you are patient enough to keep looking.

Skinny Puppy for me were always too hit or miss. There is not a single album of theirs I would rate in my all-time favourites, although I would consider them one of my all-time favourite bands. It's just that you had to wade through a lot of shit to find the good stuff. That's why the album of theirs I listen to most is the live album, Ain't It Dead Yet? It's mostly good stuff with little filler.

Front 242 and Skinny Puppy opened the doors for Industrial to be dance music exclusively. Not that Cabaret Voltaire's and Psychic TV's Acid House phase helped.

But that's the thing, it's where they all went - SPK, Test Dept, Die Krupps, all of them ended up doing some kind of dance music.

Look towards Skynd, i3Peak etc. Genre splitting bands tend to get it right, but if you want to sound exactly like Suicide Commando from 15 years ago, you're doing it wrong.

I hear nothing Industrial sounding in this at all. It's just modern Rock-Pop. In fact, Skynd sound incredibly contrived to me, like an updated Evanescence or Marilyn Manson. The money that's gone into their music production and videos tends to support that assertion. I don't like it at all.

Off the top of my head only Throbbing Gristle, Godflesh, and Pink Floyd before Roger Waters left released full albums I could listen to end to end without skipping songs.

Whereas I only listen to albums and I won't listen to any album if I can't listen to all of it, as the artist intended. If there's a track I want to skip, then I'll skip the whole album.

Reading what you guys are saying, and listening to the stuff you're posting, you seem to have a very American aesthetic, whereas mine is very much UK/European. I actively dislike pretty much everything you've mentioned. It's always been the way. Looking at all the 80s covers I've amassed over the last 18 months, for example, hardly any of it is from US artists. Out of around 70 songs, all I've done is one Stan Ridgway song, one from Wall of Voodoo, Talking Heads' Once in a Lifetime, a B52s song (Planet Claire) and a couple of Devo songs. Everything else in my repertoire is either from the UK or Australia.

I'm the same with American style Industrial, most of it is just plain awful. Chemlab had one good album, as did Machines of Loving Grace (although it's more Post Punk than Industrial), I liked the first Hate Dept album and Pretty Hate Machine is the only NIN album I ever liked. So, again, 90% or more of the EBM/Industrial music I like/own would be from Europe.

[dayjob]

a lot of genres beat the same dead horse because they're copying the people who came before them already beating that dead horse.

industrial is no different. there's a sound that for a lot of people is very narrowly defined so venturing outside that sound confuses some listeners so people play it safe and keep regurgitating the same types of things over and over.

the lyrics have gotten really cringey _at times_ too. (there are people expressing themselves well and not making the same tired observations using tropes etc) i mean.. do we need full grown adults singing about being so tortured because they're living in a dystopian cyberpunk industrialized wasteland? it's awful.. but maybe 13yr kids go for it because it's edgy to them.. for now. but even kids figure shit out pretty quickly these days and discover what's original and those who are really into it will dig deeper and find out where the sound came from. the originators so to speak.. and they'll just rediscover all that stuff and the people who are copying that in present day get ignored because they're not doing anything interesting.

i mean.. sure.. there's club music which can be really disposable sometimes but you can mix in some old and new and make it sound a little bit unfamiliar at least.

anyway.. i think there isn't a lot of growth currently in industrial music. it sounds the same forever mostly.. a few people venture out and broaden their sound and sort of strike out on their own and do something different but not everyone has the talent or originality to do that.

and saying all that.. i get it.. a genre is a genre for a reason and people expect to hear certain things when they listen to it but sometimes i think the listeners get too much of they expect and at that point they might as well listen anything in the genre because it's going to all be the same.

instead of fulfilling expectations of the listener why not try to expand them?

[melomood]

I've had parts of Korn. Even when I don't remember eating any

[Synthack]

I've had parts of Korn. Even when I don't remember eating any

Then you used that inspiration to write your music ?

[Synthack]

I thought parts of KORN Path to totality sounded quite industrial.

Full disclosure, I can't stand Nu Metal. But, it came from Faith No More, who were well aware of Industrial, the bass player in that band played me Laibach the first time I heard them. Basically Nu Metal knew all about genre mashing, they just decided to do it in the most suburban teenagers emulating their favorite styles way. Then godflesh, Ministry, and early Pitchshifer all were informed by Industrial for sure.

IMO for the most part it's always been the case that once a genre is formulated it loses any transgressive revolutionary spark it once had. That's why for the most part the bands that interest me today get badly labeled because they don't fit that well into a single one.

Yah I can't stand most NU-metal anymore but there are certain sounds that I appreciate. As a older teen i grew up listening to a lot of Korn and i liked the mixture of how they combined the sounds of hip-hop and metal. I don't really like their older stuff because it has that same effect on me where all their songs sound the same.

Back when I was a a teenager everyone was listening to all these "metal" bands and It was a cool new sound compared to Metallica, megadeth and the other bands I knew.

Faith No Mores "King for a day" was that one "Weird" album i had that i always returned to because of how odd it sounded. I bought it based on a suggestion from a friend who said it sounded cool and this was before the times when you could preview the sound of it.

At first I hated it but it grew on me in a way.

It kind of got me interested in "different" music because at the time (I was barely 13) I was listening to a lot of mainstream "grunge" rock. So for that i appreciate it.

Eventually i progressed into listening to stuff like Fear Factory which got me started into my Industrial metal phase. This also kind of got me interested in synthesizers as well.

Fearfactorys Aggression Continuum might sound very metal but I can definitely hear some industrial influences underneath which is awesome. However they are also an example of something i can't listen to song after song because it sounds so much like the same song.

[melomood]

I've had parts of Korn. Even when I don't remember eating any

Then you used that inspiration to write your music ?

Oh look at you being all clever and stuff

[Synthack]

I've had parts of Korn. Even when I don't remember eating any

Then you used that inspiration to write your music ?

Oh look at you being all clever and stuff

Look at you trying to be funny. One thing I've learned about ppl like you is you are completely fine taking potshots at people you don't disagree with or dislike to try and flamebait them into getting banned. I know your kind too well.

Half the time most people can see right through your little games where you think you are being really sneaky.

Go troll another thread.

[melomood]

Yadda yadda yadda

Yadda yadda yadda

[Synthack]

Yadda yadda yadda

Funny thing is i bet you probably wouldn't do this to people in person. You trolls have a MO that is pretty obvious, and that is you generally love to hide behind your keyboards

[melomood]

More yadda

Even more yadda

[Synthack]

More yadda

Even more yadda

Oh well back to our regular programmed content. Sorry folks

[melomood]

The tevelution will not be yaddafied