Talk:Industrial metal/Archive 3

Suggested additions

There should probably be something here on the Revolting Cocks and Pigface.
Also perhaps a section on crossover with electronic dance music. Lords of Acid did a house-industrial metal crossover, as I recall, and Trent Reznor's also dabbled in that kind of thing. Aryder779 (talk) 16:13, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposal: New "European industrial metal" page

It occurs to me that as this page continues to lengthen, it might be a good idea to split off the "Contemporary European" section into its own page. Neue Deutsche Härte could be merged into this page; cyber metal would redirect there; and crossover with digital hardcore would also be discussed this page. I think this might clean things up. Any positive or negative reactions to this idea? Aryder779 (talk) 15:34, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I've retracted this suggestion. Aryder779 (talk) 18:30, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

According to WP:BETTER, pages should be less than 30Kb of prose. The article is presently at 49 Kb. For this reason, I'm going to create a "European industrial metal" page. Aryder779 (talk) 16:50, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

To Aryder779

First of all, let me tell you what a great job you have done cleaning up this page.

Having said that, I have some comments that might further help this article's improving quality.

• "Wax Trax! groups borrowed from thrash metal, in addition to hardcore punk and classic industrial."

Though essentialy true, we need to source this...

• "Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen also formed the side-project Revolting Cocks."

Also an interesting piece of information but we might try to look at a bigger picture. If, say, a lay person on all matters of Industrial Metal and Ministry read this, would that particular piece of information add much to him in the end of the day?

• "The group melded Black Sabbath with Swans's crawling pace, topped with Throbbing Gristle-like white noise blasts."

Godflesh's influences are important, but shouldn't we also source this?

• "Godflesh nonetheless became an influential act, their name mentioned by KoЯn, Metallica, Danzig, Faith No More, Fear Factory, Converge, and Isis."

When I originally wrote that sentence, my intention was to name popular metal-related bands that were admittedly influenced by Godflesh, hence heightening the latter's importance. And when I mean "popular", I mean groups have won at least one gold record in the ol' US of A - that's like 500,000 copies sold. Although equally important, Converge and Isis don't fit that narrow definition. Do you agree with my criteria?

That's it for now. I'd appreciate your input on my suggestions. Musicaindustrial (talk) 15:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with most of your points. I'll work on getting a source for Wax Trax! and thrash metal. I think it's important that RevCo be mentioned, because they're actually a pretty famous and commercially successful group. I mean, we're mentioning groups like Pitchshifter and Meathook Seed, who I think are much less notable than RevCo. I'll also work on finding sources for Godflesh, which should be too tricky ... I think some of the interviews already cited might support this characterization.

You might be right that Converge and Isis should be cut from that list. They're mentioned as bands influenced on the Godflesh page. I guess I understand the desire to stay focused.

I also think I'd like to retract my previous proposal about creating a new "European industrial metal" page. It seems to me that pages on Wikipedia tend to develop better when they centralized information, rather than breaking off into several redundant sub-pages. With that in mind, I think perhaps there should be a new referendum on merging industrial rock into this page, in the near future. Aryder779 (talk) 18:30, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Swans

Hi Musicaindustrial,
Thanks again for all the work you've done on this page. I do have one slight quibble. Swans are identified as a no wave group, whereas I feel this designation is slightly questionable (noise rock fits better). The no wave designator is often restricted to Mars, Teenage Jesus and The Jerks, DNA, and James Chance and the Contortions, and maybe a few obscure contemporaries or possibly their subsequent projects (Lydia Lunch, John Gavanti, Lounge Lizards, 8 Eyed Spy, etc.). Suicide are also maybe part of the scene. Swans and Sonic Youth are a slightly later iteration that emerged from no wave, but are distinct from it. I tend to think of Swans as being a lot closer to Jesus Lizard or Big Black than to DNA.
It's really a minor point; just wanted to throw that out there.
Where do you think this page should go next? What should I (or other people) try to research? Aryder779 (talk) 00:02, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Billboard 200 Chart Positions

Maybe we should put some Billboard chart positions to, ahem, chart the increasing popularity of Industrial Metal in the mid-1990s. Here's some I found...

