What is this 101 Greatest Industrial Songs Project all about?







Okay,well as most of you now know that for the past couple of months I have been busy working on a giant project in trying to figure out what people consider the “101 Greatest Industrial Songs of All Time” were. Now this all started while reading a Rolling Stones article about the supposed “top 500 songs of all time” and getting upset at where they placed Wings "Band of the Run" on the list (something like #430 or something). It got me wondering about what people would consider the top 500 "industrial" songs of all time might be and what songs people would think would actually fall under the "Industrial umbrella".







Well I made a “master” list of songs and artists that, when printed out was over 29 pages long by using my own extensive cd and vinyl collection, you tube, and discogs.com. At the beginning of December I sent it out to people to vote on. Who did I get to vote on this massive project? Well I sent out about 260 ballots to people to vote on it who are djs, musicians, promoters, magazine editors, some of the better known side-line/metro forum people, club owners, cd and vinyl collectors etc etc etc. I wasn't shooting for the "average fly by night" fan but actually people who might have some extensive knowledge about the subject and whose opinions may actually be taken quite seriously. I placed under the "Industrial Umbrella" everything from EBM,IDM, Metal, Synthpop, New Wave, No Wave, Gothic, Drum and Bass,Techno, Dubstep, Ambient, neofolk,martial industrial and powernoise. Also because everyone's definition is different the voters were made up of people between the ages 20-50+ and from all over the world (USA, Canada, Europe, Australia etc etc)



I did not lay out any rules or groundwork and the people could even write in their favorites if they didn't see them on my master list. Much like voting for the Baseball Hall of Fame they could use whatever criteria they like. Is is based on sales or popularity, is their vote based on how influential the song/artist was?, Is their voting based on the number of requests they get for a certain song while dj'ing?, is it just based on their personal preference? Like I said I left that up to each individual voter.







My hope in doing this project is to create some interest and excitement again about our beloved genre of “industrial” which so often gets buried behind just about every other musical genre even though most of it these days (pop, metal, techno, dubstep” incorporate some form of “industrial” influence. The list and information is extensive and pretty overwhelming but I hope and even encourage people to post videos, comment on the song selections and tag the artists (only if they are friends of yours and you don't think they'll get upset being tagged over the course of the next 3 weeks OR you are the artist yourself) and to share this information and these “notes” as much as possible. Share them with your friends who like “dubstep”, share them with your friends who like “metal”--hell share them with your little sister who loves Lady Gaga---Let's give these songs and bands the recognition they deserve. For those of you who may already be well schooled in most of these artists I would tell you to seek out maybe 5-10 songs each day off these lists that you aren't familiar with or haven't heard in a very long time. Buy those cds and lps and purchase those LEGAL mp3s to help support the scene, these artists and their labels again let's get this information spread around the internet so much that people will be forced to pay attention to these bands and labels.







I want to thank each and everyone of the voters because even though I had warned everyone in the beginning that this wasn't going to be as easy as they thought it would be they all quickly found out what a time consuming and passionate project completing their ballots would be. I also want to thank my wife, Jean and my 1 year old son, Jonah for putting up with this project over the past 6 months. There have been notes, papers, stacks of cds and vinyl records all over the house, I've stripped down one of my laptops completely just to store these songs on it and have taken too much time away from my family.







I want to end this part of the introduction with a few reminders. Please don't make fun of some of these songs or take offense at the placement of a particular song especially if you are one of the artists, musicians, writers etc etc of them including the ones that could be considered in the “lower tier” of the voting. People (and in many cases several people) picked your songs out and voted for them out of the thousands and thousands of “electronic” songs that have been released over the past 37+ years. Think about that, your song (or songs) have made the top 4000 list of “Industrial” songs of all time out of all of the songs that have been released, you should feel good about yourself for writing, singing or performing a song that has affected and influenced so many people especially since many of these voters are your peers.







