Dear Industrial: You've probably been wondering why we've grown apart January 17, 2012

(Note: I'm about to totally pick on a single band. It's not because this band is exactly deserving of it more than others, it's just what inspired this... separation. I hope the band in question, should they ever come across this, NOT take it personally. Seriously, if there's a villain to be picked in all of this, it's almost certainly me.)

I can recall the exact moment that I actively stopped enjoying my hangout time with Industrial music. I'd gotten my morning hit of coffee from the local corner Starbucks (no value judgements, please - that's what was available in the neighborhood), had done the juggling dance that includes turning your ipod off to say hello to the security guard while pulling your security badge out to buzz in, and managing to spill just enough hot coffee on my hands while doing it to go extra spastic, and was dumping all of my stuff off at my desk. 

I settled into work, only to find that my morning meeting was canceled. Hooray! It was time to get stuff done before I got mired down into the usual bog of questions, answers, commentary, and exasperated befuddlement. Hmm, some music would really go down a treat right now... so I headed over to the webcast archive at the DNA Lounge. My wife had gone to Death Guild the previous night, so I figured I'd go ahead and hear what she heard, and fired up the audio stream. 

It had been a couple of years since I'd really kept up with anything going on Industrial-wise, so I wasn't really in the loop about what was going on, and I wasn't really paying that much attention. Then one of the DJ's piped up over the PA about a giveaway, and then announced that night's featured artist (or perhaps it was a track off of the giveaway, I don't quite remember), and the song started. And I got excited, because wow, for the first time in awhile there was some new electronic music that was making me interested and kind of excited, and it was also really excellent Let's Get Shit DONE music: 

It's dancey, with some hard-edged bits here and there, but it's still accessible. And accessible is okay, because sometimes you want to sit down and enjoy music without having to power through dense layers of what-the-fuckery to get to the secret nugget of... what, exactly? 

Anyways, I was really digging it! I was really happy... maybe I'd find a way back to new industrial music, and maybe people were starting to do stuff I'd find interesting again. It was exciting, because good new music is like a breath of sparkling air right across the top of your brain. 

And THEN:

Dude. Seriously? "I Am The Filth"? You sound like you need a Ricola, a week's bed rest, and a nice talking-to about being a big silly while posturing. Because that was the biggest dash of cold, soapy water right across my musical boner, to have someone suddenly telling me how god-damned dangerous they were. And "filth"? It makes me want to chase you with a bottle of Tilex and a scrub brush. 

Before you chastise me, I know I'm not being fair - after all, I can still listen to C-Tec's "Foetal" and still get a wee shiver when Jean-Luc DeMeyer sings "I was the fire below the feet of Joan of Arc". But the critical difference here is that then I felt like I was being told a story, whereas with this... I felt like I was listening to bathroom grafitti/chest-pounding. It made it anti-fun, right then and there. This is, quite exactly, the face that I made: 

I tried. I really tried to dig it, because it's actually a really good song musically. And I know I'm hanging a lot on one single song and being unfair to one single band... but after that, that was kind of it. I just couldn't really get excited about any new industrial music after that. And of course, as always, your mileage may vary...

... and if so, maybe there's some extra love for the band to be had because of all of this. But in the meantime, industrial music, you and I? I don't think this lack of hanging out together thing is a state of affairs that will change any time soon. 

(And again, apologies to the band - I hope they're really good sports about me using them to make a point about my tastes and how they've changed, and that it's mostly about that... mostly)