Industrial music is hard to define. Many groups exist under the umbrella of the genre whose sounds may be similar, yet have vastly different philosophies behind their music. The actual term “Industrial” was first coined in the 1970s to describe the music of avant-garde performance artists Throbbing Gristle, who formed the label Industrial Records in 1977. Throbbing Gristle consisted of 4 British performance artists whose live shows included harsh, distorted background music playing while vocalist Genesis P-Orridge would perform spoken word pieces, with film of S and M acts and fascist propaganda playing across the stage. This philosophy of taboo-breaking and questioning the nature of music and musical performance was a direct result of the influences of art movements like futurism, Dadaism, and Fluxus. Throbbing Gristle would sow the seeds for other acts to follow, like Germany’s Einstuzende Neubauten, who would combine pre-recorded or synthesized percussion with electric guitars and even functioning jackhammers to produce their sound. The first wave of this music often featured tape editing, stark percussion, and loops distorted to the point where they had degraded to harsh noise. Vocals were sporadic, and were as likely to be bubblegum pop as they were to be abrasive polemics. The innovation of using electronic sources of sound and overwhelming percussion and found objects as instruments can be traced back to Edgard Verese, a composer who was infamous for his performance using these sources at the 1958 World Fair in Brussels, Belgium.

Here is an example of Throbbing Gristle: the title track from their 1979 album “20 Jazz Funk Greats”.

Most fans of the genre would say that these are the key elements: harsh, highly emphasized percussion, samples lifted from film and other recordings, synthesizers, and guitars. This certainly applied to the acts that would carry industrial music through the 80s: Front 242, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Meat Beat Manifesto, Ministry, Coil, Boris Mikulic, Klute, Skinny Puppy, and by the end of the 80s and leading into the 90s Nine Inch Nails, Front Line Assembly, Sister Machine Gun, and KMFDM.

Some of the most modern Industrial music comes from acts like Rammstein, Oomph!, Strapping Young Lad, Static-X, and even some of the work by metal composer/film director Rob Zombie. The interplay between heavy metal, death metal, and industrial has led to blurring of the lines between these types of music. Also noticeable is the influence of hip hop, leading to nu-metal acts like Dope. The spectrum of industrial also reaches deeply into several branches of techno, with artists like Autechre, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Josh Wink and Woody McBride composing tracks that skirt the edges of industrial dance music, while retaining their techno and noise sensibilities. Josh has even appeared as a remixer of works by Skinny Puppy.