Here's the Heatseekers list:

• American Head Charge: The War of Art: #1 [1].
• Fear Factory: Demanufacture: #26 [2].
• Fear Factory: Digimortal: #1 [3].
• Filter: Short Bus: #3 [4].
• God Lives Underwater: Empty: #10 [5].
• KMFDM: Nihil: #16 [6].
• Orgy: Candyass: #1 [7].
• Marilyn Manson: Portrait of An American Family: #35 [8].
• Rammstein: Sehnsucht: #2 [9].
• Spineshank: The Height of Calousness: #13 [10].
• Stabbing Westward: Wither Blister Burn + Peel: #1 [11].
• Static-X: Wisconsin Death Trip: #1 [12].

And here's the The Billboard 200 list:

• Fear Factory: Obsolete: #77 [13].
• Fear Factory: Digimortal: #32 [14].
• KMFDM: Xtort: #92 [15].
• Marilyn Manson: Smells Like Children: #31 [16].
• Marilyn Manson: Antichrist Superstar: #3 [17].
• Marilyn Manson: Remix & Repent: #102 [18].
• Marilyn Manson: Mechanical Animals: #1 [19].
• Marilyn Manson: Holy Wood: #13 [20].
• Marilyn Manson: The Golden Age of Grotesque: #1 [21].
• Marilyn Manson: Lest We Forget: #9 [22].
• Ministry: The Land of Rape and Honey: #164 [23].
• Ministry: The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste: #163 [24].
• Ministry: Psalm 69: #27 [25].
• Ministry: Filth Pig: #19 [26].
• Nine Inch Nails: Broken: #7 [27].
• Nine Inch Nails: The Downward Spiral: #2 [28].
• Nine Inch Nails: Further Down the Spiral: #23 [29].
• Nine Inch Nails: The Fragile: #1 [30].
• Nine Inch Nails: Things Falling Apart: 67# [31].
• Nine Inch Nails: With Teeth: #1 [32].
• Rammstein: Mutter: #77 [33].
• Rob Zombie: Hellbilly Deluxe: #5 [34].
• White Zombie: Astro Creep: 2000 Songs Of Love, Destruction: #6 [35].

And here are some soundtracks related to Industrial Metal artists (The Billboard 200):

• Soundtrack: Lost Highway: #7 [36].
• Soundtrack: Matrix: #7 [37].
• Soundtrack: Natural Born Killers: #19 [38].
• Soundtrack: Spawn: #7 [39].

Musicaindustrial (talk) 13:36, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

A few ideas

These are all fairly minor side-points about crossover, and I hope nobody thinks I'm trying to derail us from the main topic of the article.

• Crossover with hip-hop: Something about Saul Williams should be added to this section, and possibly something about Marilyn Manson's work with Eminem and DMX.
  
• I'm probably going to restore the reference to Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals in the "crossover with glam metal" section when I can find a a better source. Rob Halford's industrial metal work should maybe be mentioned here too.
• Mortiis should be reinserted into the "industrial black metal" section, but I need to rephrase things in order to indicate more specifically what's being said. In general, I need to fill out the references in that section.
  

Again, I appreciate that the real bread and butter of this article should be industrial metal as such, and I don't want to give the impression that I only care about anomalous crossover trivia.
Apparently the current exemplar of a music subgenre on Wikipedia is Grunge music, which surprised me because in some ways I think it's kind of inadequate. Apparently it is supposed to provide the template we should aiming for to eventually get "good article" status, which I think would be cool. Aryder779 (talk) 15:50, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Electro-industrial as a stylistic origin

I've been thinking lately that Skinny Puppy is a prime influence for most industrial metal, and most of their work is considered electro-industrial (sources are included on the page). That makes me think that electro-industrial should be listed in the "stylistic origins" box. Also, in that case, I'm not sure if EBM should be listed as an origin. DAF, Front 242, and Nitzer Ebb are not often cited by many industrial metal groups, as far as I know. Aryder779 (talk) 02:05, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I did some further thought and research, and Front 242 is a pretty big influence on the Wax Trax! scene. So both EBM and electro-industrial should remain listed. Aryder779 (talk) 18:25, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Images

