Ministry has always been one of my favorite bands. I remember really taking a liking to them when Psalm 69 came out around 1992. I was 16 years old and a Sophomore in high school. Musically I was into Jane's Addiction, The Beastie Boys, The Doors, Primus, Depeche Mode, and many other bands. I was all over the place. I remember hearing Psalm 69 on my friends car stereo. It was a cassette tape. Yep, those used to be a thing. I remember listening to "Jesus Built My Hotrod" and realizing I had never heard anything like it before. I was hooked and knew I needed to learn more about this band.
I grew up in Denver and there was (is) a great music store called Wax Trax. It was in a bad neighborhood in Denver. The Guardian Angels patrolled the neighborhood regularly. To this day it is my favorite record store. I went there one day and started going through Ministry's catalog and came upon an album titled "The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste." I had heard from friends that this was the album to get if I really like Psalm 69, so I bought it.
This album changed my life. Although the album is only 9 songs long, it is packed with Industrial goodness. Never before had I heard such anger in music. Al Jourgensen had distorted vocals that I am still trying to emulate after all these years. The guitars thrashed and were made up mostly of power chords. There was also samples of movies in this album. "Thieves" had samples from "Full Metal Jacket". "Burning Inside" sampled John Carpenter. My favorite song on the album is "So What". It sampled an Ed Wood film called "The Violent Years." It also sampled "Scarface."
Ministry taught me that it was okay to make music the way I want to make it. They taught me that it is okay to get angry and let it out musically. They showed me how sampling movies and speeches could become a part of a song.
When I think of Industrial music, I think of Ministry. There are many Industrial bands in the world, but to me it doesn't get any better than Ministry. They were not the first Industrial band, and will not be the last, but have stayed relevant for over 40 years.
