800 Throbbing Gristle - 20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979)

 800 Throbbing Gristle - 20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979)

Studio Album - Industrial


About the Act:

Throbbing Gristle sound like a spoof metal band from the 80s. They were in fact an experimental noise/industrial band from Hull, UK. They were fronted by Genesis P-Orridge, and existed from 1975-1981, and again from 2004-2010. They created quite a lot of controversy and nine albums.


About the Album:

This was the first purely studio album, but their third album overall (the previous albums included live tracks). It has been hailed as a classic, a trailblazer of industrial music, and even as the best album of the 70s. 


My History with this Album:

I have heard it before. I knew what to expect.


Review:

So this is the joke, this is not an album of Jazz/Funk, and there aren't 20 tracks. The album cover looks like they might be a folk band, or 70s croony pop (like the Carpenters) but that is not the case either. The band name sounds like rock/metal, also not the case. They are deliberately using marketing tropes to mislead potential buyers. This is what a lot of people might call "weird music". Actually some people might not class it as music. However, if you like the experimental side of Krautrock (and if you know what that means) then this might appeal to you.

It is mostly rhythms created using either noises (I am convinced that one track has a spade digging in dirt) that are looped, with other noises on top, some electronic, some created by instruments. This is deliberately outside the bounds of normal harmony, and I recognise the style of improvisation, as I have used it myself. It is called "hitting random keys (or notes) with a vague sense of what you are doing". Sometimes the rhythms are a cheap-sounding drum machine. There are even occasional musical bits in a kind of electronic/sequenced way, that remind me of The Human League or Kraftwerk.

And then there is the vocal work. Rarely singing, mostly spoken (and sometimes wordless, like the distressed sounds of somebody not wanting to do something on the track Persuasion). Not all of the tracks have speech, and when they do it is, predictably weird. Some of it is quite sinister

All in all it sounds like the soundtrack to a nightmare scene in an experimental Russian Movie from the 80s. 

So here's the thing, this is not outside my sphere of reasonably normal listening. It's not what everyone would call music, and it's an acquired taste. If it's not a taste you want to acquire, I don't blame you. It is deliberately niche and it happens to be a niche I am somewhat familiar with. 

I quite liked it. 

7/10


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/488gCmexSig1tEFnseqaCW?highlight=spotify:track:0NERfJl0vNI9MyrblzdWLx

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHP7bAjOIkpDB9CeppsktBztrpxk0i-yF

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_Jazz_Funk_Greats



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