Ministry – With Sympathy
Genre: Synthpop
Year: 1983
Year I discovered it: 2014
For a change, here's an album that came out before I was born,
but one I discovered much more recently; Ministry's With Sympathy. I
almost just love this album out of defiance; the singer has disowned it and
hates the album, having moved on from 80's synthpop to industrial metal; being one
of the pioneers of the genre in fact. I’ve heard possibly apocryphal stories
that when presented with this album at signings, singer Al Jourgensen will
either destroy it, or charge $1000 to sign it. Something about being forced to
sing in this style by the record companies when really, he was a true metalhead
through and through all along; but he’s gone back and forth on this claim and
other band members have contradicted him on it. If it’s true though then why do
the demo versions and old singles from before he signed with the record company
sound so similar in style? I find it bizarre when an artist just completely
disowns their early work. Kraftwerk does this with their first three albums
(which have good stuff on them, even if they weren’t fully robotic yet),
Mortiis used to do this with his old Dungeon Synth albums as well, although
these days he’s come around and might even return to his old style (more on him
later). It’s like, get over yourself. Will Odinochka, my first novel, make me cringe in
25 years, I wonder? I mean I was somewhat forced to write that novel when I really
wanted to be writing fantasy, kind of like how “Uncle Al” was apparently forced
to make synthpop when he wanted to be doing industrial metal. But then again, I
like going through my old comics I drew in high school and things like that. It’s
fascinating to see how far I’ve come when I read my old work, even when it’s
not that good. So yeah, I don’t get it.
But I just never get tired of this album. Ministry's later music is okay at
times (“Jesus Built My Hotrod” was the first Ministry song I ever heard, way
back in the late 90’s and long before I knew With Sympathy existed),
their second album Twitch is pretty good too, but I don't like any of
Ministry’s output after Twitch nearly as much as their early music. Many
of their singles from before even this album are just as catchy as the best
songs on With Sympathy, such as “I’m Falling”, “Same Old Madness”, and
especially “Game Over” (that song just sounds like an adventure, and is
criminally under-rated and obscure, please check it out). This may be a bit off-topic,
but these songs really should have been on the album, I don’t know why they weren’t. Of course, they appear on my bootleg burned
versions of this album (shh! Don’t worry, I have an official copy too).
So, let’s talk about the songs. I usually can’t stand
disco, but the very disco-esque track "I Wanted to Tell Her" is just
so catchy (and hilarious when compared to Ministry’s later work), I don’t get
tired of it. Disco was basically dead by 1983, making it even funnier that this
song exists. I prefer the demo versions with extra lines from the female singer
though. Same with “Work For Love”, a song comparing trying to win someone’s
love with trying to apply for a job. In the demo version there’s an extra
little dialog that I like, a female saying “You don’t have what it takes,” and
the singer yelling back “BUT I’M WILLING TO WORK!” It’s another song on my call
center nightmare playlist (the mix tape I made about my time at the Macy’s call
center last year is even called “Work For Love”, maybe I’ll cover that
eventually).
As an aside, I’ve found that almost any time a demo
version of a song exists somewhere, it’s better than the album version. Almost
every time. The only exception I can think of right now is “One Hundred Years”
by The Cure, I didn’t really like the demo version of that one. But in any
case, there I go rambling again.
The song
“Revenge” has such a biting, angry energy to it, despite being synthpop. You
can almost see the seed of what Ministry would become. I would have loved this
song as a teenager. There’s also a nice music video to this song, which I'll embed here.
Got to love those keychain
earrings.
“Say You’re Sorry” makes great use of 80’s sax, and is a soothing
melody that just kind of makes me think of a cold, rainy day (my favorite
weather). I’m also a sucker for the
80’s-style saxophone, which is one reason I like the synthwave band The
Midnight so much. “She’s Got a Cause” is a more stereotypical electronic 80’s
song, which I’m fine with. I’m not as fond of the remaining songs on the album
to be honest, but the songs previously mentioned make up for that.
As for its influence on me, it's led me to discover
more obscure 80's synthpop and New Wave, showing me that there was way more to
the 1980's than just the hits we all know and love, but hear all the time.
Before this album I was basically only listening to the greatest hits when it
came to 80’s music (I had recently discovered The Jetzons by that time too,
which was the first step I took toward discovering underground 80’s music), but
I’ve found that this decade is the gift that keeps on giving if you just look
outside the mainstream. There were so many great New Wave, synthpop, post-punk
and goth bands from back then that I probably haven’t even heard of yet.
On that note, let's end this blog entry with a message I believe in.
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