Front 242

• Genre: Industrial Dance

About

As a seminal Industrial Dance band, Front 242 effortlessly merge beats, noise, melody and aggression, creating some of the most potent "electronic body music" to ever possess manic club-goers. Emerging from Belgium in the early 1980s, the group is a cross between experimental, groundbreaking acts such as Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle and tame, Pop Dance-oriented outfit Depeche Mode. What other Industrial band has a vocalist who shouts out the diva line "Now start to move and dance" with the tone of a Teutonic drill sergeant as a wall of percussion and minor key synth lines pounds out? Front 242 get away with it, because they make good dance music while still retaining power, solid song structure and intriguing synth sounds and samples. Their biggest hit, "Headhunter," is a prime example of this: the vocalist barks out aggressive, possibly homoerotic lyrics as the drums and synths charge ahead, keyboards and noises weaving in and out and coalescing at the chorus to create one of the most memorable and sweat-inducing anthems in the genre.

- Will Lerner