[17] In June 1978 Hütter reused the phrase in an interview with WKSU radio (Kent, Ohio) to explain the more physical character of the Kraftwerk album The Man-Machine.

[24][25] Described as an outgrowth of "electronically generated punk [music] intertwined with industrial sounds,"[26] EBM has been characterized as a composite of programmed drum beats, repetitive basslines, and clear or slightly distorted vocals, instructional shouts or growls[27] complemented with reverberation and echo effects.

[9] Typical EBM rhythms rely on the 4/4 disco beat or rock-oriented backbeats,[8] (featuring kick drum, snare and hi-hat) and some minor syncopation.

[28] EBM evolved from a combination of post-punk, industrial and post-industrial music sources, including The Normal, Suicide, DAF, Die Krupps, Killing Joke, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle[9] and Test Dept.

[4][9] The song "Warm Leatherette" (The Normal, 1978) stands at the beginning of an important development, the electrified version of Punk that had been picked up and transformed in Düsseldorf by bands like Die Krupps, DAF and Liaisons Dangereuses, music that might be called proto-EBM at least.

[30]Other influences include the synth-pop music of The Human League and Fad Gadget; and the krautrock-inspired dance hit "I Feel Love" by Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer.

[31][9] Daniel Bressanutti (Front 242), who helped establish the term EBM, named the soundscapes of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze as additional influences along Kraftwerk, Throbbing Gristle, the sequencer-based electro-disco of Giorgio Moroder,[32] and the punk movement.

[6] Emerging in the early 1980s in Germany and Belgium,[33] bands such as DAF, Die Krupps,[34] Liaisons Dangereuses,[30] and Front 242 started to blend danceable rhythms and repetitive sequencer lines.

[35] Archetypical songs are Verschwende deine Jugend, Alle gegen alle and Der Mussolini by DAF; Wahre Arbeit, wahrer Lohn, Goldfinger and Für einen Augenblick by Die Krupps; Etre assis ou danser, Los niños del parque and Avant-après mars by Liaisons Dangereuses, and Body to Body, U-Men and He Runs Too Fast for Us by Front 242.

[43] In the second half of the 1980s, the genre became popular in Canada (Front Line Assembly[44]) and the U.S. (Ministry,[45] Revolting Cocks,[46] Schnitt Acht[47])[9] as well as in Sweden (Inside Treatment, Pouppée Fabrikk, Cat Rapes Dog) and Japan (2nd Communication, DRP, Soft Ballet).

Notable acts at that time included And One,[49] Armageddon Dildos,[50] Bigod 20,[51] Insekt,[52] Scapa Flow,[53] Orange Sector,[54] Paranoid,[55] and Electro Assassin.

[65] Appropriating totalitarian, Socialist and Fascist references, symbols, and signifiers has been a recurring topic of debate between fans and outsiders to the genre alike due to its stylistical ambiguity that stems from industrial music's contrarian nature.

[69] According to Gabi Delgado-López of Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, the duo who adopted an aesthetic of black leather and military paraphernalia in the early 1980s was inspired by the male homosexual sado-masochistic scene and is not meant to represent "machismo ideology" but part of a "role.

While EBM has minimal structures and a clean production, electro-industrial draws on deep, complex and layered sounds, incorporating elements of ambient industrial.

In general, industrial dance is characterized by its "electronic beats, symphonic keyboard lines, pile-driver rhythms, angst-ridden or sampled vocals, and cyberpunk imagery".