"But they were here first!"

One of the strange ideas I see circulated in discussions about music is what I guess you could call the "they were here first" myth (I haven't yet thought of a better name for it, feel free to suggest one). This is the idea that if someone (a musical artist or group) was the first to perform music of a certain genre, then they are automatically accorded supreme elite status, and considered the one and only true performers of that style. This idea I find to be particularly common in the industrial music scene. I also believe it to be completely untrue.

The first people to perform and record what is known as industrial music were Throbbing Gristle. There isn't much debate about this. There is a debate however about the progression of industrial music from there.
You generally find amongst the snobby "industrial purists" or elitists out there an attitude that Throbbing Gristle and their immediate descendants (Einsturzende Neubauten, Coil, Cabaret Voltaire, SPK) are the only actual industrial bands. Everyone else is either a feeble imitator (the various experimental or "noise art" groups since those acts were around), or playing a completely different genre altogether (i.e.any EBM band, any industrial rock / metal band, any dark ambient or death industrial band, any japanoise band, any aggrotech band, any power noise / power electronics band, basically any and every band that is called "industrial" by 99.99% of the people who know anything about those bands). According to the industrial purist (generally a rather vile specimen of human being), all those bands are in fact "post-industrial".

What the hell? Post-industrial? Why not industrial? "Because it's different!" the purist screams. "It doesn't sound like Throbbing Gristle. It doesn't sound anything like it!". Right. So a style can't change? AC / DC doesn't sound anything like Chuck Berry. So should we stop calling AC / DC a rock band and call them "post-rock"? Herbie Hancock doesn't sound much at all like early Dixieland Jazz. So is it "post-jazz"? Of course not.

Industrial purists seem horrified that people who have twisted and distorted the "original spirit" of Throbbing Gristle should inherit their name and mantle. Which is a bit lame, because twisting and distorting things was one of the original and fundamental tenets of industrial music. They also seem to follow this myth I mentioned earlier, that if you're the first person to do something, then that automatically means you did it in the best and most pure way. Throbbing Gristle must have by default captured the essence of industrial music, because they did it first.

I think it's perfectly possible, if not probably, that the first people to do something did not really capture or understand it. They were just scratching the surface, discovering bits and pieces, beginning to clear away the dust and cobwebs that surround the true ideas of the genre. Sometimes it requires other perspectives and ideas from other people, working with the initial discoveries, to really push the boundaries further.

Now am I here claiming that KMFDM or Nitzer Ebb captured the "pure truth" of industrial music? Absolutely not. But if you ask me, I’d say that the most “industrial” sounding album you’re ever likely to find, is Xenonics K-30’s “Automated”. This is an album of noise music released in a rare collaboration by power electronics artist Navicon Torture Technologies, and power noise artist Converter. It is a brutal, bludgeoning, smashing cacophony of steel, madness and destruction, and I love it. It was also released in the year 2002, decades after Gristle were fucking around with tape loops. And the really ironic thing? I’d say 90% of the snobby “industrial purists” out there have never even heard of it.