Power Electronics is Dead.

[Atrophist]

Another reason for the decline is because 'PE' or "Industrial" suffer the close association with youth cultures despite being less popular than other youth cultures such as rock music, metal, punk. In contrast to other forms of artistic creation that do not rely on youthful energy and youthful dispositions such as writing, painting, filmmaking. It's pathetic to imagine an 80 years old guy scream "FUCK" or "CUNT" really loud over feedback, but the same cannot be said about a painter who paints for as long as it's physically possible or Clint Eastwood still directing films at 94 years old.

There's been a lot of dicusion on this forum whether or not PE/noise/etc is "popular culture" or "youth culture" or not. In my opinion they aren't, and as such there shouldn't exist the requirement to be young and good-looking.

To give a pretty easy, and obvious example, an 80-year-old Mick Jagger singing "Start Me Up" is, imho, significantly more pathetic than an 80-year-old PE artist would be.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Also notion of golden age is curious. I fully acknowledge there is such thing, but at the same time, I tend to think there can be more than one. Just like certain historical developments happened in different parts of world in slightly different moment.

Like lets say one would claim golden age of NOISE was the 90's. In some ways, it can be argued to be so. However, from perspective of Finn, it would be utterly clear we live NOW far more shining golden era. Just about every way you can imagine. Only missing element is that one can't yet apply emotional nostalgic quality on it.

Same way, the "golden era of power electronics"... I suppose its been discussed before, but one can easily claim it is UK 80-85 and that about it. As soon as such claim is made, one could remind moments where PE was blossoming and reinventing itself, sounding unlike the originators, yet  possessing some of the characteristics or spirit. I of course use the power electronics in style of "Open Wound", hah.. More flexible than just very specific sound of specific era.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

In latest Rocker, there is Flanagan & Crumer discussing about the question of something new needs to come with noise, that it wouldn't be just same old. It makes me always wonder why exactly?
One easily gets why something such as golden era of hardcore or punk rock died out so quick. How many chord progressions you really have in the style? hah...  Then with music styles like Black Metal, genre has golden era in different parts of world, different moments and despite one would rate early 90's high, genre has been re-invented, radicalized several times after that. In same way, strength of noise or PE, at least in my opinion, is in such vastly superior to simplistic one idea loud hardcore (as one example) that it has not even yet run out of steam. Creative material keeps coming year after year and it isn't even bound to its origins, but many people approach it from clean table seeing it STILL as something new and fresh, after all these years.
My opinion always been, if expression still has vitality, why being obsessed with getting something "new"? We could easily just see how far something goes before it runs out of steam. We certainly have seen it with many styles of music that have mere museum value at this point. Noise or PE certainly not yet at that point.

[BatteredStatesofEuphoria]

"but Bennett and co were HONEST. There was no hypocrisy."

I'm not sure about this. There's an irony and humor that I think a lot of pe projects completely miss. I think Phillip Best is more interested in language than honesty.

That is true and something I thought of after I wrote that. There definitely did seem to be an element of dark humor to a lot of the early British pe, and it wasn't entirely serious. Obviously, the guys in Whitehouse weren't going out on the weekend and committing acts of sexual violence to back up their authenticity.

Although I think the overall point about the "honesty" of their sound stands. Whether they were being mocking or more seriously critical, their sound and the way of delivering it was never trying to make it more palatable to a wider audience. In fact, they were arguably deliberately doing the opposite. You can laugh at "My Cock's On Fire," but no one will ever say it's "catchy" and has "a good beat."

[W.K.]

I'm going to write a poem about this premise.

[W.K.]

PE and harsher types of noises, as for as I can see, never had their MTV/arena moment

This is true mostly, especially as far as the sounds and instrumentation go, but can it really be said about the subject matter, at least the more sexually themed aspects?

For instance, here in the US, a few years back, there was a big controversy about the Cardi B song-W.A.P. aka, Wet American Pussy.

This song was not about cats.

There was quite a sustained debate about what it meant for society that such a vulgar song was released, available for children, etc.

Anyway, no need to listen to it. Its as annoying as you can imagine. But, as someone who listens to p.e., I got an entirely different angle out of the whole kerfuffle. Reading the lyrics, its basically not that far off from something you might have seen Whitehouse/SJ do in their early days. The difference, being, of course, that W.A.P. is all wrapped in a nice, saccharine sweet layer of pop syrup.

Of course, I seriously doubt that Cardi B was inspired by early Come Org records to make this song, but it does show that popular music is dancing up to more taboos that noise has never had an issue with.

Which is what I find pathetic about it. Its FALSE. There's nothing "poppy" about this kind of stuff. Its dirty and nasty. And that's exactly what the best p.e. is, in the entire presentation. It not sugar coating anything. Its forcing you to stare into the abyss in all its blackest and make of that what you will. You can criticize their lyrics and subject matter all you want, but Bennett and co were HONEST. There was no hypocrisy.

