20 Jazz Funk Greats
by Throbbing Gristle

A very unique album and you have to give the artist credit for the experimentation and risk they took on this project. Tracks like Persuasion and Convincing People are complete rollercoasters and really challenge the listener both lyrically and musically. The first time I listened to the record I was completely shocked by the content I found inside as it was nothing like what I was expecting and it really disturbed me but the more you listen to it the more you learn to love it. However, I do think it is a polarising album with some listeners completely falling in love with this album and others being too unsettled to find it enjoyable. This is due to the dark tone and atmosphere that is brilliantly created and it shocks everyone who hears this record. With that being said, I fall in the middle of this divide and find myself really enjoying the eccentricities and darkness but also I find the album quite slow in places and think a few tracks are unnecessary to the album on the whole. The final two tracks are an example of this and I think the album is superior if you don't listen to those songs. You do have to appreciate the significance this record has though as it definitely left its mark on albums that came out after it and inspired a lot of future artists. Overall, this is an album I have grown to enjoy very much and it might keep climbing in terms of my ranking but I do think there are a few flaws holding it back.

I feel like a lot of electronic albums that were released afterwards deserves to bow down to this record. Even though this is more of a industrial, drone and avant garde album for the time, I do catch influences of jazz and funk even if they are warped and pretty cluster fuckery. This record has the same affect as Boards of Canada Geogaddi where we as listeners have to be aware and use context clues. Meanwhile for the people that don't turn away from the record really weeps in the benefits of the record. I do recommend it at least once. And don't worry if you turn away from it.

Some really messed up, surreal moments mixed with some pretty accessible and well constructed electronica (title track, On the Heels of Love). Big influence on the likes of Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, etc. The album cover helps make the album, though. Arguably the best album cover ever.

From Mercury 02/27/2015 03:54 | #135719 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

I really love this album. I love how the cover art, the name from the number of tracks to the style, and just everything about the exterior coyly and sarcastically misdirects your expectation. And the music is quietly jarring, abrasive but not in a loud or overly aggressive way. It's just some of the coolest, creepiest, most strangely beautiful music of the era.

"Hot on the Heels of Love" is probably the most accessible song Throbbing Gristle ever made. Lots of unsettling things about this album, from the front cover (suicide hot spot) to the subject matter, like sexual exploitation in "Persuasion". Still so fun to listen to and a criminally overlooked record of the 1970s. Deserves to be in the top 10 of the decade without a doubt. However, the last two tracks of "Discipline" should not be listed with the rest of the album. They are bonus tracks that were recorded live and were never meant to be part of the original album.

Brilliant album, with a unique choice for a cover. It is deliberately designed to look like a "boring album cover", when in reality, this is a shot of the band at one of the most famous suicide locations in the world.

Genesis P. Orridge at his strange but brilliant best...

From lancashirearab 06/23/2012 06:29 | #45098 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

I love how this album's cover does not prepare you for what is inside.