D.o.A. The Third and Final Report

It reminds.me of the sort of music you'd hear in an art installation, which fits with the history of this band.

It's always interesting, even if not always enjoyable, and I'd take it over a generic early 70s rock record.

Yeah, fuck it, I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump to a 4.

No, this is not “better” than Husker Du’s “Warehouse”, or any of the other albums I’ve given a 3 in the past. If anything, this 4 is a vague protest vote over this album becoming the lowest rated album on the site for whatever reason. This is… utterly fine. Certainly an experiment in sound, with a few heavily abrasive moments, but I found myself kinda drawn to the weird, eerie atmosphere of this thing, and with a few tracks I genuinely liked.

“I.B.M.” is a weirdly atmospheric starter track, directly sampling actual old tape used in computers before hard drives became the norm. “Hit By a Rock” is probably the most middling attempt at a “real” track here, anchored by a sort of “train” percussion that at least keeps the whole thing from feeling like a mediocre tedium. It’s not good, but it’s fine. “United” is a good joke; take your first real single & then speed it up to hell. Little pitchy though.

“Valley of the Shadow of Death” feels like sitting in a pub, with a buzz in the brain after you get drunk, vaguely eavesdropping in on conversations your brain can’t understand. The only crime of this track is that it’s 4 minutes long. Same thing applies to “Dead on Arrival”, which feels like a Kraftwerk track corrupted by a glitch; lots of buzzy, abrasive synth work in this one, but at least it’s anchored by a competent beat. The only crime is that it’s 6 minutes long and feels like it goes nowhere, so it ends up being a little boring in the long run.

“Weeping” & “Hamburger Lady” are the two highlights of the album for me, honestly; the former feels like a very open & honest confession about a spiral of heartbreak & depression, with the sound design & lyricism being soberingly brutal. It did give me a sort of Nine Inch Nails vibe. The latter just has really cool sound design, with an engine noise adjacent to the accident that inspired the (probably not true, but still) story of the Hamburger Lady, who feels like she’s constantly fading in & out of consciousness with the slightly echoed vocals.

“Hometime” is just FNAF ambience set over the noise of a child telling you about her day, which you can go recreate on YouTube right now, if you want. Again, the biggest crime is in the length. “AB/7A” is fun, and I did like it – I just wish the lead synth progressed a little more, but the entirety of the background instrumentation going through a little bit of chaos is pretty cool regardless. “E-Coli” is a fascinating experiment in sound; the ambience itself is sort of mediocre, but the dichotomy of the two lectures from each scientist, with one excited to experiment & the other concerned with tainting nature, each in their own channel, is pretty well done for 1978. Again, it’s just too long.

“Death Threats” is ballsy, especially with putting one from your husband’s ex in there. Imagine if Kendrick put on a voicemail from one of Drake’s exes at any point in that beef; it would’ve gone nuclear levels of viral. Immediately following up those death threats is “Walls of Noise”, which frankly, should have ended the album. It’s the worst soundscape, by far, but as a transition to basically say “go fuck yourselves” with, I think it’s kind of hilarious. It also does contain actual sound design within; it felt like a tornado destroying everything except for my house, being forced to listen to the suffering of everything around me. “Blood on the Floor” is… well, it’s there. Probably didn’t need to be.

Honestly, the biggest issue with this album is that most of its tracks just linger / meander for too long past the point of being interesting. If this were a tighter experiment in sound, acting as more of a rapidfire push (like, 2 minutes for the longer tracks I mentioned at most), I think this album might be a little more warmly received, at least not to the point of being the lowest one on the site. It’s nowhere near as abrasive as I thought it would be; that horrendously loud “jazz” album we got from John Zorn was much, much noisy / abrasive / “worse” than this. Calling this “nothing but noise” undermines the effort & time it took to actually design this thing – I would challenge anyone who says so to try and recreate some of these tracks, to see if you can do it. Granted, “Hometime” is probably really easy to recreate, but still.

