swingnscream said:
Haha.
Nice.
Start at home.. whatever's home scene for you. That's what I'd suggest.
Ookay...I will (too bad there's no 'mischevious' smiley here...that'd really fit right about now). That means the Industrial/Goth scene...
Industrial - Used as a catch-all simultaneously for heavy synth-rock and the Industrial music sub-section of rock, Industrial specifically refers to the brand of experimental electronic music originally performed by the English band Throbbing Gristle starting around 1975. The music is composed of several electronic sampling techniques, including tape music, musiqué concreté (don't ask me what either of those are; I haven't a clue), and everyday noise constructed into something abrasive, dissonant, and filled with the same rage that fueled British Punk rock, but instead of directed outwards at society, the rage was turned inward at oneself. Industrial's main theme early on, and strongly continuing today (with few exceptions), is dehumanization.
Around 1987, German band KMFDM fused rock guitars into the mix, helping to create a more digestable though no less abrasive form of Industrial rock which other bands would use as influence in creating Industrial Metal. Ever since around 1989, the term is also used to describe the General Hard Rock-Industrial fusion that hit the pop charts starting in the early 90s with Nine Inch Nails. Currently the only Christian band I know of (by hearing them) that performs this strain of Industrial is Mortal, who sound somewhat like a cross between NIN and Skinny Puppy, and hit the CCM/Christian Metal charts around 1991 with the singles 'Enfleshed (The Word Is Alive)' and 'Mytho-X'.
Industrial Dance - Throbbing Gristle's brand of abrasive music eventually softened and after the band broke up and it's members went their seperate ways, other bands that were influenced by TG and frontman Genesis P'Orridge (also well-known as one of the creators of Acid House techno music) infused more dance beats and a more structured orchestration into the music. Sometimes this type of music is lumped under the label 'Darkwave', but is actually a legitimate progression of Industrial. It was originally known as Electronic Body Music, or EBM (the accepted term now is actually Industrial Dance).
Generally, while the music is not exactly as sonically dissonant, it is just (if not more so) abrasive and disturbing. Skinny Puppy, Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, and possibly even more or less recent bands like VNV Nation (which also has large Goth-Industrial influences) fall under this category. As said before, it is more dance-oriented, and is often the type of music heard in the background or in a lot of underground clubs in some darker movies. Often, I believe the term
Electro-Industrial refers to music very similar to Industrial Dance, but the music is generally much harder and the dissonance is much higher than typical Industrial Dance music.
Industrial Metal - Practically the first Industrial Metal band was Ministry [along with Ministry side projects RevCo (that's an abbreviation of the full name), and the Industrial/Hardcore Punk fusion group Lard, which featured former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra and several members of both Ministry and RevCo. Lard basically sounds like Industrial Metal performed with the speed and somewhat similarity to the sound of a classic Hardcore Punk band (and lyrically reflected RevCo's sense of humor and Biafra's lighter political views)], who was very guitar focused and applied heavy layers of distortion to the music and vocals all the while playing at a speed similar to the thrash or speed metal of bands like Anthrax and early Metallica. The lyrics deal with much of the same themes as plain old Industrial and Industrial Dance, but most of the Industrial Metal bands that have showed up on the mainstream since the mid-90s have taken the more humanized and more standard-structure lyrics that Nine Inch Nails (which is also sometimes referred to as Industrial Metal) introduced to the genre and actually just come off sounding like harder versions of NIN (not that that's a bad thing, though; several of them are very talented).
Sometimes the synths and classic Industrial part of the music can be very prevalent, and sometimes not so much, dominated more by the guitar work and very little on the backing synths. Bands as varied as Stabbing Westward, Rammstein, Orgy, Deadsy, Gravity Kills, Filter, and notably Marilyn Manson fall into this genre. Christian bands (that I've heard) that fall into this style are Circle of Dust (who released their first album in 1994, and their last in 1998, and even covered Steve Taylor's song 'Am I In Sync?' for a tribute album), which later broke up and two bands formed from its ashes: Klank, where most of the members went and who takes a very Metal-oriented route; and Celldweller, composed of only (AFAIK, multi-instrumentalist) Klay Scott, who takes a much more dancey road, but maintains the strong guitars that would make this classified as Industrial Metal. Currently, Celldweller's song 'Switchback' can be heard in the background for the theatrical trailer for Catwoman, and it was briefly featured in a short burst in one of the Spider-man 2 trailers.
