Consolidated - Play More Music

Released on September 22, 1992, Play More Music is the third studio album by the American radical left-wing industrial music group Consolidated. The 71-minute record blends aggressive industrial dance beats, hip-hop, and punk with highly politicized, explicit commentary advocating for veganism, feminism, animal rights, and anti-fascism. It features notable collaborations with artists like Paris and The Yeastie Girlz, and was mixed by Meat Beat Manifesto’s Jack Dangers. Characterized by its unique structure, the album interlaces heavy musical tracks with real audio recordings of live audience debates and confrontations, capturing the band's signature style of interactive, uncompromising activism.

Consolidated play industrial music for those who want more than a night of dancing in blissed-out ecstasy, in a hip-hop style that can appeal to rockers who don't normally like rap/hip-hop. This group presents a serious challenge to those who look the other way hoping that social ills will just disappear on their own. They are, therefore, important. You won't agree with everything you hear on Play More Music, but you will be provoked to think about why.

The legacy of Consolidated seems one that is largely lost to time. If you ask who invented industrial hip hop, someone might tell you Dälek or one of his many contemporaries. Someone more informed might go deep in the vault and look into groups such as The Beatnigs or one of the many early experiments by some industrial or rap group they can date. Consolidated, while not the inventor themselves, were by my books the first prominent group to define it. The group formed in 1988, right as The Beatnigs released their innovative debut. They would outlast the group, and even later employ one of the members on their later works. I'd say they are the most important group to employ industrial and rap together in unity.

They were also radicals, or at least the press thought so at the time.

But the journalist who deferred them as mushy liberals couldn't have been further from the truth. In today's world, Consolidated would be considered "far left" progressives who aggressively and loudly preach to their audience about their strong opinions for gun control, abortion, veganism, animal rights, and so forth. Samples in their earliest samples would indicate their opinion of neo-conservatives as fascists. Their message has seemed to be more and more applicable almost thirty-one years later after the fact. These opinions were not just held within the lyrics and imagery of their music, but their concerts in general. Adam Sherburne, the leader of the collective, would pass the microphone around the concert, forming a sort of working class debate and exchange of ideas about their message. Some of these thoughts would be later sampled on records they'd produce. Within Play More Music you see this very quickly with retorts like "I didn't pay fifteen bucks to listen to CNN" and "If you don't like it here, don't live here" echoing on the record.

For their third album, I think this is the fully realized Consolidated. Their experimentation within where industrial music was at, the incorporation of guitars, the aggressive politics that sprawl through every song they made, and the deep involvement of their audience in their music... Consolidated was something I really wish I knew of years ago.

Ripped to MP3 @ 320kbps

1. Play More Music

2. White, Male, American

3. Black, White, And Red All Over

4. No Music!!

5. Product

6. Cutting My Throat

7. Dominant Culture

8. Weapon

9. Separate But Equal

10. Sells Like Teen Spirit

11. Tool and Die

12. Meat Is Murder

13. You Suck

14. Socialist Reality

15. Cruel and Unusual Punishment

16. Give Me The Mic

17. Recovering From The 80's

18. Guerillas In The Mist

19. We Got The Beat

20. Music Is Direct Action

21. Crackhouse

22. Accept Me For What I Am

23. He Whose Bread I Eat, His Song I Sing

24. Dynamic Counter-Stereotype

25. Direct Action

26. End of the Line