All of that in mind, I’m at a 3.5 that I will bump up to a 4, as a vote of confidence for what the album tries to do (and succeeds at doing! just in a “too long” way), as a sort of a protest vote against this having the lowest rating on the site, and as an acknowledgment that this genuinely deserves to be on the list, even as just as an experiment in sound. It is not better than most of the albums I’ve given a 3, but I do think it’s more sonically interesting & compelling than most of the albums I’ve given a 1 or a 2. It’s certainly way fucking better than Haute de gamme or Kid Rock, that’s for sure. I genuinely liked it.

I had a great time while listening to this. I was walking around, and I imagined myself to be in a really strange film. Not bad at all for the "worst" album, which somehow isn't Joan Baez's self-titled.

Absolutely not for everyone, but absolutely should be on this list.

Y'all hate this for the wrong reasons.

"Industrial Music For Industrial People"
-Monte Cazazza of Throbbing Gristle

Throbbing Gristle's D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle is intentionally abrasive, frightening music, made by difficult, volatile people. Part of me does want to say this is relatively accessible, but "relatively" would carry such a large asterisk that there would hardly be a point; this is a difficult album. Frankly, I like it quite a bit: familiarity with Throbbing Gristle and their satellites is doing a lot of heavy lifting, as is my general immersion in noise music. I would urge you to give this a shot, it really isn't for everyone, but it is exceptional within it's field. This is truly a masterpiece of textural and rhythmic experimentation that, at times crawls towards sound collage. I can't tell you exactly what's going on during songs like Hit By A Rock, but I can tell you that I'm into them and their kind of intense, abstract palettes. Even on an emotional level: there's an intensity, but pinning down exactly what emotion this is trying to convey is possibly a futile effort. I'd also like to take note of a few more "accessible" tracks. Dead On Arrival is an incredible fusion of Throbbing Gristle's "deal" into a more conventional setting, it has this unstoppable groove, augmented by some of the strangest sounds ever put to record. Weeping is a similar fusion with less abstract ideas, but the execution is so bizarre, tortured and frighteningly vulnerable that it hardly reads as listenable: it honestly feels like a Jandek song. Hamburger Lady may be Throbbing Gristle's most infamous track ever. Check out the lyrics to know why. And I will say that after this point, the album becomes *extremely* abstract, but we do get one more conventional song in AB/7A, which almost just reads like an industrial synthwave song. In this song, the path from industrial like this to later stuff like Nine Inch Nails or Skinny Puppy is clearest. I will say that while I do love this album, I don't think it's getting a 5, if only because I have yet to "figure out" some of the sound collage/spoken word tracks here. However, this is utterly singular, bold, and truly frightening at times. Throbbing Gristle conjure a visceral, reptile brain reaction with their music: a rare feat, which must be celebrated.

This is one of the more intriguing albums from this list. Maybe I’m lying to myself but this honestly isn’t awful and actually quite listenable. I would absolutely listen to more “music” like this

I'd say AB/7A saves this from being a 1

I didn't hate this album quite as much as I thought I would. Some of the songs were messed up though, the word repulsive comes to mind.

1.13

This is the quirky weirdness I live for! :) I enjoyed it as a collage of noises and found sounds, I feel like they did precisely what they set out to do. I couldn't say I'll listen to this daily, but I'm glad to have heard it and will dig into their discography properly :)

Surinaa ja piipitystä. Ihan jees kokeiluja, mutta en ihan pääse sisään. Riittävän kiinnostava kolmoseen kuitenkin.

The pioneers of industrial music did not perfect industrial music. I would argue that it's not even good industrial music. It was bearable, but just barely. Once again, the algorithmic generated playlist that started after the album ended was better than the album, haha. This is the point though, I am doing this project to improve my algorithm.

Some of this I dont even think could qualify as music but I feel richer for having listened to it.

I couldn't stop laughing when I heard the wailing "hit by a rock". I don't think thats the intention though haha.

The album is abrasive and experimental. I don't think this deserves to be the lowest rated album on the site. It's certainly belongs on the list. The lyrics and topics are pretty disturbing too. Will is listen to this again? Probably not but I think this album is intended to challenge the listener which it succeeds at.

2.5/5. Raising to a 3.

Classic industrial. Love how weird and non-musical it's willing to get. Hugely influential on the genre too.

Wreckers of civilization, transgressive performing artists exposing the dark side of human civilization, Throbbing Gristle.