And that maybe brings up something which actually does relate to the question of this thread. Is pe/noise maybe suffering a bit because the degeneracy of the culture it critiques has caught up with it? What is shocking anymore in a world that seems more mad and stupid by the day?

I think this is a really interesting take, however something wild like WAP is hardly new for pop or mainstream audiences, and to be honest I didn't really get the controversy about it either. Didn't we already have Madonna doing this same kinda thing for the longest of time? 

In the 60's and 70's quite a few disco records had frontal nudity on the sleeves that left little to the imagination. Girls on roller skates with bare breasts on the sleeve, exposed buttocks on the back or the inside sleeve when it was a gatefold, cheeky and sexy song-titles...the music might be cheesy and boring, but disco was apart from dancing absolutely about sex and eroticism.

What about 60's, 70's & 80's porn soundtracks pressed on vinyl? including nudity for the artwork? You can argue those are not mainstream, but what if those are released on big music labels like Warner Bros. Records or the BASF or Philips record labels, the same companies that also produced the (blank) cassette tapes? Pressings of those records must at least be in the 1000's if not a lot more.

Sex and eroticism has always been part of popular music culture beginning in the 50's with Elvis Presley, MC5, The Stooges, Rolling Stones, Madonna and so on, not even going on other cultures (hip-hop, dancehall, reggaeton etc.) that are a lot more in your face with that kind of stuff.

Sex was always there and will be always a big part of mainstream music. Look at 50 cent, look at Tailor Swift, look at Cardi B, look at the popularity of 50 shades of gray. Maybe not as in your face as the hard BDSM stuff (well, kinda is sometimes), probably not the raunchiness of Bizarre Uproar, but behind the curtains these mainstream artists fuck a lot more, and probably a lot weirder than your average PE artist.   

Wait, what was my point again? Sex and PE. I'm not against it. Go for it. I like sex, you like sex. Do it, do it now!

[FreakAnimalFinland]

It is possible that controversy was more visible in countries where it is controversial? One can imagine vulgar female sexuality in mainstream can be that, but over here... not really. It was exactly like mentioning Madonna. Media (and people) acknowledges it must be outrageous for some, but doesn't really cause such reaction in society like we have? At least not that I would see.

[VORACLE]

I think as long as there is a need for a true underground counterculture, PE/Death Industrial/etc. will always have a place. It's music for the anti-musician. The sonic equivalent of Abstract Expressionist painting. I think it provides a portal for experimentation and pushing more limits sonically/artistically/lyrically/etc. Because of this, there will always be others to fill the ranks.

This could be too optimistic of a view, however.

[Atrophist]

The sonic equivalent of Abstract Expressionist painting.

Now you're talking.

[theotherjohn]

I dunno, there was a decent turn out of at least 70 people attending for this show in Manchester last Saturday, with a good mix of enthusiastic younger and older heads of all sexes/genders and nationalities (for what that matters) both on and off the stage. I can't say if it's due to the central location or the calibre of acts appearing but power electronics as a "scene" seemed very much alive there and then. Get out more, I guess?

[Phenol]

In terms of visibility, noise seems more popular than PE right now, I give you that, but I question if that holds up in reality. If one looks at how many copies are sold of a noise vs. a PE release, for instance, it seems that 20-50 homemade tapes is standard for noise artists. For PE artists, on the other hand, it is not uncommon to have CDs or LPs pressed in 100s of professional copies, for the biggest names even 1000 or more. You do the math...From where I stand, the PE scene looks healthy beyond the mere commercial aspects too. There are good new projects emerging on a regular basis and a number of older ones still going strong. What some see as a sign that a scene has died or stagnated is really just a sign that it has become recognizable as a genre, which has happened in both the noise and PE scenes, IMO. If you look beyond that, I think there are many ways current PE artists innovate within the basic template and I see no shortage of creativity compared to the noise scene, quite the contrary. Some of the artists who just played in Manchester are good examples of that.

[Stipsi]

Nah.
It's not dead.
It's just more accessible because of the social media and stuff like that.
There is a bunch of great projects around.

[tiny_tove]

I'm actually feeling very good, so all my mates.

[Cranial Blast]

Nah.
It's not dead.
It's just more accessible because of the social media and stuff like that.
There is a bunch of great projects around.

Yeah that's exactly it, accessibility of modern times.

[Krigsverk]

I will chime in and also say very not dead; I think there is a lot of vitality left in the genre and new ideas and developments can be seen all over the place. However I also salute all who keep it narrowminded and sticking to the old school formula. You dont need to re-invent the wheel with every new album as long as it still hits you in the gut in that good ol´ way.