Industrial / Electronic / Dance Rock
familyStarted 1978Peak 1989-2010Last big hit still active
Rock built with machines: drum machines, sequencers, synths and samplers fused to guitars, bass and the rock song. Ranges from corroded industrial menace to dancefloor euphoria and festival drops. The constant is a beat you can feel in your chest and electronics treated as instruments, not decoration, over a recognizably rock backbone.
History
Emerged where post-punk met sequencers around 1978, then split into industrial's abrasion (Throbbing Gristle, early Cabaret Voltaire) and dance-leaning crossovers. Manchester's Hacienda and Chicago house wired guitars to four-on-the-floor; the 1990s gave industrial rock and big beat mainstream platinum, and the 2000s/2010s pushed dance-rock and EDM-rock onto festival stages worldwide.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_rock
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance-rock
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_beat
- https://www.allmusic.com/style/industrial-ma0000002601