So I came to the obviously dated and redundant conclusion that Alain Jourgensen is essentially the post-punk P Diddy of Chicago

The "Cold Life" Ministry was essentially Al and buddies trying to be A Certain Ratio.. or at least had some bassist who really got off on slapping those humbuckaz. I'm not sure who the lineup was at the time, but it didn't take long before With Sympathy came out on Arista, and Al and That Other Guy became the face of Ministry under the guise of synth-pop producers. "I Wanted To Tell Her" was essentially "Cold Life"'s instrumental track "Primental" with vocals overdubbed on top... and the rest is just classic synth pop fluff.. "Effigy", "Work For Love", "Revenge"... and that video for the latter. Oh yes. Poor forlorn Al.

Around the same time, slightly before, Wax Trax comes along and debuts its label with a quickly forgotten single by a band called Strike Under and then slightly ups the ante with a Divine single.. I guess it started being influenced by the local post-punk/new wave scene in Chicago, but also partially from Megatone Records and all things Bobby "O" as well. Interest in overseas acts like Front 242 kinda fuel what would all become this agglomerate "Wax Trax!" sound, especially when Ministry starts working on its post With Sympathy work.. which is possibly the only point where one can exhibit some originality in Al's work.. namely "All Day", "Everyday Is Halloween", "Nature Of Love", and the really weird Cruelty mix of said song... which isn't saying incredibly much. The best of this era is in the form of remixes done by very creative Chicago dance producers.. "Halloween Remix" being a perfect example of this.

Also noteworthy is that Revolting Cocks -- which was then a collaboration between Al and Belgians Richard 23 (Front 242) and Luc Van Acker -- would release their first single "No Devotion/Attack Ships On Fire", which is very much an early PiL/post-punk discoey influenced deal that just goes on and on and on, with very ugly monstrous vocals over it. (At the same time, not only is a band in Vancouver is starting to perfect this same type of approach in a more synthy way, but some fellows named Steve, Santiago, and a third guy have already perfected this approach in Chicago as well, under the name Big Black. *foreshadowing doodly doodly doodly*)

But after that, things would vastly improve with Twitch. The thing is.. that album is essentially an Adrian Sherwood/On-U Sound album with Al as the frontman. Keith LeBlanc's Major Malfuction album is just a degree away from it in sound. Al maybe should be given credit for the contribution of gutteral noise on the final trifecta that ends Twitch, which is amazing... however, it's not as if Mark Stewart's As The Veneer Of Democracy Starts To Fade from 1985 -- another Adrian Sherwood/On-U Sound production -- isn't any less noisy.. in fact, it's highly more fucked up and sounds just a precursor to the noisier moments on Twitch, except maybe the latter has more Einsturzende Neubauten (or, more cogently, Depeche Mode, at the time) influences alongside. Also, an unsurfaced 1984 demo on that Ministry Early Trax comp showed that Al had been in touch with Sherwood during the previous year or so, because one of those songs is essentially the LeBlanc/Sherwood track "M.O.V.E." with Al sounding like a post-esophagal-operation Joan Rivers over it. I guess Al rejected it, because Tackhead would reuse the song a couple of times soon after.

Revco release their first album Bigsexyland the same year, which seems like it was an independent effort influenced by working with and hearing Sherwood's work, as well as adopting what Cabaret Voltaire were doing in their early Virgin years, when they became far more dancey but were still sounding slightly "off" and paranoid.

More interestingly, and probably the most original thing Al has done, is the Revco "You Often Forget" single. Ironically, the Benign version, clearly the best of the two songs, has YET to be reissued on any Revco release, even given the recent reissues, which is highly puzzling.

Things get a little more interesting after that because Al wants to "rock" right now, and there's promise due to the initial Pailhead single "I Will Refuse/No Bunny" done with Ian MacKaye, which is the first anyone would hear from a Ministry-related thing since Twitch, and would be a radical departure and shock to those who expected.. well more Twitch-ey sounds. Pailhead's Trait EP would follow soon in early 1988. Thing is, "Man Should Surrender" is essentially and old Blackouts song from 1985 reused! -- from the Lost Souls Club EP issued by Wax Trax just two years prior. And guess who's become somewhat permanent members of Ministry from here on out? Yes, Paul Barker, a former Blackouts member himself. "Don't Stand In Line" is great, but the other songs sound very first-album PiL influenced, which is not only the single biggest influence in Seattle-area post-punk, aside from The Birthday Party (Hello, U-Men!) in the early 80s, if you pick up any Seattle Syndrome compilation from the time, where Bill Rieflin drums in about half of the bands on each comp -- but a point to be revisited.

There's a segment in Our Band Would Be Your Life where Azerrad gets to get in his dig at Al in the Fugazi chapter where he reports Ian and Al having a very emotional discussion in 1988 or so over whether Al should sign to Sire or stick to his undie roots -- as Fugazi had or were about to release their initial EP. Ian cheers on the latter. And, of course, the former happens. Azerrad then kinda digs into Al for that choice and leaves it at that.

And I'd sympathize with Al for that choice had it not been an even bigger pedestal with which more obvious appropriation would result. Al is now Motorjunkie Badass, and gets to show the world how "fucked up" and "hard" Ministry always wanted to be. Essentially, aside from the more "Wax Trax!"-ey sounding songs that pad the album, The Land Of Rape And Honey would combine Slayer, Big Black, and Killing Joke, essentially, in a very tinny way. I didn't dislike the album at the time, but time has not been kind to this record.

