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

[BONES]

The question I'd ask is why things need to change and evolve? Every direction that EBM has evolved in has made it worse. It's only the stuff that stays true to the original intent that's worth listening to.

[Synthack]

The question I'd ask is why things need to change and evolve? Every direction that EBM has evolved in has made it worse. It's only the stuff that stays true to the original intent that's worth listening to.

I had a good think about this, and you know you are right. I think it works as it is.

I was a little harsh in saying it all sucked, because I actually do like a lot of it. I suppose what I'm looking for isn't to change a existing genre but to try and combine some new stuff.

Had a listen to your stuff and it's actually pretty decent.

[melomood]

Taste relative. Music evolves with time. One day we will all be dead and these genres will be archaic

[dayjob]

Taste relative. Music evolves with time. One day we will all be dead and these genres will be archaic

if any humans are still around and have time to mess around with homemade bongos and sticks and bones and stuff while they're foraging for food after the collapse.

[BONES]

I had a good think about this, and you know you are right. I think it works as it is.

That's the theory we've always worked under. EBM isn't like a dance music genre, there are no rules about what synths you have to use or what BPM you have make every song or anything like that. There is plenty of space to explore and expand, as we (hopefully) do with every new album.

Had a listen to your stuff and it's actually pretty decent.

I think you meant to say "it's abso-fvcken-lutely amazing!!" It's very frustrating, though, because the audience shrinks all the time while bands who sound exactly like the video you first posted are actually making the mainstream charts in Germany. The two I am thinking of are on our label so I'm not going to name names but they sound so generic that it's almost a parody, yet they do very, very well out of it.

[machinesworking]

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.

I think the first four records are all really good, then they became mostly derivative. Download was better at that point.

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.

You're a purist, and too into an elitist attitude. The fact they have backing to do good videos isn't a realistic reason to dislike a band.

Skynd have multiple markers of Industrial music, the serial killer theme alone for one. For sure they borrow from other genres as well. Can't stand Evanescence or Marilyn Manson, so not even close IMO in terms of the actual music. In terms of pop, they have some things in common with some Nu Metal and R&B, Euro Pop and Hip Hop, but not really any of those things. The theme is pure Industrial though, So is the intentionally mechanical feel, so is the crush of it all.

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.

You just said that no Skinny Puppy album is good all the way through, keep your story straight, makes it sound like you're just trying to be contradictory.

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.

Skynd singer is Swiss, they formed, in... drum roll... Australia. Pink Floyd are British, and Skinny Puppy are from Canada. The only American band I've mentioned is Ministry. i3Peak are obviously Russian. Xenophobia fits you well though.

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.

Yes, Industrial in general has always been bigger in Europe. The pool here is small, so you're not really going to get a lot of bands to choose from. But you make whatever Xenophobic nationalistic nonsense you desperately want to make out of that.

[machinesworking]

The question I'd ask is why things need to change and evolve? Every direction that EBM has evolved in has made it worse. It's only the stuff that stays true to the original intent that's worth listening to.

Because personally my favorite records are mostly embryonic changes in the music genre that the band does, not the full on change. \

Case in point, Cabarete Voltaire. Their early stuff is just unformed noise, I like it but I never really throw on Red Mecca, etc. That period isn't as interesting to me. When they put out Living Legends and later Microphonies, that's where I thought they were on to something. Combining Dada style ideas with rock and pop. Later they just became a dance band, it's mostly well crafted but the uniqueness is gone.

Same with Throbbing Gristle, I like their early stuff, but the last record when they had solidified a sort of in between Industrial and veering on that techno pop thing Chris Carter loves so much is where it's super solid to me. Heathen Earth IMO is their most complete sounding record.

Ministry's Land of rape and Honey has them not really a Metal band, and not a pop band, but doing some sort of Techno Industrial with Metal tinges. Later they're a straight Metal band, earlier they're a techno pop band.

Talking Heads, Fear of Music isn't world beat pop like their later stuff, but it's not a blueprint for Indie Rock either.