This album is supposed to make people uncomfortable. Mission successful, well done!

P-Orridge is v horrible, and Throbbing Gristle's excursion into violence and disturbance, particularly on the harrowing 'Hamburger Lady,' is not exactly experimental music w/o reason but it is a trial in horror w/o uplift. I prefer the electronic minimalism of a band like Suicide, and if I were looking for a noisy affair, give me the free jazz of Archie Shepp and Cecil Taylor, the discordant blues of Captain Beefheart, or the heavy lyricism of rappers like Danny Brown or JPEGMafia. So while I can appreciate the influence that a record like this has had on industrial music, that's where it ends for me. I cannot get down w/ a record this disdainful of human life and this intent on sampling snatches of uneasy conversations. It's pretentious, and ugly too.

I find it fascinating how violent some of the reactions to this are. Apparently you are a fraud if you like this or possibly just simply hated. Pretty funny. It's just sound and some creepy words, not even TG's most disturbing.

I think it's exciting not really knowing what's coming next, sensing that the people making the record didn't know either a lot of the time.

I saw them the last time they reformed and if anything they were even more impressive than their early albums would have suggested. They weren't just a tribute to themselves and incorporated current tech into what they do/did.

I kind of wish the follow up album 20 Jazz Funk Greats with its sneakily grim Blue Peter annual artwork had featured instead. The reviews for that would have been even more fun as expectations raised by the title were not met.

Trivia corner for classic rock fans: The cover for UFO's album Force It was designed by TG's Sleazy and features TG's Genesis P. Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti as the couple.

Dafuq. This is really annoying stuff...

I'm not sure if Throbbing Gristle had ever been on my radar as a band I needed to listen to. The name is familiar as is Genesis P-Orridge, but I had only ever heard single songs if anything and never took the time to listen to an entire album. I am glad I finally did. I love music that pushes the boundaries of music. I may also be a bit contrarian when it comes to music sometimes as I get off on music that makes other people upset or hate it and I often despise the mainstream popular music. Don't get me wrong, I like the hits too, but I really like when people hate something so much and I hear it and think "hey, that wasn't that bad!" That is this album. An obvious "fuck you" to anyone who thinks "music" has to have structure and melody. In my opinion, Donald Trump could record an album of his nightly farts during his second presidency and that may completely change my extremely low opinion of him as a president into a very high opinion of him as a trolling avant garde artist who, thank God, was just fucking with us his entire life. "Farting on Melania in My Gold Plated 4-Post Bed in Mar-A-Lago next to a banker's box of sensitive documents @ 3:14 AM 4/16/25" would have to be played at my funeral. I would eat that shit up. One can dream, right? This is all a joke, right?

Back to Throbbing Gristle. As others have mentioned, this album evokes a mood. I am not sure exactly what that mood is or was meant to be, but it ain't happy. It's the existential dread of life mixed with life's surreal underbelly. Why are we here? Why do we make and listen to these sounds? Do they have meaning or do they exist as a random assortment of noises that someone took the time to record? And how does one find meaning amid the meaninglessness of it all? Throbbing Gristle knows this isn't Top 40 material. They know it is bottom 40 material, but they are sending it out into the universe to ask us to challenge our perception of what "music" is. To be contrarian in a world of yeasayers. I appreciate that. It gets my blood flowing and melts a little bit of the plaque and microplastics in my brain.

Would any of the songs on this album go on a playlist containing my favorite songs that I would want to hear again? Absolutely not. Can you sing along to Hamburger Lady or Hit By a Rock? You can try if you want to. Did this album evoke more emotion from me than Christina Aguilera's Back to Basics? Yes. And what was that elicited emotion exactly? I am not sure, but I felt something listening to this and I am of the thought that feeling something even if it is painful or depressing is much better than feeling nothing at all.

So, as you listen to this, ask yourself what it makes you feel. A lot of music is just someone trying to make a buck by trying to make you happy. Throbbing Gristle said fuck that. We will make no money to make you depressed. Your happiness is not our concern, if you want to be happy listen to Van Morrison or Raffi, but if you want to think and feel something completely different, give us a try.