Big Black - Influence

Influence

Musically, Big Black's insistent drum machine rhythms, abrasive textures, and obsessively repeated riffs provided a major part of the blueprint for so-called industrial rock. Their bracingly intense music aside, the saving grace of the band's often obnoxious approach was that it was thought-provoking. Big Black set a standard for freedom of expression and forthrightness that has been emulated to varying degrees ever since.

Through their aggressive guitar playing and use of a drum machine, Big Black's music served as a precursor to industrial rock. Aesthetically, the band's firmly-held ideals, staunch independence, insistence on creative control, and stark lyrical topics had a significant impact on the developing independent rock community. "Big Black was a band that went where few bands dared to go (and where many felt bands shouldn't go)," writes Mark Deming, "and for good or ill their pervasive influence had a seismic impact on indie rock." Albini summed up several of the band's core ideals in his notes to the Pigpile album:

Organizationally, we were committed to to a few basic principles: Treat everyone with as much respect as he deserves (and no more), Avoid people who appeal to our vanity or ambition (they always have an angle), Operate as much as possible apart from the "music scene" (which was never our stomping ground), and Take no shit from anyone in the process.