Consequence’s Industrial Week rolls on with our staff list of the genre’s Top 50 songs. Keep checking back throughout the week for more lists, artist-driven content, premieres, essays, and more. Keep up with all of our Industrial Week content, including our Best Industrial Albums of All Time list, and check back for more lists, artist-curated features, essays, and more.
What makes a song “industrial?” It’s a question we’ve often pondered this past week at Consequence throughout our ongoing celebration of the genre. Harsh and liberal use of distortion; the implementation of electronics and synths alongside rock instrumentation; a generally subversive and bleak world outlook… all viable identifiers for what we would consider industrial music.
To go a step further: What makes an industrial song truly great? When compiling our ranking of the Top 50 industrial tracks of all-time, we not only looked for the aforementioned sonic descriptors, but also took into account exterior factors, namely the song’s influence and legacy in the grand scheme of the genre.
During industrial’s formative years, a song like Caberet Voltaire’s “Nag Nag Nag” and the work of Throbbing Gristle (i.e. “Hamburger Lady,” “Hot on the Heels of Love”) used post-punk and musique concrète as a launching point for more extreme sonic destinations. Meanwhile, iconoclastic act Einstürzende Neubauten sought to create a twisted form of dance music using whatever sounds available — power tools, machinery, oil drums, etc. — on songs like “Yü-Gung.”
These forerunners paved the way for acts like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry — the former’s “Head Like a Hole” and the latter’s “Stigmata” launching industrial music to mainstream prominence while spawning sub-genres such as industrial rock and industrial metal, where the likes of Rammstein and Rob Zombie would soon emerge. Consider the following list an exploration of industrial music in its myriad forms, from the early days and the earliest usage of the genre tag itself, up to the present, in a time when industrial’s post-modern proclivities ring as poignant as ever.
See our picks for the 50 Best Industrial Songs of All Time below, and view our other Industrial Week features here.
Jon Hadusek,
Senior Staff Writer