D.o.A. The Third and Final Report

A throbbing good time

Baby ears on this website, let me tell ya

Incredibly forward-thinking. Does not make for a really "listenable" experience, but certainly sticks out in the brain. I understand if dada anti-art is not one's thing, but the album is clearly cohesive, progressive and a "statement" if nothing else. People unwilling to even acknowledge that and call the record "noise" can get lost

It's influential, it's one of the very first Industrial albums and it deserves a spot on the list. It's also completely shit to listen to. Barely anything noteworthy happening, like a sound collage more than a piece of music. It's interesting on its own, but just not something I would actually wanna listen to. I find a lot of Industrial to be just garbled noise and this is no different. Someone else can defend it and give it a higher rating because of its influence blablabla, I'm not gonna be the one to do that.

controversial but i will say i totally understand why this album is on this list. will never return to it however

could do with more jazz funk

Garbage!

The people who enjoy this are the people who romanticize being unhappy.

I can absolutely see how this would be the baby steps that would lead to industrial/noise/electronic hectic art that would be something I would love. That doesnt mean this is something I would want to listen to more than once.
I wish 2.5 was an option as 2 would imply its bad and 3 would mean its good. This is neither.

Nope

Remember when you were a kid and you used to walk around with a cassette and microphone recording random noise? This is a much more expensive extension of that, but it's still noise. Some of it was ok as a one-off, and It's probably very arty and influential, but I won't be listening again

It's been fun discovering some of Cosey Fanni Tutti's earlier work though.

I’m not sure I truly believe this is a 1 Star record. People use words like “unlistenable”, but I struggle to fully understand that because half of this record isn’t even music! “Uninteresting” perhaps, but it’s not as aggressively obnoxious as The Residents or Lightning Bolt.
In my rating system, 3 Stars is the baseline, 2 Stars are albums I thought were bad/boring/not worth talking about, and 1 Star is for ‘notably bad’ records - records that are bad enough that they’re actually worth talking about. This is very barely the latter category. If other people didn’t have strong feelings about this, I don’t know that I’d think it worth talking about either… but here we are.

I enjoyed this. Felt like I could here the influences on or artists I really like in this kind of ambient/experimental genre. Bits of boards of Canada in particular. Not sure if I’ll come back to it again. Might have to revisit the review.

At least it’s interesting so better than some of the stuff on the list.

I like hamburger Mary a bit.

Professionelles Akustikkppeln ohne den Hauch von Musik. Schrecklich.

Nearest i can come to a positive is that ‘weeping’ at least has the constituent parts of a song. Not a good song but beggers cant be choosers on this album. ‘Ab/7A’ also has potential to be considered actual music.
Abysmal.

I knew going into this, that this was the lowest scoring album globally, so I sort of expected to hate it. And... I don't?

I mean it's not something I particularly want to listen to, and honestly probably about 50% of it isn't really music so much as clips of people talking bollocks over droning, but it's less offensive than a number of other albums this generator made me listen to. I still hate that Liars album with a fiery passion, but this cannot inspire that much anger in me.

I am never, ever, ever going to listen to it again but, you know, I sort of understand why some people might?

1/5 (but it genuinely might have got a 1.5 out of me if the option were available)

I mean, should it really be on the list?

Well, the day has come for me. Today, I got the lowest-rated album of the generator at the time of this recording. I'm not surprised with how it got here. Throbbing Gristle are considered pioneers of industrial music, which by its nature is very unconventional in the use of tape editing, distorted loops, and homemade instruments instead of the typical guitar, bass, and drums. In fact, Throbbing Gristle were very much opposed to the traditional rock music structures, as they sought to challenge their audience to explore the darker side of humanity rather than make attractive music to placate the masses. In a way, I respect their intentions, and I don't expect the music to immediately connect with me like what I usually listen to.

With all that in mind, I gave D.o.A: The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle a listen, and it took me a bit to acclimate to their style, but I got there eventually. There's an almost ambient quality at times with the group's approach to combining tape loops, spoken word, oscillating synthesizers, and other such atypical electronic effects. Whether it's taking their previous single "United" and speeding it up to only 16 seconds long, reconstructing a conversation heard in passing with background noise on "Valley Through the Shadow of Death", or the filtered vocals over the electronic whirs on "Hamburger Lady", there's quite a variety in song deconstructions on this record. I found myself intrigued with some of the spoken word pieces like "Weeping" and "Hometime", leaving me curious as to why these particular tapes are arranged over such strange soundscapes. Of course, my personal favorites were the few tracks that feature steady clanking beats, like on "Dead on Arrival" with the buzzing and squelching noise effects, "AB/7A" with the grandiose synth flourishes, and the absolutely pummeling dirge that is "Walls of Sound". I personally don't consider every experiment to be worthwhile, particularly some of the shortened tracks like "Death Threats" and "Blood on the Floor". But more often than not, I was engaged with this album.

Again, I don't typically listen to this kind of music. Even compared to later offshoots like industrial rock and industrial metal that return to more conventional song structures while still embracing the distortion and tape manipulation, what Throbbing Gristle did on D.o.A: The Third and Final Report sounds foreign by comparison, and I think that's the point. It was a respectable challenge that certainly got me to appreciate the overall genre more with its abrasive DIY approach.

Not actually music

A collections of noises to irritate someone

1