Throbbing Gristle – 20 Jazz Funk Greats (Industrial) 1978
I’ve made no secret on this blog about my love of a good compilation but the problem with buying a compilation and then leaving it at that is that the tracks lack their proper context. For instance listen to Joy Divisions She’s Lost Control on Permanent and then listen to it on Unknown Pleasures. The song just feels better, more complete when you listen to it on the original album. The other problem is that most compilations cherry pick at best and they don’t always reflect the bands best output. It’s only in the last week or two that I’ve re-engaged with Throbbing Gristle. Their compilation Greatest Hits made an appearance in the earlier posts on this blog and when I reread it now it does reflect how that compilation comes across but when I listen to the same tracks on this for some reason they have developed a new life.
This record seems t0 be viewed as an easy entry point into Throbbing Gristle’s work and that may well be right but this is still challenging stuff. Sure, Hot On the Heels of Love is still a late seventies electro pop song but the rest of it is far more sinister and strange. Even the poppier moments such as Persuasion and Convincing People are just plain creepy. The title track, Still Walking and Tanith are hardly songs. But is on the epic Discipline where the industrial comparisons may have begun. If you were turned off by Greatest Hits then you may need to track this down. Suddenly I get just how good this band was.
Ducks Battle Satan 
November 26, 2009 at 12:59 am
‘Throbbing Gristle – 20 Jazz Funk Greats’ is not a compilation. In the same misleading way their first album was called ‘The Second Annual Report’
I didn’t care for 20 Jazz when I first heard it. I may have to give it another try. I’ve always liked “What a Day!”
December 2, 2009 at 4:55 am
Sorry, just read your post again and realized you were talking about their compilation in comparison with 20 Jazz Greats. Now I feel dumb.