If you haven't yet, click on the link and give it a shot. You can also read other folks' responses in the comments section for that post. (And, for the record, I do love my wife, despite the first track that came up on her iPod.)
In other news, I spent a fair amount of time last night (or maybe the night before--I'm not 100% sure) trying to write a review of Skinny Puppy's album Mythmaker. I realized, after about 500 words worth of trying to explain who the hell Skinny Puppy even is to all but two of you, that the only helpful thing I'd accomplished was formulating the following theorem, which I call "Morgue's Law of Industrial Music." To wit:
"If it sounds like Skinny Puppy, but it isn't, it probably sucks."The corollary to that law would be:
"Even if it is Skinny Puppy, you'll probably hate it."Because, really, to most people, saying you like Skinny Puppy is pretty much shorthand for, "I often mistake anger, hate, and noise for music," if they even know who the hell Skinny Puppy is.
That said, Mythmaker continues a trend in Skinny Puppy music that largely carries over from "Oghr," the side project of two of its members: it's less annoying and more accessible than their previous work. On their last album, I really only liked a song or three. This one ups that to four or five.
At this rate, I might like an entire Skinny Puppy album by 2012.
(If they don't lose any more members to heroin overdoses before then, that is.)
2 comments:
Skinny Puppy was my favorite of the Industrial bands. My industrial view was pretty narrow, and it centered around SP. There was a time when they were definitely my favorite band. Most industrial has too much dance beat and not enough noise for me. I'd go more the way of Throbbing Gristle than the more technoish beats.
I think Last Rights was the last SP album I bought, which I think is pretty much where they broke off into their side projects, and the junk. I liked some of the side stuff and I've heard stuff after that. But though it has a bit of the Skinny Puppy feel, it just doesn't have the same harshness that I love about Skinny Puppy.
I also blame it on the technology, the early stuff always sounded like they were pushing the tech and getting these really nasty sounds. Later the noise becomes more polished. But that's a common problem I have with many bands, especially guitar sounds today, the distortion sounds, so nice and perfect it's shouldn't even be called distortion.
Sorry a pet peeve, back to Skinny Puppy.
Well not really much more to say. Also I'm sure Ogre's vocals turned off many a listener, but I think they were awesome. Besides being weird, noisey, and angry they were treated as another instrument in the song, and the treatments build a big part of the song.
Ok that rambles a bit, but I have to get back to work.
My favorite was always Front 242, but, unlike Skinny Puppy, they haven't done anything worth listening to since 1993. I think we differ on the value of distortion, probably. I have a certain fondness for cruddy-sounding industrial stuff, but 242 had pretty polished production for the most part, and I preferred that.
Ogre's voice is his trademark, that's for sure, and it's practically a national landmark in industrial music. I personally think his voice is a lot more interesting when they aren't filtering it through nine synthesizers and a dead cat.
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