Ministry
Ministry’s seven albums and handful of singles tell a story rife with contradiction and permutation. Both derided as derivative and hailed as revolutionary, the band have done their best to be a little of both, shifting from frothy synth-pop to heavyweight guitar rock, from sample-heavy, drum-machine prefab to stripped-down, live-to-two-track organic. They’re a longtime dance-club favorite, but most of their output is hard to dance to. One record they made for an indie label is so commercial it became a beer commercial; then they arguably became for a time the least radio-friendly band on a major label. Their smoothest, gentlest album (With Sympathy) flopped, while one of their harshest and rowdiest (Psalm 69) went platinum. Not to be outdone by their past, Ministry have now come up with Filth Pig, their most complex, surprise-packed recording yet.
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Back in 1983, singer and keyboardist Alain Jourgensen and drummer Stephen George called themselves Ministry and released the album With Sympathy on Arista. It’s curious how much this version of the group paralleled the British duo Wham!, who splashed on the scene around the same time with superstar-to-be George Michael. Both bands lopsidedly paired one guy who wrote and sang all the songs with another who mostly just played his instrument and posed for photos. Stylistically, Ministry imitated British new romanticism, while Wham! aped American soul. Each even put out a catchy single about love in relation to labor: Ministry’s “Work for Love” and Wham!’s “Everything She Wants.” But unlike Wham!, Ministry didn’t sell many records. They soon left Arista and disbanded.
A few months earlier “Everyday Is Halloween” started popping up in some unexpected places: first on the TV commercial, then on the play lists of some mainstream Chicago radio stations. People who had never heard of Ministry were flocking into record stores asking for “that Halloween song.” But the band refused to perform their current hit single! Why would Jourgensen want to remind the audience that his five-year-old synth-pop track was currently being used to sell beer? Still, playing it no doubt would have electrified the crowd like nothing else in his arsenal. Maybe this predicament never crossed Jourgensen’s mind, but his omission struck me as the one interesting thing about the entire concert.
