The Land of Polls and Honey: The **MINISTRY** Albums Poll

Psalm 69 for career
Rio Grande Blood for post-69

ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ

used to draw that on my notebooks in junior high

Was it really 4 years between ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ and Filth Pig? Wow. Don't remember that long of a break.

Anyway, The Mind... wins.

rape & honey

I couldn't choose between the studio albums so instead I went with "In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up".

"Twitch" 4eva

Is anyone gonna vote for 'With Sympathy'?

I look at those last six or so names on the list and can only imagine.

"twitch" in a flash.

"with sympathy" or "work for love" as it is known in europe would have been my 2nd choice. then "land of rape and honey", then "mind is a terrible..." and then "psalm '69". the rest i couldn't care less about

The live one. It sounded great on my walkman at top volume while I mowed the lawn.

The live one is pretty awesome and probably my third-fave after Land of Rape and Honey.

I'm probably gonna wind up voting for The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste because it's got three fantastic songs and one pretty good one; can't vote for Psalm 69 because there are three really good and two pretty good songs on it, but the three really good ones are vastly better in their 12" versions. I will say about the latter-day stuff that Animositisomina is a pretty strong record; their cover of Magazine's "The Light Pours Out of Me" is really good.

Twitch, followed closely by Rape and Honey. "The Angel" and "Over the Shoulder" are just too perfect.

I feel like voting for With Sympathy just to be perverse.

Is that when they looked like Depeche Mode, the polite years?

twitch. every song on that album is capable of rocking a party. i need to get some 12" extended mixes

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Twitch.

It's really a vote for On U Sound in a non On U Sound poll.

To be fair, that whole noise trifecta (crash and burn, where you at now, twitch) at the end of Twitch was never matched again, and that was more Al than Adrian.

Haven't voted yet.

Must pick soon.

As an unregenerate new waver at the time, I listened to With Sympathy with sympathy. So the move from Twitch to The Land of Rape and Honey was a bit less jarring for me (really, new wave to batdance to industrial isn't all that extreme a journey). Still, I haven't heard With Sympathy in eons and assume it cannot hold a candle to the rest (although I had no clue until this very minute that they recorded a single note this decade; bet With Sympathy beats some of those).

every song on that album is capable of rocking a party.

Well, a rather gloomy party. I should know - the rockingest we ever got dancing to Twitch at parties was making finger shapes in front of our eyes.

I couldn't choose between the studio albums so instead I went with "In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up".

This.

"The live one"

There's two of them.

Rape & Honey

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

hahah...

harsh but true

7 jokers for with sympathy

Hey man, every day is like Halloween.

7 jokers for with sympathy

Totally great, underrated synth-pop album.

i can't believe psalm 69 won this

v. poor result.

Psalm 69 is the only Ministry album of its particular more "metal/rawk" style that is clearly any good, whereas the more varied early, industrial albums are too numerous and split the votes apart. There are clearly more fans of "industrial" Ministry than "rawk" Ministry, but I'm not surprised at the poll results.

Surprise TWITCH didn't do better here.

I'm not, everyone luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuvs the radio albums.

zero votes for filth pig makes me so so happy

i voted land of rape and honey

I kinda dig the results. They're evenly distributed, then ZERO for the albums that deserve zero.

Yeah, of the whole "RUFF" Ministry era, Psalm 69 is the clear winner. A Mind and, somewhat, Land Of Rape And Honey bore me now. But Psalm 69's "Collision" for example wasn't something you'd hear on the previous two albums, and same for "Jesus Build My Hotrod" (although that was already ancient by the time it showed up on Psalm 69). Although I'd take any Big Black or Skinny Puppy over anything by Ministry post-88.

I'd take any Big Black or Skinny Puppy over anything by Ministry post-88.

a million times yes

Ministry completely failed when Al decided that he really wanted to write metal.

Had the comps been on here though, I would have voted "Side Trax" without hesitation. Ministry's best stuff is when they were doing those one-off Hypo Luxa/Hermes Pan productions on Wax Trax, or collaborating with Mackaye or Jello.

I would have seriously considered voting Twelve-Inch Singles had it been an option.

i don't get the detractors for with sympathy. in its genre it is one of the best albums of the time.

"Cooooold"

(sax)PFF PFF URM ERM!(/sax)

"LOIF!"

(sax)PFF PFF URM ERM!(/sax)

"Coooooold"

(sax)PFF PFF URM ERM!(/sax)

(bass)slap, Slap, SLAP....... dunt, doont, dont(/bass)

The thing is Al's been a lifelong fan of A Certain Ratio, and the love for them pops up in the hardest to find places even as far as Revco's "Linger Fickin' Good". The ACR is obvious in "Cold Life", but if you check out "Crackin' Up" on the album, the main guitar riff is a straight lift of the opening guitar riff of ACR's "Shack Up" put to a proto-DFA beat. Then Chris Connelly comes in and growls all over it as expected. But respect to a good number of Revco tunes. They were the best outlet for Al's post-punk and droney-guitar side on occasion.

"Get Down" from Beers Steers and Queers was total love for Loop, essentially.

Twelve-Inch Singles is great, but this poll prompted me to pick up Twitch for the first time. Thanks for that!

^_^

Now I want to find out if the rest of With sympathy is as good as Halloween

"...Halloween" isn't on With Sympathy, btw.

I wouldn't even really link the two; "Halloween" is much closer in spirit to the mellower stuff on Twitch.

With Sympathy is best linked with the Cold Life EP if anything. the song "I Wanted To Tell her" is "Primental" with vocals on top. That's my favorite With Sympathy song second to the Main Three ("Effigy", "Revenge", "Work For Love")

I almost drove one of my college roommates crazy by play "What He Say" and "She's Got A Cause" on endless repeat one afternoon.

i think "cold life" the song is a completely different beast to anything on "with sympathy". it doesn't really fit in with anything else they did.

agreed, "Cold Life" is the "we like ACR, we don't know what we really want to do, hey my punk bank just broke up, whaddaya expect" moment