Oh yes, the scoring The final results are based on total Points scored from all of the voters and the final ranking shows, points, # of voters and highest Vote received. If ties are still maintained after that it is simply by alphabetical order (sorry but setting it up with T for ties and shifting #'s would have taken another week)



With that said here we go......Please Enjoy and Please Share this Information as much as possible



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Well this is it, we've reached the final 101 Greatest Industrial Songs- Almost 9 months of work to finally get to this conclusion. I want to thank all of the voters who gave their time and their opinions (which may have opened them up to public scrutiny in some cases). I want to thank all of the websites, magazines and bloggers that have helped to share the results of this project and I want to thank you, the reader, for discussing, following, posting and commenting on these results. I also want to thank Gary Kaze, Club ? in Milwaukee, Ric Laciak, Micah Skarita, and my wife Jean who has seriously put up with stacks of papers, note cards, vinyl and cds all over the house for over 6 months now.







People keep asking me what I had hoped to accomplish with this project and my hope in doing this project was to create some interest and excitement again about our beloved genre of “industrial” which so often gets buried behind just about every other musical genre even though most of it these days (pop, metal, techno, dubstep” incorporate some form of “industrial” influence. The list and information is/was extensive and pretty overwhelming and was originally posted as “notes” on my facebook page and shared around by a ton of people. I had encouraged people to post videos, comment on the song selections and tag the artists and to share this information and these results as much as possible. I wanted them to share them with your friends who like “dubstep”, share them with your friends who like “metal”--hell share them with your little sister who loves Lady Gaga---I wanted to try to give these songs and bands the recognition they deserve. For those of you who may already be well schooled in most of these artists I would still tell you to seek out maybe 5-10 songs each day off these lists that you aren't familiar with or haven't heard in a very long time. Buy those cds and lps and purchase those LEGAL mp3s to help support the scene, these artists and their labels again let's get this information spread around the internet so much that people will be forced to pay attention to these bands and labels.







People keep trying to tell me to give it up and that this scene is dead now and to move onto to other bands such as Sleigh Bells, Skrillex, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears,Deadmau5, Die Antwoord,and Light Asylum that this is where the future of our "industrial" scene lies. Well I disagree, hopefully this list will help provide a spark and can help to get a few more people to check out artists such as I:scintilla, Chemlab, Assemblage 23, Stromkern, Haujobb, Caustic, Smp, Stiff Valentine, Left Spine Down or even the Gothsicles. We have the momentum on our side, there are still labels such as Metropolis, WTII, Vendetta, Artoffact, Dsbp, and Nilaihah, Ant-zen, Tympanik and Signifier putting out amazing electronic music. There's been several successful festivals now in North America such as the Kinetik festival, Wax Trax Retrospecticle and the WTT Records Minifest. You look at the attention that the Electronic Saviors Compilation (both one and the new version soon to be released) has garnered and it provides you with hope. There are several websites now where you can get your "industrial" music news such as I Die: You Die, Coma Music Magazine, Side-Line and Gothic Beauty, Outburn and Metal Hammer still cover some of the scene's band and news and there's even rumors of Permission and Industrial Nation magazines starting up again this year! So lets utilize these assets that we have an increase the scope and spectrum of our "Industrial" scene







When looking back over all of these results I want to remind people not to make fun of some of these songs or take offense at the placement of a particular song especially if they are one of the artists, musicians, writers etc etc of them including the ones that could be considered in the “lower tier” of the voting. People (and in many cases several people) picked their songs out and voted for them out of the thousands and thousands of “electronic” songs that have been released over the past 37+ years. Stop to think about that and what this list means, one of their songs have made the top 4000 list of “Industrial” songs of all time out of all of the songs that have been released, they should feel good about writing, singing or performing a song that has affected and influenced so many people especially since many of these voters are their peers. This truly is the "best of the best" industrial songs of all time and I believe that you can't go wrong with listening to or suggesting any of the songs on this list







And as a final note there are several websites such as I Die: You Die and Coma Music that will be doing some special articles about the top 100 songs as well as several magazines such as Meat For Tea that will also be doing some write ups as well----plus I've been interviewed by a few places about this project but I'll get those links up as they are printed but I hope you have all enjoyed following these results as much as I have had putting it together for all of you. Please keep spreading the word and enjoy!