Industrial Metal, in particular, came under fire from religious organizations and parent's groups in the aftermath of Columbine since the two guys listened a lot to the style. Around this time the popular-but-very-false KMFDM acronym 'Kill ---- Depeche Mode' started being quoted a lot (the accepted meaning of the acronym is 'Kein Mitleid für Die Mehrheit', which translates to 'No Mercy (or Pity) for the Majority'). I would say that Columbine was the last nail in the coffin for the mainstream Industrial wave that started around 1994, with the release of NIN's controversial song and video for 'Closer' and continued for about two years afterward fueled by the copycat NIN bands and featured on all the Mortal Kombat soundtracks. Since 1999, the few Industrial bands that have come onto the mainstream or continued to be popular (such as NIN) have been very few and far between and not played very often. I don't know if this decline really had anything to do directly with Columbine, but the artists that got targeted were Industrial or Industrial Metal bands, and probably were more or less targeted because of the shock tactics they employed, and not so much the lyrical content (except for Manson, of course).
Post-punk - In the late 70s, as the original wave of British Punk was dying down, former members of punk bands, punk bands themselves, and new bands influenced by the DIY ethic of punk started producing more artsy and challenging music, sometimes using synthesizers very frequently. This large, varied group of artists is collectively classified as Post-punk, and includes everything from early Goth Rock such as Bauhaus, Joy Division, and Siouxsie and the Banshees; New Wave, such as A Flock of Seagulls, Adam Ant, and Gary Numan; New Romantic (which is often synonymous with New Wave), such as Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, Soft Cell, and early Depeche Mode; the guitar-based rock of the Comsat Angels and the Replacements; and later, Post-Hardcore like Fugazi and possibly Hüsker Dü (I swear I saw them listed as a post-hardcore band somewhere). So-called 'Minnesota Rock', which was heavily influenced by Hüsker Dü, might even be considered a part of this, and included The Replacements and early Soul Asylum.
Post-punk was practically a dead genre by 1985 or 1986, since it had splintered so many times and those subgenres had each earned distinctive places within general rock music, so the Post-punk label eventually dissolved, except when listing a band that actually was once considered it. Right now, the secular music scene is going through a Neo Post-punk faze, since the influence of pop-punk on the airwaves and increased popularity in older alternative bands like The Cure (which is actually a Goth Rock band) have lead to a batch of new artists picked up from indie labels (or remaining there but given mainstream support) that have a lot of Post-punk influence mixed in with the new Garage rock and ethereal music of the White Stripes and Radiohead, along with the new New York Punk of The Strokes. Bands like Franz Ferdinand, Modest Mouse, Electric Six, Hot Hot Heat, Interpol, Snow Patrol, and the new leanings of Blink 182 (like Post-punk, where punk bands started expanding their sounds, it seems pop-punk bands now are doing the same) are properly called Neo Post-punk.
Goth Rock - A style that grew out of Post-punk, Goth Rock originated as a deeply introspective, ethereal type of music that grew increasingly morbid as years went by. The three bands commonly referred to as the original Goth band are Sex Gang Children (who were chronologically first), Bauhaus, or Joy Division (the last two of which were probably commercially first). Bauhaus is often credited as defining the sound, for some odd reason, and their lyrics definitely do have that 'Frankenstein'-esque classic horror feel to them [Bauhaus would later split, with lead singer Peter Murphy starting a solo career of his own which was more along the lines of Peter Gabriel or Kate Bush-type adult contemporary pop, and two bands which consisted of the remaining members-first Tones On Tail, which was actually just guitarist Daniel Ash and drummer Kevin Haskins pairing up with Bauhaus roadie Glen Campling, who played bass (the group would have a hit with the single 'Go!' a few years after it was initially released); later, Ash, Haskins, and former Bauhaus bassist/vocalist David J would form the band Love And Rockets, who had at least two hit singles in the US: 'So Alive' and 'No New Tale To Tell']. Joy Division's lead singer would end up commiting suicide, and the remaining members regrouped to become the über-influential Alternative Dance band New Order.