I think we should add some images to this article. There's a live photo of Ministry on their page and also of KMFDM's guitarist on that page. I suggest those images be added to this article as well. Aryder779 (talk) 15:47, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Great. Musicaindustrial (talk) 12:25, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Glam rock/hard rock/heavy metal/glam metal crossover

The "glam metal" crossover section should be revised to include information on David Bowie and Rob Halford's dabblings in industrial metal, as well as Marilyn Manson's industrial glam metal. The trouble is that "glam metal" is not quite inclusive enough a term to include Bowie and Halford, but I'm not sure what to rename it. Perhaps "hard rock" would be a big enough category to include Bowie, Halford, Guns N' Roses, Mötley Crüe, and Manson? Aryder779 (talk) 19:08, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Marilyn Manson's "glam" phase - in a nutshell, Mechanical Animals (1998) - was inspired by two glam rock figureheads: his long-time hero David Bowie (especially his Ziggy Stardust persona) and, by a lesser degree, T. Rex. In it's heyday (the 1970s), glam rock was almost the polar opposite to stuff that was mainstream at the time, such as prog rock and heavy rock (you know, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, etc). It was almost the "alternative rock" of it's time.

Glam metal aka "cock rock", though, is quite another matter. "Cock rock" was formed by L.A. scenesters who took the New Wave of British Heavy Metal's blueprint and basically turned it into party music. Although glam rock and glam metal share a fascination with glitter and visual gender bending, they come come very different places in music. Besides, most of Manson's influences (say, Slayer, Skinny Puppy, Jane's Addiction) come from the extreme metal/industrial music/alternative rock spectrum, which in turn are generally antagonistic towards glam metal.

Ok, what am I trying to say with all of this? That I'd be careful to include Marilyn Manson in the same section as Mötley Crüe. Historically and musically speaking, they're worlds apart... Musicaindustrial (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Basically, there's no need to create controversy on this matter, so if you're skeptical, I'm not going to try to include a lot of heterogeneous material under the same heading. What I would really like to get across is the way that many older rock musicians incorporated elements of industrial metal, and how simultaneously many mainstream industrial metal artists began to see themselves as part of an older tradition. BTW, I see Manson as definitely taking influence from glam metal. A recent interview: "I saw Guns N’ Roses on the Appetite for Destruction tour. It’s really sad to say -- and kids I’m not trying to make any sort of suggestion here, but a lot of people are not as good when they stop doing drugs. I was singing Welcome to the Jungle karaoke last night on my birthday and I had leather pants on." - MM. [40]

In any case, if you think it's controversial, I might just leave the glam metal crossover section as is. Aryder779 (talk)

I'll get back to you later on this Marilyn Manson thing... Right now there's another issue I'd like to focus on: Ministry's inclusion on the "glam metal" section. I argued before (somewhat indirectly) that glam rock was a reaction to hard rock (Led Zeppelin) and progresssive rock (Pink Floyd) which were, according to Al Jourgensen, the reasons that Ministry "went metal" (he's totally making fun out of the interviewer!). There's also a record that Lard released in 2000, a parody of these bands: 70's Rock Must Die [41]. Based on these arguments, I suggest that Ministry should be withdrawn from this section. Musicaindustrial (talk) 14:04, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I understand. We'll cut it. Aryder779 (talk) 01:40, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Also: yeah, you're right, glam metal's not a major direct influence for Marilyn Manson. He has some appreciate for it and I think there's some elements here and there, but I shouldn't emphasize it on this page. Aryder779 (talk) 00:51, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Commercial rise

I changed the 2nd paragraph of the "Commercial rise" section. Here is how it looks like now:

Industrial metal reached its commercial zenith in the latter half of the 1990s. According to the RIAA databases, its top-selling artists, together, shifted around 17,5 million units. Records by major industrial metal artists routinely debuted on the top spots of the Billboard 200 charts: Rob Zombie's Hellbilly Deluxe (#5), Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals (#1), and NIN's The Fragile (#1). By that time Trent Reznor, the movement's most recognizable face, was chosen by Time as one of the most influential Americans in 1997.

Approved? I'd also like to put the Heatseekers chart positions of other industrial metal acts (Rammstein, Static-X, Orgy, etc). Musicaindustrial (talk) 18:29, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, great. Aryder779 (talk) 19:51, 2 January 2009 (UTC)