D.O.A. The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle / THROBBING GRISTLE
This should actually be the first one, but it’s come third.
Throbbing Gristle (TG), the fathers of industrial music.
Of TG’s many masterpieces, I couldn’t decide which one to choose.
20 Jazz Funk Greats is good, and The Second Annual Report is also an important album.
Any of them would be great, but I chose this one because it was the first full-length album I encountered by TG.
It starts with I.B.M. at the beginning and reaches its peak of quiet madness on the seventh track, Hamburger Lady.
I first heard it when I was around 18 years old, and didn’t understand the lyrics…
The technique of implanting images through shocking words and images has always been cutting-edge expression, and TG truly embodied this.
I think it had already been expressed in the art genre, but this was probably the first attempt at it in the rock genre.
Abstract music has been passed down from classical to contemporary music and is spoken of as a legitimate musical lineage, but in the context of rock, they were pioneers, which is perhaps why they are considered ancestors.
I first encountered TG on a compilation album called “The Industrial Records Story," which I bought when I was in high school.
TG contributed the excellent single “We Hate You (Little Girls)."
Both the title and the song were unconventional, and it makes you think that the so-called power electronics style of Whitehouse and Com-Dom might have started with this song.
Next I came across a 12-inch single called Discipline.
It was said to be a masterpiece, so I was looking for it and happened to find it in a used record store.
With its endless, agitating screams and beats, this song was indeed a masterpiece.
The same song is on both sides of the 12-inch, but because it’s from a live performance in a different venue, you can enjoy both.
His songs, both intense and quiet, are one of a kind, and it’s miraculous that he emerged in the late 1970s.
The first time I saw Genesis P-Orridge, the leader of Throbbing Gristle, live in concert was in 1999, at a live performance called Times UP, put on by PSYCHIC TV at the Royal Festival Hall.
I think he had already undergone a sex change at the time, but he had an androgynous image, before he became almost a woman in his later years.
I was so moved by seeing Genesis P-Orridge for the first time that, to be honest, I don’t remember much about the live performance…
It seems that this live performance can now be viewed on YouTube, so if you’re interested, try searching for it.