Musically, Goth Rock is very ethereal-sounding, making good uses of haunting synthesizers and plodding or likewise-haunting guitar chords. The style became very popular in England during the 80s, and several bands, such as the Sisters Of Mercy (who were very much also a dance-rock band), the Mission UK, Gene Loves Jezebel, All About Eve (ex-Gene Loves Jezebel bassist Julianne Regan's band, which performs a sort of pop-Goth adult contemporary strain; who also have some truly great songs like 'Tuesday's Child', 'December', and 'Strangeway'), and The Cure (who started hitting US charts a lot when they had 'happier' songs). As far as the mainstream charts were concerned, Goth Rock's popularity died out in the early 90s, both a large amount of influence went into some Industrial music, forming a new genre.
Goth-Industrial - The ethereal synths and/or vocals of Goth Rock put over the pounding beats of Industrial rock and Industrial dance, Goth-Industrial really gained steam in the early 90s, with bands such as VNV Nation, and continued on into the late 90s with rock and adult contemporary flavored artists such Vast and Switchblade Symphony. Usually, Goth-Industrial isn't as hard as Industrial or Industrial Dance, but is generally harder than typical Goth Rock.
The varieties of style within this isn't quite as large as Industrial; the two extremes are pretty much covered by five of Vast's songs-'Touched', 'Free', 'Pretty When You Cry', 'I Don't Have Anything', and 'My TV And You'-and the Switchblade Symphony song 'Clown' or 'Rain', all of which (from both artists) are varied from one song to the next, at times (in Switchblade Symphony's case) using savage Industrial drums and synths on 'Clown' to the far more placid 'Rain', or the various flavors of adrenaline flowing through Vast's music contrasted against tender love songs (which actually tends to be a focal point of Goth-Industrial songs: lost love or romantic longing). This is probably the purest strain of Goth Rock left on the American side (a lot of it actually originates in America, actually), and probably the most listenable Industrial to most casual mainstream ears, despite the popularity of harder Industrial bands on the Top 40.
Edit: Actually, the 'Fear' that I was talking about apparently was performed by Sarah McLachlan, my mistake. Although, that song does have a very Goth-Industrial feel to it.
Goth Metal - This style generally started up in the early to mid 80s, and basically combined Los Angeles metal and hardcore with the dreaminess of Goth Rock. Lately, this form of 'Goth' has been what the mainstream in America is focusing on, with Evanescence (admittedly, they aren't as hard as nearly every other Goth Metal band, but they are Goth Metal nonetheless) and Lacuna Coil, who originated in Italy (also, Evanescence and Lacuna Coil don't have as much influence in the hardcore and Los Angeles metal sections as other bands do; in fact, it's hardly there at all, and what they do have is mostly derived from grunge or the Alternative Metal that existed before nu-metal came around or Alt. Metal got a bunch of Industrial influences).
Many Goth Metal bands do, in fact, come from Scandinavian countries [Sweden and Finland in particular]. Nightwish or Evergrey, for example. However, a lot of the early Goth Metal bands were from around the Los Angeles area's 'death rock' (not death metal, though) scene centered around Christian Death (whose name is supposedly inspired by a goof on the name of fashion designer Christian Dior, but for some reason makes their statements against organized religion a focal point of their music). Cradle of Filth and Christian Death are readily recognized as Goth Metal, but are way too extreme and focused on thrash and death metal/black metal to garner mainstream attention aside from the occasional single or video. Type O Negative is a little more speed metal influenced (although I think they lessened it down to just standard metal), and is tongue-in-cheek most of the time (they even did a cover of a Neil Young song). I don't listen to very much Goth Metal, and the extent of it is contained to the pop acts or pseudo-pop acts, like Evanescence, Lacuna Coil, Nightwish, and the occasional Evergrey and Type O Negative (to date, I only have about two or three songs from either of them). I don't like black metal or death metal so I don't even take a step toward it, and thus I effectively cut out a lot of Goth Metal.
(Continued in next post)
