I'm a very opinionated Industrial fan. Thank you for starting this thread man! I have a theory about what happened to the genre. I rarely get to talk about dust because no one knows what the hell I'm talking about. Well, they rarely know what I'm talking about anyway. The theory starts with Skinny Puppy and ends with Nine Inch Nails.
Skinny Puppy man... when I think of the origin and epitome - they are IT to me. I'm not saying Skinny Puppy, Orgre, Cevin and all of their side projects had the most influence on industrial music, but yes, I am saying that Skinny puppy and all associated with it's members are the most powerful force in what was industrial. I have to say
was because good industrial is gone. Now it is just an "influence". One reason for that is the evolution of music technology was whiplashed in the past couple decades. It was once very cool to hear a new synth model that someone spent months of their life perfecting. Now it isn't "cool" to create a synth model that took 0.4 seconds on a computer program that has raped the integrity of what industrial music was.
You know dubstep, right? Very cool sounding to me, and I like some dubstep artists because they are very technical. Overall, however... It is very easy to make cool sounds using technology that has bloomed so much during the decades following Industrial's popularity and that makes dubstep and it's creators trite and uninspired. It once was very hard to make those sounds. Front Line Assembly. Nurse with Wound, VnV Nation, Pigface and the other larger acts that spread out to represent a hundred bands... well they spent months perfecting certain sounds that can be made in seconds now. It almost seems unfair.
I didn't mention NIN among those bands of integrity because Reznor started his hideous conquest a time when there was no sexy figurehead with the technological know-how and equipment who could cash in on something that by nature was intended (in unspoken ways) to remain underground and obscure. One thing I liked about Industrial was that it was exclusive and mysterious. It was a "certain type" of person who fully appreciated Industrial music and ironically they were all people with whom I clicked with immediately. I have friends today, decades later, that I met because of the song -stairs- and flowers-. I'd say those words and someone would be spilling a drink on me and smiling. They still spill drinks on me, but there is a lot less smiling when that happens. The thing about Trent Reznor, and I quote a friend who said this long ago... "He exploited, raped and ruined everything about Industrial. He made everything good about it bad". I agree with that. Reznor was , and is a genius but he is a theif. Everything he did in his rise to stardom was theivery. I know that music evolves and all that, but Reznor STOLE riffs, synth modeling, stage looks, singing styles and pretty much everything else that made him famous.
There are few left, but the dust buddies I still have in my daily life will all agree that the death of industrial music was Nine Inch Nails. Arguable point to say the least. As an electronic musician I have great respect for Rez but as a music lover in general and what I consider the first and last wave of real Industrial fans, I think that he is a disease that has hopefully died artistically. Not just in remission, as musicians seem to enter. I hope he never releases another recording again. If he drops another full album I'll say "
aint it dead yet?Sorry, I had to put a Skinny Puppy pun in this post somewhere
[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6mEeqeQ_2o[/YOUTUBE]
I read an interview a very long time ago that the song
Stairs and Flowers was the late Dwayne Goettel's attempt to exemplify how damn easy it was getting to make music. By overdoing the drum machine and vocal samples he made a joke like that in of some songs. I got the point at the time but only understood the point of the point much, much later when things like dubstep invaded my life. The hook, or "drop" as the little dubsteppers would call it - very pleasing to me actually. The point behind the existence of the song goes unheard to an irritated girlfriend who has to hear it every few days. She can kiss my ass because Skinny Puppy is more important to me than she is.