By now, the buzz has started, thanks to the Sire deal, and I think this is where the term "rivethead" fortifies, as there's a context of metal/punk musical tastes for people who also liked industrual dance music before..

Al and Paul chisel away at what many call "throwaway Wax Trax!" side projects, which IMHO are far more interesting than the actual Ministry product.. PTP, Acid Hourse, etc. I think Brian Lustmord plays a joke at Wax Trax!'s expense and fabricates a parody "Wax Trax!" type band under the name TGT (The Genetic Terrorists(!)) just to see if the "band" gets signed. And they do! And TGT make a video as well. "REVO!" It's absolutely absurd. And this pretty much justifies all the jokes that the indie rock labels at the turn of the 90s were making about the Wax Trax! label and New Beat music -- which was this parallel form of Belgian dance music that was very minimal, had Wax Trax! elements, and was very tongue-in-cheek pornographic (which would ironically boomerang back once the indie rock labels would buckle down to an even mostly sadder genre in the form of "Elektroklash")

Also some guy named Trent in Cleveland would get a deal together with then-budding TVT records -- the label known for the Television's Greatest Hits releases and nothing more label (heh heh) -- and put out a little album named Pretty Hate Machine... "Head Like A Hole" would break into commersh alt radio, and would be lambasted for being a "pop industrial". Trent would try to fortify his "industrial cred" by taking part in vocalizing another Al-side project's cover of a Black Sabbath song that would never get released due to contractual issues.. but he'd also take part in Pigface minimally, which wouldn't last long. Trent would then make a derogatory comment about not wanting to sound like Nitzer Ebb, and also completely destroying Front Line Assembly in the press apart for thinking how unoriginal their music was.. which was like attacking Rivethead Mecca at the time.

Anyway, about a year and half later, A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste comes out, and Ministry are now on the throne of "industrial rock"... which isn't really "industrial" anymore as much as just tinny-sampled rock music with a combination of preprogrammed and live drums, and lots of early PiL sounding dirges... also Al takes a relative vocal backseat to his main band now, as Chris Connelly takes a more gripping frontman role here, especially during the live shows... (he had recently joined the Revco lineup). Meanwhile, the second Revco album comes out.. Beers, Steers, and Queers, which is funny and hokey and has some fun in it, but also has not dated very well at at all... especially when you have to rely on the Skatenigs for most of the inspiration here. The only true highlight on this album, "Get Down", is essentially a Loop rip-off with Ogre on vocals. "Stainless Steel Providers" is a more dancey Ministry song, with Chris Connelly on vocals, which is also a highlight, but the rest of the album, sans title track, is mostly forgettable. The "Stainless Steel Providers" video was the straw that broke the camel's back in Wax Trax!'s relationship with Al at the time, among many other (*sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiff*) things, because apparently Wax Trax! shelled out a lot of money for the video to this song mainly for the climactic scene where (oooh!) the band set a motorcycle on fire and push it off the side of a building. Al thought the take was weak, and wanted more money to redo it again. Wax Trax! refused. Al bitches about this in several intervews at the time. Meanwhile, Front 242, Wax Trax's other cash cow, has been signed away to Sony, and the label just starts to derail given its direction at the time.. not too long after, Al sells off his stock in Wax Trax!, with KMFDM (and I think Front Line Assembly) being the only cash-cow(s) holding out for the label. FLA would even leave soon, with KMFDM being the most loyal after it all.

The last brilliant moment curated by Al is the "Jesus Built My Hotrod" single, which is 50% due to the Butthole Surfers' Gibby Haynes's vocal contribution to the song.. (this may also be Gibby's last great moment as well, depending on who you talk to)... after that, it becomes "the big wait" for the next album which takes a long longer to release than the final results show. Psalm 69 may have actually been the best of Ministry's "bad ass" phase, due to sleeper tracks like "Collision" that do some pretty interesting noise/sample manipulation, but by then, many other bands like Skinny Puppy, Boris Mikulic, and countless other industrial/noise/rock bands have already done something at least this good if not better.

After many long releases as well, Broken by Nine Inch Nails gets released, and the game is pretty much over, as far as who is in the industrial rock spotlight. A couple of years later, The Downward Spiral gets released, and the throne is pretty much fully endowed to Sir Trent for good.

Revolting Cocks release one last album (to date) in 1993 called Linger Fickin' Good which, admittedly, is grossly overlooked.. but even their best song of the album, "Cracking Up" is just more PiL post-punk disco with the intro guitar lick to A Certain Ratio's "Shack Up" being looped over it. Ironically, minus the ugly vocals, this sound would predate the DFA aesthetic by a decade. But Linger Fickin' Good's the last decent thing that most would hear from Al before the almost self parodies that are the albums Filth Pig and Dark Side Of The Spoon.

Meanwhile, well since Al left Wax Trax!, the label is breaking ground and pre-dating some of the future's most popular electronic artists, Autechre and Aphex Twin (or Polygon Window at the time)... and they are the first U.S. label to release the KLF's Chill out... which is still seen as a cornerstone album today as far as the musical direction in the mid 90s, when "ambient" became big, which is also a pedestal onto which "electronica" would become big.

Ugh, it's kinda sad to look back at all this, since I was so obsessed with Wax Trax! at the time, and loved everything Al did.. and realizing that he was essentially a Chi-town Motorjunkie Andy Warhol more than anything else. :(