The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @enkohl for the Best Album of 1991 tournament, and the second for Front 242's terrific album. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks!
It might surprise the casual listener to note that Belgian EBM act Front 242 had already been in the game for a decade by the time they released their big-label debut Tyranny For You. But indeed, they’d been gathering fans and alienating press for years with their aggressive, electronic brooding. Driving, heavy beats, samples, grumbled vocals pegged defiantly to the lowest of registers, and ominous synth layered with a relentlessness that activated the clubs and crashed the melodic-goth pity party with a burst of stompy rage. Their long association with Chicago-based label Wax Trax and as the opening band for Ministry’s 1984 tour cemented their stateside reputation, and facilitated their side projects with artists from that stable includes the equally influential Revolting Cocks.
But really, big deal, right? All of that is ancient history at this point, and has little to do with the music. So here’s my pitch. Tyranny for You is a perfect album, not just for its genre, but for all time. The opening eerie sampling and lightning bursts of buzz on “Sacrifice,” immediately throws the listener into a disorienting soundscape full of disillusionment. Once you find your footing the mood shifts into an even more apocalyptic terrain in “Rhythm of Time,” with a grim portrait of a world sliding into chaos. “We believe in the future of the human race,” begs the chorus, even as that human race storms past with militaristic precision. With every successive song Front242 amps up the stakes (as well as the BPM), exploring our most outrageous impulses and twisted conformities in order to leave them all out on the dance floor in the sweaty catharsis that defines EBM at its best. Creating a full-body experience that’s as satisfyingly cohesive as it is psychologically unyielding.
At its core, Tyranny for You is a concept album without touting its own conception. An almost cinematic world-building adventure that stares humanity’s darkest impulses and destructive tendencies in the face without backing down. Revealing an emotional courageousness and aura of resistance that many industrial/EBM acts never quite matched. Its grim futurism feels increasingly prescient: a Mad Max-ian timeline full of that special unease that accompanies plausibility. While there are a couple of club staples on this album such as “Tragedy For You,” this is not an album to pick and choose from. From first song to last, Tyranny for You is worth listening to in its entirety. Press play, dim the lights, and get to it.
