The Adventures of H and O: New Markets

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Yep, it’s true. John Oates co-wrote Icehouse’s 1987 hit “Electric Blue” with that band’s frontman, Iva Davies. Although the song did get some college radio airplay, “Electric Blue” (I keep wanting to type “Electric Youth,” bur that’s a horse of a different color, pun sort of intended.) was a big crossover success far removed from the creepiness of their earlier material. Icehouse’s countrymen in the band INXS had undergone a similar evolution away from their new wave roots, but moved toward a more arena rock sound. It’s a long way from “The One Thing” to “Bitter Tears.”

Icehouse – Electric Blue (from Man of Colours, 1987)

I wonder what a Daryl Hall/Ministry collaboration would have sounded like. Probably not too far removed from the material on With Sympathy, the 1983 black sheep in the band’s discography, which consists of gloomy synthpop with a heavy British influence. (Al Jourgensen’s faux English accent on “Revenge” is a hoot and a half.) The late 80’s industrial incarnation of Ministry was responsible for stripping away any last vestiges of heavy metal madness that may have lingered into my punk rock days. Tracks like “Burning Inside” and “Stigmata” delivered a blistering sonic assault that made even the heaviest death metal acts of the time sound anemic by comparison, and were refreshingly free of metal’s obligatory clichés and excesses.

Twenty years of genre bleed have seen Jourgensen’s musical innovations become another generation of heavy metal clichés. These days I’m more likely than not to get my Ministry fix from the more sedate sounds of With Sympathy, but I still give The Land of Rape and Honey or The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste the occasional spin whenever I feel the need to blow the carbon out of my aural engine.

Ministry – Burning Inside (from The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste, 1989)