Front By Front - Front 242 (1988)

Ideated from: this space has unintentionally had a lot of 70s music lately, which makes me seem older than I actually am. So I figured I’d do a week of 80s records to balance it out.

At least to people raised on American pop music, industrial music is weird. It’s danceable but only in a nerdy, unbalanced sort of way. It’s angry, but the aggression is out of phase with metal or punk or rap. Not really techno, not really rock, not really house, not really punk.

What it does have is a lot of rhythmic complexity, a lot of interesting production, and a lot of energy. Front 242 are maybe the best at it. The mechanical precision comes across as cold and off-putting at first, but you can’t deny that it’s bizarrely funky. Once you get into the groove it’s very trance-inducing.

Tracks I Liked

Circling Overland - I think the first industrial song I ever heard. Ominous, beat-heavy, and wildly different from what I was listening to at the time.

Im Rhythmus Bleiben - the most driving and dancefloor-friendly track here

Headhunter v3.0 - not sure if it’s more badass than V1.0 later on in the extra tracks, but still badass