How important is "accessiblity" in industrial music?
On any given industrial music forum at any given time of day you are guaranteed to come across at least one post by a newcomer to the genre asking for recommendations.
If the request is specifically for "more stuff that sounds like Nine Inch Nails/Rammstein/Pitchshifter" then it's perfectly logical to suggest more bands of an industrial rock/metal persuasion. Hell, if you want a whole playlist of that sort of gear, fill your boots.
However, even if the newbie is making an earnest plea for "more industrial music", expressing a clear desire to broaden their horizons beyond the Mortal Kombat soundtracks, the response is usually more or less same: a list of slightly less well known industrial rock bands, with a few big EBM and electro-industrial names sprinkled in, and maybe even Throbbing Gristle "if you're feeling brave" (actual quote from a recent Reddit thread).
I've never understood why anybody who's into industrial would feel the need to give new listeners an "accessible" introduction to this thing of ours. Industrial music was unlike anything else that came before it and thrives on being weird and dissonant. It's far better, in my view, to start with an album that gives an honest impression of the genre - instead of sugar coating the pill and making it out to be all big catchy floorfillers like Head Like A Hole.
I can't image a thrash metal devotee telling me "Reign in Blood might be a bit fast and scary for you, start with something slower and more accessible like The Black Album". Nobody has ever said you need to ease into jazz by listening to shorter songs first instead of Miles Davis. A UK hip hop fan wouldn't hesitate to immediately drop Klashnekoff on the curious.
Why do industrial fans, then, take this softly softly approach? Is it an (understandable) overcorrection to the reputation for being particularly snobbish and elitist that hangs over industrial music like the stench of pomade and stale piss hangs over rockabilly? Or are we simply so drunk on our own self-importance that we feel a sense of duty, a kind of noblesse oblige, to provide the normies, those poor trembling lambs, with a safe space to hear the most commercial elements of industrial before they can try anything further "out there"?
The aforementioned Reddit comment about being "brave" enough to listen to TG seemed to be coming from a fairly friendly and well-intentioned place but think about what we're really saying here. The implication is that we, the seasoned industrial aficionados, can listen to this stuff because we're desensitised to it, but you, the novice, aren't ready for it, and need to work your way up by listening to an approved selection of more conventionally musical albums first.
Firstly: there is nothing inherently "brave" about the music you choose to listen to. Proudly announcing to the board of governors at your kids' primary school that you were once good mates with Gary Glitter, now that's brave. Secondly, the day I find myself numb or indifferent to industrial music's capacity to startle, unnerve and excite me is the day that having a functioning set of ears ceases to hold any importance in my life.
Of course, you do occasionally get people who pedantically tell the newbie that NIN isn't "proper" industrial but TG is, in the most unwelcoming way possible. These lot might not be doing much to constructively share the industrial canon with a wider audience, but if nothing else they're dropping names that a newbie might be tempted to Google even if the person who mentioned them is being an arsehole about it. I know I certainly did (Google names of first wave industrial bands that is, although I was almost certainly an arsehole about it as well).
Where is the harm in starting out with Throbbing Gristle, to get an idea of how industrial music took shape, even if you don't necessarily enjoy what you hear? They are as fundamental to the genre as Black Sabbath are to heavy metal. Sabbath aren't everyone's cup of tea and neither are Gristle, but if the question is "who invented industrial?" as opposed to "which industrial bands am I highly likely to enjoy based on my current enjoyment of Grotus/Ringtailed Snorter/Sloppy Wrenchbody?" then the correct answer shouldn't even be open for debate. Throbbing Gristle didn't invent experimenting with synthesisers, but they were the first band to do so with malicious intent. TG made electronic music evil; before that it was as innocent a pastime as building model train sets.
Setting up obstacles, tests, rites of passage the industrial-curious listener must successfully complete before being allowed access to the treasure trove that is industrial music's pre-MTV history - what is this behaviour if not "gatekeeping"? In no other genre of music is it considered necessary to mollycoddle newcomers to this degree, acting as buffers between the casual NIN fan and whatever horrors we fear will be unleashed if lil Johnny Hate Machine gets exposed to Dogs Blood Rising* too soon.
If you hate musical snobbery and elitism and think nobody has a right to "gatekeep" any genre, stop patronising people who ask for recommendations. Put on some SPK and let them make up their own mind about industrial music. Or, as a compromise, suggest Horse Rotorvator. Not the first industrial album, but probably the first to feature recognisable song structures. Enough with this "stop scaring the hoes" mentality!
*Full disclosure: nearly 20 years after I first heard it, I still vacillate between finding this album a bit silly and genuinely fucking terrifying.