I could go on and on with this, but it really boils down to, sometimes when bands take chances it's better IMO, when they stay the course they become the Ramones where they release 30 records that are just worse versions of their first one.

The Club and Goth crowd ruined Industrial to a degree, Most of what I mention here are changes from the 80's and late 70's, now people rarely do this. I'm not surprised you don't like Skynd or i3Peak, the fact they don't neatly fit into a genre isn't an issue to me.

[foosnark]

The Skynd and Ic3peak songs I just listened to are not doing all that much for me.

I am a lot less into industrial than I used to be, though.

The last live show I went to was the Eye vs. Spy tour with Skinny Puppy, FLA, Youth Code and Haujobb. Bill Leeb looked kind of foolish on stage at that point I thought, and their whole set was just super loud with blinding lights and heavy fog machine and the music itself was meh... they have turned more toward dubstep and it feels like they're trying too much to chase some other audience. Skinny Puppy has been devastatingly brilliant every time I've seen them live though. I thought Youth Code was promising, but I didn't stay into them for very long. I kinda got into Haujobb and Covenant for a good while thanks to that show, even though I don't like VNV Nation.

I'd love to have seen Prometheus Burning live, but I think they split up quite a while ago. Van Eck still posts regularly on forums but I have no idea what he's doing musically. I kind of liked Angelspit for a while too, but it's mostly worn off.

Maybe I'm just old now.

[raiderpdog]

I think why I've drifted from it over the years and don't enjoy it like I used to:

-The sound itself over time is becoming too polished, clean and over produced. Combined with also not really interesting me in the actual sounds being used, either.

-The sense of transgression and menace that OG industrial had has been watered down over the decades, just by the fact of industrial standing the test of time and surviving several decades, which leads to-

-Just like any other genre, it all changes over time as new trends, artists and interests influence it, or drop things out of favor.
Over time, genres can leave you gradually, as they start maybe merging elements of other genres you don't like. Or you can leave a genre, just because you get interested in other stuff. Or bands reach a limitation in their growth. Any million of reasons. People change.

-The cybernetic goth dystopia visual backdrop is old, tired and way past it's sell by date. It was sad to see two new local industrial bands several months back, and feel as if it was a bad Wax Trax record from 1988. With Marilyn Manson thrown on top, but also with pretty bad techno sounds too.

-like any established genre, it has "accepted" ideas ingrained into it by now. Needs to have new artists break out of those almost genre imposed rules.

Like I said, these issues are specific to my enjoyment lessening over the years. It's good that industrial has survived all the years it has and has continued to influence and inspire people, and that I can always jump back in when I want.
Others may love everything about it today, and think I am nuts, and that's okay too. Everyone has their own tastes. Just enjoy what you enjoy and you can't go wrong.

[vurt]

pansonic. pan am.

[machinesworking]

To put it bluntly, Throbbing Gristle and Cabarete Voltaire, the two groups that started the whole thing were heavily influenced by Dada, Cage, Stockhausen, Musique Concréte, and transgressive art in general. The later groups are influenced by the directions the original groups went in, you see hundreds of copies of Laibach, Front 242, Skinny Puppy etc. the distilled original impulse to have no borders, becomes borders.

[raiderpdog]

pansonic. pan am.

agree. I would also add stuff like Wolf Eyes, Black Dice, etc. Different takes on sound, without a lot of the baggage that industrial has.

[Synthack]

Maybe not industrial, but these sounds are definitely very interesting. I can see them fitting into industrial music and really has my mind going to some crazy places.






I think the sound I'm going for is primal and tribal, but also very industrial & electronic mixed with touches of death metal. Not sure of any other artists like that.

[Aloysius]

Justine Bieber?

[Synthack]

Justine Bieber?

EDIT: Ok i was in the wrong, thx Vurt.

nyways back OT. I have a bunch of ideas and have read all the great contributions to the thread so far from actual musicians who are interested in the genre. To all of you

Keep the convo going.