Ehhh, don't really know why I'm bothering, but I've gotten in a lot of arguments over the years about this stuff seeing as I enjoy most of the originators (while fully opposing their supposed political 'message', of course), so why not?:
I think a lot of misconceptions arise from people not recognizing "Power Electronics" the term was introduced (c. 82 by William Bennett) as a joke. That's six years before my birth, so not like I was there to chart its course, but anyone who's opinion I value who was into this stuff at the time always noted the inherent humor that seems to have been lost or grossly distorted along the way. Does anyone actually think a bunch of pasty British wankers running around screaming "Shit fun!" was meant to be frightening?
As such, 'PE' was never really a genre/movement, more a facetious descriptor for a particular sound/imagery employed by a number of projects emanating out of UK/Italy. It developed adjacent to similar happenings in Japan, and a bit later the US/elsewhere, sure, but stands apart to a noticeable degree (even something as closely related as, say, The New Blockaders, isn't quite the same thing, to the extent that such classification matters).
So, you're really dealing with a limited group of people if we consider strict parameters of the first wave: Come Org.-era Whitehouse and related off-shoots, Consumer Electronics/Iphar, Broken Flag (before they went rock/general exp.), Mauthausen Orchestra/Aquilifer Sodality,
maybe some MB and that's basically it. All of those artists have moments of genius, though they spawned some horrid shit for sure.
The notion "without edgy lyrics what's left?" is kind of the crux of the problem. A good portion of the above didn't even use vocals much, and when they did it was the least interesting part! If it 'aint your bag fine, wouldn't expect it to be for everyone, but understand that many of these bands were much more sonically adventurous and, in their way, nuanced, than they are credited. Listen to the prime material of the original artists (so not Cut Hands or a Consumer Electronics release w/ Russell fucking Haswell on it) and it's clear that if you took away the rude elements you're really in the lineage of the best Art Brut/Fluxus/Sound Poetry etc. type recordings, albeit with a much more Negative bent. Bennett has cited how influential stuff like the Cramps Nova Musicha series was and you can really hear it throughout the Come discography.
I'm not saying there is a 'right/wrong' way to listen, but focusing solely on the shock elements does seem misguided, and just about anyone I've ever met who considered that the main appeal was a try-hard loser. I'm sorry but with very few exceptions everything from Tesco up to Freak Animal and whatever else is considered 'PE' these days is just so corny. They took the easiest, most superficial aspects of their influences, ignoring everything actually provocative about them, and created a dull caricature. To my ears they have about as much in common with their predecessors as some Burger band does with the Ramones or VU.
Also, not trying to make excuses for anyone, but it's worth considering the context: A lot of figures far more prominent than any noise guy were flirting with Nazi fetishism around this time. Most of the people involved were in their teens/early 20's, had just seen punk/industrial culture watered-down and co-opted, and wanted to do something that felt vital (not to mention were shit-head kids that wanted to piss everyone off).
I suppose that is what's meant by "didn't age well" (and I sort of agree), but the 'shock tactics' of some of the smartest/best examples could also be seen as much of a smoke screen as an affront to the emerging indie apparatus. Like, this shit is so alienating already, why not slap an SS solider on the cover to really ram it home? It's not as if your average Factory/Mute records fan was going to give them the time of the day to begin with; just another way of saying "good then, we don't need you, fuck off etc. et al."
Again, not saying such a stance isn't problematic; Gary Mundy has stated in interviews that the idea of actual Neo-Nazi support was unthinkable at the time, though looking back he realizes how naive that was and considers it to be pretty lucky they didn't actually attract that sort of fanbase. And then there's what came after, which I've made my position pretty clear on...
Whether some of these people were cool on a personal level is something quite different (Bennett, Philip Best, Kevin Topkins, etc. certainly don't come off very good then or now, and their output has been shit for decades), but I don't think any of them were particularly sincere as pertains to actual beliefs vs. the content of their art. This quote from a 1994 Steven Stapleton i/v is pretty enlightening (always found his relationship w/ Bennett to be intriguing, and it ended for the reasons I would've guessed):
SF: What about William Bennett and Whitehouse?
SS: One day, just after CHANCE MEETING... was released, I went into the Virgin record shop. I was looking through the racks trying to see if it was there, and I came across an album called BIRTHDEATH EXPERIENCE which I bought because it just looked so obscure. When I listened to it I thought these guys are totally mad, and I noticed there was an address on it, so I went round there. Yeah, he lived just down the road, I met him and he became a really close friend for about five years. Even today he's in London now, but we don't see each other because basically we've nothing in common. He's only interested in upsetting people. The less he can put on a record, the less effort he can put into the record, he will do! His ethic was 'Everybody who buys my records is a cunt basically, and I'm just showing that everyone's a cunt.' I lost interest in it. In the early days William did some really interesting things, ERECTOR I think is an amazing record, a really strange album.
SF: What did you think of Come's RAMPTON?
SS: There's some good riffing on that.
SF: And some good ideas.
SS: Yeah, but after ERECTOR it was all downhill.
SF: Obviously the erection started to droop!
SS: Hmmm, yeah, he's now impotent. I always thought of Bill as the Benny Hill of Industrial Music! (laughter) Well it's true, isn't it? It's ridiculous, the last gig they played in London. I went along to that. I hadn't seen Whitehouse since I used to play with them, and I was expecting a barrage of noise. It was in Edmonton which I thought was an odd place for Whitehouse to play, it's a nothing place, considering they were supposedly so big in America. I was standing there with David, and this wimpy sound came out of the speakers, I just couldn't believe it. 'This is Whitehouse?' It was so pathetic. I said to David 'We can't let him die like this!' So, I asked a guy where the mix desk was, I rushed up the stairs and pushed the guy out of the way, who was like the resident mixer, and I said 'I'm Whitehouse's technical mixer', and just went crazy - I pushed everything up full, it was totally manic, and suddenly I had people threatening me with bottles, then the manager came up and threatened to shut everything down unless I stopped. I was just going crazy, I was so drunk, I was just flying everything from speaker to speaker, I was cutting things out - you could see the musicians on stage, they had no idea what was happening! While this was going on, William was trying to organise this spanking contest, with several people up on stage with their bums showing, hitting them with whips, it was so pathetic. Really, really tacky. I heard the tape recently and it's just so viscous, so much better than all their releases.
OK, sorry for long post, carry on. Just wanted to clear up what in my mind is a notoriously misrepresented area of sound, and explain (to myself, I guess) my reasons for appreciating it. (and seriously, how sick is that Stapleton quote? Just found and wanted to share, don't even like NWW that much but what a guy!)
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