Gothtober- Looking Back in Anger at Throbbing Gristle's "20 Jazz Funk Greats"

It's time to give a critical listen to the album regarded as Throbbing Gristle's best work. These guys are revered as the forefathers of industrial music, but how good were they? How dark are they? Is this garbage that has been passed down as a sacred cow by hipsters working at record stores and college radio DJs? First off, this is 1979. Their debut was released in October 1977, and Bowie released "Low" in January 1977, so there was already weird and wacky experimentation to trace back to. In 2019, Pitchfork proclaimed this the best industrial album of all time, but was that magazine not a descendant of the hipster lineage mentioned earlier? So let's dig in.

The title track, which opens the album, is colored with some sounds that would later be expanded upon in Psychic TV; here, it offers a tongue-in-cheek intro. "Beachy Head" is a swathe of dark synth sounds, at this point nothing Hawkwind has not done better and turned into an actual song. It would be hard to imagine Hawkwind not being wedged somewhere within the subconsciousness of Uncle Al. "Still Walking" is the first song that would be considered industrial here. But playing around with weird sounds is not a new concept, as Frank Zappa had already released "200 Motels", as well as the "no-wave" scene, and a band like Suicide. Not to mention Boyd Rice's "Black Album" that precedes this band. 

"Tanith" features a bass line that wanders around, accompanied by ambient synths. "Convincing People" finds the grit beginning to work its way in. I like Genesis's vocals on this one. A good song if you are doing drugs, sober, it's more of a novelty. "Exotica" might be seen as an interlude if it were not dragged out for almost three minutes."Hot on the Heels of Love" finds them getting somewhere; the sound collected now would be called synth wave, but someone is slapping a piece a scrap metal here and there in the background.  Some of the doodling synth lines are almost comedic, but I like this for what it is. Electronic music pretty much just evolved in terms of technology, as this composition just works by adding layers. Granted, Kraftwerk formed almost a decade prior. 

I like the mood "Persuasion" creates with the deadpan vocals contrasting the chaos in the background, as this song drones against noise. 'What a Day' does have a more aggressive and angrier pound, which would provide an early starting point for the sounds we call industrial, but it sounds more like songwriting, which is what afflicts this album more often than not. I am not including the bonus tracks included in some of the reissues of this album, so "Six Six Sixties". The guitar line sounds like something Trent Reznor might rip off before; more intentional vocals and stronger beats kick in. Genesis talks his way through this one; you can hear the influence of the Velvet Underground on this. I think giving this album an 8.5, is fair enough, as it allows the adventurous nature of what they were doing to be taken into consideration against the lack of dynamics or attempt to write actual songs, far from the classic people make it out to be,. 

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