I just bought these three albums over the weekend, which I'd only owned on cassette since the time they were originally released (around 1988-89ish) - as a result, I haven't listened to these albums in several years, because I haven't been listening to cassettes at all for quite a long time...but I found all three used, which I took as a sign to finally break down and replace my tapes and reunite myself with this stuff.

Talk about a time warp. I love these albums. Ministry's "Land of Rape and Honey" is the last great dance album they made (in my opinion anyway), and I've found that it's primo work out music...of course, if anyone had told me back in 1989 that I'd be working out to Al Jourgenson music one day, I'd have laughed and blown clove smoke in their face.

Also, these two Skinny Puppy albums are probably my favorites by the band - parts of "Rabies" are almost Prince-like, in that dark, dirty funky kinda way that he was able to rock back in the '80s with Camille and the Black Album...actually, all three of these albums kinda fit in with the version of Prince I was loving at the time - the dark, mysterious, sexually ambiguous dude whose music could literally go anywhere at any given time - odd to think of someone dumping Prince in with a bunch of industrial/goth music, but hey - at the time it fit really well.

And these three albums, for whatever reason, really remind me of Chicago back when it was a cool place to go for dancing on the weekends - the alternative and industrial clubs, the Wax Trax wrecka stow, all that cool stuff...when we would visit Chicago on weekends during my college years, we'd always play lotsa Ministry and Skinny Puppy on our roadtrips...and now I live here, really close to the area where we used to party, and it's such a different place now. But listtening to my "Chicago music" of years past kinda brings it all full circle, because the music sounds as good as it ever did.

Anyway. Thought I'd share, and see what albums push other folks' nostalgia buttons...

Anxiety said:

hehe goth kid

CinisterCee said:

today i wear light green on the outside because i feel light green on the inside.

Anxiety said:

Other than Ministry, I was never really big on industrial albums. I have lots of 12" singles though:

Ministry
My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult
Meat Beat Manifesto
KMFDM
Front 242
Nitzer Ebb
Skinny Puppy
Liabach
Revolting Cocks
Acid Horse
1000 Homo DJs
Frontline Assembly
etc.

The only non-Ministry, non-greatest hits industrial album I have is Thrill Kill Kult's 'Sexplosion'. It's kinda sounds like industrial-lounge.

sextonseven said:

out of all that you listed, the only other group i really have anything by is thrill kill kult. i have a few of their albums, and there are a couple more i'd like to replace on CD. a lot of industrial was lost on me the first time around, though i enjoyed all of it at the clubs. i was pretty much just into skinny puppy and ministry.

Anxiety said:

I was a big fan of Wax Trax singles in college, but never got into the full albums. Then the whole goth thing started and that was the end of that.

sextonseven said:

i don't have a whole lot of that stuff...i have a divine 7" vinyl single that wax trax released, and some ministry stuff mainly on cassette...i only got to visit the wax trax shop a couple times, but i loved it. we don't even have evil clown records in the neighborhood anymore.

Anxiety said:

What do you think of Einstürzende Neubauten? They sound like they would be your kinda thing. I have their first 'Strategies Against Architecture' comp. It's all bizarro-spooky-experimental-industrial.

Anxiety said:

Neither of which is industrial, though. You know the rest. I'll shut up for now.

Novabreaker said:

What are they? Chamber pop?

sextonseven said:

OMG, you're hitting major nostalgia buttons there!

Novabreaker said:

fine. they're gangsta rap. i just didn't want to come off too thugly.

sextonseven said:

you know what, they're a band i've always wanted to get into, but i've never known where to start. do they have any good anthologies or best-ofs?

GangstaFam said:

Schmindustrial rock / EBM. Depending on an era and release. The long three part instrumental on "Twitch" is pure industrial music though.

Anxiety said:

The 'Strategies Against Architecture' anthologies Vols I, II, III would be the best places to start I guess. I only have volume one which is a comp of their earliest work from 1980-83. This is real industrial music made with tools banging against metal, recorded in tunnels under an overpass--really wacky stuff. Totally not the dancy club music that "industrial" later became. I've almost bought 'Strategies Against Architecture' II several times, the latest being last week at Generation Records. Maybe I'll go back and get it this week since Amazon says it's out of print.

Novabreaker said:

It took you almost two days to post on an industrial thread?

Anxiety said:

Too late.

sextonseven said:

Here's what I'd recommend for Anxiety though on Neubauten:

Haus Der Lüge - Their best album perhaps, contains a song that infuriated the Vatican, has a picture of an ejaculating horse on the cover. There's somewhat of an EBM influence on some of the tracks, but it definitely is just an influence. The album is still very avant-gardist. I'd recommed this one for a Bowie fan.

Perpetuum Mobile - The most recent one, a mature song-oriented record that is not that far away from the music of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. Perhaps more rock than many of their earlier records.

Halber Mensch (or "1/2 Mensch") - The bridge between early "destruction" records and the later song-oriented direction.
[Edited 9/29/05 5:58am]

Novabreaker said:

Isn't a member of Neubaten in the Bad Seeds?

Anxiety said:

Neubauten mastermind Blixa Bargeld quit the band last year. He was the guitarist in Bad Seeds, altough oddly enough Einstürzende Neubauten very seldom makes use of guitars in their music. Bargeld is the lead vocalist of the group.