Industrial metal
[3] Industrial metal did well in the early 1990s, particularly in North America,[5] with the success of groups such as Nine Inch Nails, but its popularity began to fade in the latter half of the 1990s.
[7] British post-punk band Killing Joke pioneered the crossing over between styles[8] and was an influence on major acts associated with industrial metal such as Ministry, Godflesh, and Nine Inch Nails.
[8][11] By the late 1980s industrial and heavy metal began to fuse into a common genre,[3] with Godflesh's self-titled EP[12] and Ministry's The Land of Rape and Honey at the forefront.
[13] Drawing from a wide array of influences—power electronics forefathers Whitehouse,[14] noise rock band Swans,[15] ambient music creator Brian Eno[13] and fellow Birmingham hard rockers Black Sabbath[16]—the Godflesh sound was once described as "Pornography-era The Cure on Quaaludes".
[17] Though not a top seller,[18] Godflesh nonetheless became an influential act, their name mentioned by Korn,[19] Metallica,[20] Danzig,[21] Faith No More,[22] and Fear Factory.
[23] Ministry's initial foray into guitar rock happened during a recording session of The Land of Rape and Honey on Southern Studios, in London.
Then I heard that first feedback come out of the Marshall stack and all of a sudden it was like there was a whole new parameter within guitar playing itself – especially in combination with sounds that you get out of a keyboard.Jourgensen seemed particularly fond of thrash metal.
So the fascination, actually, was to sample a great riff, loop it, and play it over and over again.A Swiss trio, The Young Gods, brushed with the style on their second album, L'Eau Rouge (1989).
[33] Nine Inch Nails, the "one-man-band" formed by Trent Reznor, brought the genre to mainstream audiences with albums such as the Grammy-winning Broken[34] and the best-selling The Downward Spiral, accompanied by their groundbreaking performance at Woodstock '94.
[36] Some electro-industrial groups adopted industrial metal techniques in this period, including Skinny Puppy (on their Rabies, co-produced by Jourgensen),[37] and Front Line Assembly.
[40] Frontman JS mentions:[41] [...]In the early days we were inspired by bands like Head of David and Swans and the like... coming out of punk into the weird, angry, total noise, kind of pre-industrial music.
[42] Some musicians emerging from the death metal scene, such as Fear Factory, Nailbomb, Autokrator and Meathook Seed, also began to experiment with industrial.
Fear Factory, from Los Angeles,[43] were initially influenced by the Earache roster (namely Godflesh, Napalm Death and Bolt Thrower).
Sepultura singer Max Cavalera's Nailbomb, a collaboration with Alex Newport, also practiced a combination of extreme metal and industrial production techniques.
[68] The Kovenant[69] was the first band to develop cyber metal with some of its more well-known aspects: harsh vocals, extreme guitar melodies, and symphonic keyboards.
A wave of other bands described as cyber metal would follow, including Deathstars,[70] Mnemic,[71][72] Sybreed,[73][74] Turmion Kätilöt,[75] Illidiance,[76] Cypecore,[77][78] Mechina,[79][80] and Neurotech.
[90] Industrial metal reached its commercial zenith in the latter half of the 1990s – according to the RIAA databases, its top-selling artists sold around 17.5 million units combined.
[84][91] Records by major industrial metal artists routinely debuted on the top spots of the Billboard 200 chart: Rob Zombie's Hellbilly Deluxe (No.
[100] The genre's popularity was such that established glam metal groups, including Guns N' Roses and Mötley Crüe, began to dabble in the style.
"[108] Skinny Puppy frontman Nivek Ogre dismissed Nine Inch Nails as "cock rock"[109] but have since patched things up and have even performed on stage together.
In an April 2000 review for the Chicago Sun Times, Jim DeRogatis dismissed Nine Inch Nails' new music as a "generic brand of industrial thrash" and accused Ministry of repeating an act that "was old by 1992".
These include Godflesh's collaboration with Andres Serrano,[117] Aidan Hughes's graphics for KMFDM,[118] Nine Inch Nails' work with Mark Romanek,[119] Rob Zombie's visual work for White Zombie (for which he received the MTV Video Music Award for Best Hard Rock Video),[120] and Marilyn Manson's output with Richard Kern[121] and Floria Sigismondi.
[123] Trent Reznor also produced the soundtracks for the films Natural Born Killers and Lost Highway, and served as "musical consultant" for Man on Fire.
For example, Sen. Bob Dole, then head of the Republican Party, sharply criticized Time Warner after a meeting between Michael J. Fuchs (head of the Warner Music Group), William Bennett, and C. Delores Tucker, at which Tucker and Bennett demanded that Fuchs read lyrics from NIN's "Big Man with a Gun".
[133] A year later, Bennett, Tucker, and Joseph Lieberman launched a similar campaign against MCA Records for their distribution of Marilyn Manson's music.
[130] In addition, Dennis Cooper cited Ministry's video for "Just One Fix", which featured footage of William S. Burroughs, as an early example of heroin chic.
[135]: 106–107 Some initial reports claimed that Columbine High School shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were Marilyn Manson fans.
I'm a controversial artist, one who dares to have an opinion and bothers to create music and videos that challenge people's ideas in a world that is watered-down and hollow.
