Cabaret Voltaire Vs Taylor Swift

Of all the possible artists Taylor Swift could have collaborated with Cabaret Voltaire would not have been on the list but this month the team up nobody asked for finally happened. Sort of, as in the UK Swift fans who purchased the vinyl copy of the Swift single "Speak Now" were puzzled and for some appalled to find that due to a mix-up (obscure Cabaret Voltaire référence!) the track was actually a version of the Cab's single "Yashar" dating back to 1983.

CABARET VOLTAIRE  ~  "YASHAR";


UK paper "The Guardian" describes Cabaret Voltaire as "an obscure electronic band" which does not do them justice. formed in the late 70's inn Sheffield, England the Cabs were one of the founders of the first wave of Industrial Music as well as being the genre's most successful and longest lasting icons. Along with Throbbing Gristle the Cabs not only gave the genre not only a name but also a sound (dark, atmospheric, electronic drones with plenty of white noise) and a esthetic (drab, grey, thrift shop, anti-fashion and generic graphics) but even an ideological theory consisting of various threads of Anarchy, art movements Dada, Futurism, Situationism, Constructionism, Pop Art, musical movements Punk Rock, Free Jazz, Avant Garde Classical and thinkers Marshall McLuhan, John Cage, Antoine Artuad, William Buroughs and Alistair Crowley and bands the early Velvet Underground and Roxy Music, Frank Zappa, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Syd Barrett, Karlheinz Stockhausen and various Kraut Rock bands.  

CABARET VOLTAIRE  ~  "EMPTY WALLS";


Since the 90's what is now known as Industrial Music is basically Metal dance music but the original wave of Industrial bands as laid down by bands like Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, Clock DVA, SPK, Severed Heads, Test Department, Einsturzende Neubauten the more obscure Robert Rental, Jass, Graph and even the early versions of the Human League, OMD and ABC were definitely not danceable and at times barely listenable to most people, and by design. The original Industrial Music bands were hardly bands at all in the traditional sense. Few of them could play any musical instruments, at least not very well. Instead they experimented with cheap analog keyboards, tape collage sound effects, disembodied voices mixed with occasional actual guitar, bass, drums and sax, buried under piles and piles of feedback, white noise and distortion. As Dick Clark would no doubt say (while plugging his ears and running from the room); "It's got no beat and you can't dance to it". After a few years of wild experimentation most of the survivors drifted into Techno Pop (Human League, OMD, ABC) or dance and trance music (Clock DVA, Severed Heads, SPK and the Throbbing Gristle offshoots Psychic TV and Chris & Cosey) with Cabaret Voltaire falling into the latter camp by the late 80's.

CABARET VOLTAIRE  ~  "SHAFT";


Before that however they made the best records of the genre. Formed by Stephen Mallinder, Richard Kirk and Chris Watson, their discography falls into different phases with the first era from about 1975 to 1980 including several singles and the first two albums featuring anti-classics "Nag Nag Nag", and "Mussolini Headkick" which codified the cacophonous wall of noise of the first wave. The second era ran through most of the 80's and focused on dense, atmospheric sound collages which eventually led to some obscure dance club hits including "Yashar" and by the end of the decade resulting in a few straightforward dance club albums which were only moderately successful. In the early 90's they broke up but they reformed a few years later recording a couple of brilliantly intricate albums of electronics and sampling as well as remixing several of their early songs. Founding member Richard Kirk died in 2021.

CABARET VOLTAIRE  ~  "MUSSOLINI HEADKICK";


Cabaret Voltaire is one of those bands I can actually remember discovering. Growing up in the pre-internet 80's it was still possible to stumble on to music you had never heard before and knew nothing about. Sometime around 1985 or 86 I found a secondhand obscure British compilation from 1979 which featured some straightforward Punk bands like the UK Subs, a Sex Pistols offshoot and Irish band the Outcasts, in fact that's why I bought it in the first place. But side two featured early Industrial bands Thomas Leer, Robert Rental and Throbbing Gristle ("United", one of their Techno Pop songs). And then there was the last track, Cabaret Voltaire's "Mussolini Headkick", one of their early singles full of white noise, grinding machinery and disembodied voices. I had never heard anything quite like it and at the time my reaction was pretty much; "What even is this and how is this even a song"? But after a couple of listens I found it oddly fascinating and eventually fell in love with them especially when I heard the Wall Of Noise anti-classic "Nag Nag Nag" which was a better Jesus & Mary Chain (who I was also already a fan of) than actual Jesus & Mary Chain.  

CABARET VOLTAIRE  ~  "NAG NAG NAG";


The song Swifties found themselves subjected to was "Yashar" from their mid period rather than from their early abrasive cacophony but the reaction was mostly horror with terms like "weird", "creepy" and "cursed" but a few of them at least have come to enjoy the tracks calling it "definitely a vibe" so maybe a few of them will discover some new audio worlds. Surviving Cabs member Stephen Mallinder pronounced himself amused by the whole affair.

CABARET VOLTAIRE  ~  "NO ESCAPE";


This is actually not the first time Taylor Swift has had a close encounter of the Industrial kind. A few years ago due to some other technical mix-up (obscure reference call back!) as a few years ago a Taylor Swift track was uploaded onto Spotify which when downloaded turned out to be a couple minutes of white noise. Being a Taylor Swift track it still managed to briefly rocketed to the top of the charts. At the time I recall posting that somewhere in a darkened, cobweb encrusted warehouse Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, SPK and the ghosts of Lou Reed and John Cage are sitting around saying "What the fuck"?

CABARET VOLTAIRE VS QUEEN ~  "WE WILL NAG YOU";


Besides music the Cabs were also pioneers of making videos using Dada techniques of collages and cut-ups of found footage and I've long been using Cabaret Voltaire tracks for my video mashups. Including this one which takes a remix of "Nag Nag Nag" and a short art film by Canadian filmmaker David Rimmer (who also died this year) which gives a good idea of the sonic chaos of early the Cabs.

CABARET VOLTAIRE  ~  "NAG NAG NAG" (remix);


Another I'm quite fond of was one I did for a remix of another early track using another Dada film.

CABARET VOLTAIRE  ~  "IF THE SHADOWS COULD MARCH";


To close out here's another one for which I took the original version of the above song and remixed it myself by slowing it down and mixing it with some found silent film footage.

CABARET VOLTAIRE  ~  "IF THE SHADOWS COULD MARCH" (slowed down remix);


For any Swifties still reading (Hi BTW) here's a remix of "Yashar" the Cabs themselves did at the end of the 80's when they were becoming more of a dance band which you should find less annoying. Enjoy.

CABARET VOLTAIRE ~ "YASHAR" (REMIX);