https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxU1ShItt9s
"Shakespeare" doesn't have lyrics that warrant the title; as far as I can deduce, the title was free-associated from the "funk it and you funk it til your monkey don't stop" chant (if infinite monkeys dance on infinite typewriters, they will eventually choreograph the entire works of etc). It seems, furthermore, like an easy kind of song to make. There's barely any melody; the time signature is 4/4. It's fast, it's relentless, and how hard can fast and relentless be when you've got the security of a recording studio to fake both in? True, there's a variety of different hooks: different drum layers playing different rhythms, dextrous bass patterns, mechanical whirring noises, free-jazz saxophone. There's several lyrical rabbit holes for rap-mode Jim Marcus to plunge down, dislodging varying showers of gravel. But no element is individually that advanced. You listen to "Shakespeare" and it moves you or it doesn't. I bounce around all over the place, personally, flapping different body parts to different percussive flurries. Still, maybe kinesis doesn't seem like such an achievement.
Indeed, "Shakespeare" isn't the most obviously impressive song on its own album (Engine).
I could equally have linked "All Good Girls", tuneful pop like a technofied Tears for Fears, where Marcus's voice -- artificially reverbed, but pleasant and human-scale and sympathetic nonetheless -- sings a portrayal of a teenage girl and her molester father that's artful in sketching her character, and kind enough to look away while portraying the ugly bits only by implication. The vocal harmonies as the plot reaches its denoument are sentimental and aim for the celestial, but allow themselves human flaws that the ever-evolving machine drones don't. It's a great song, mournful and pretty. It belongs here too.
But having made my artificial one-song-per-artist limit, I've noticed that I know many songs that are smart and mournful and pretty. I *don't* know much that sounds like "Shakespeare". Engine was, for me, a product of the period after Nine Inch Nails's extraordinary Downward Spiral when I assumed I was a fan of industrial music, and made a number of purchases accordingly. I mostly stopped after I realized that while I don't mind industrial music, I was mis-attributing the cause of my fascination with Trent Reznor's work (or at least over-generalizing it).
Skinny Puppy are good, especially in goth dance clubs at 2 a.m., which came up occasionally before I became a father; I didn't put "Tin Omen" in this countdown but I considered it. Einsturzende Neubaten were apocalyptically aggressive and musically worthwhile, but not, to me, ever at the same time. Prick and Finitribe albums were keepers, but I haven't listened to them in ages. Mindless Self-Indulgence are fun, as long as you agree not to think more about their lyrics than they ever did, but the band name and the title of their best album (Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy) outclass the music contained therein. Marilyn Manson I value almost entirely for Storm FX's wonderful sign-language translation/ performance art to "This is the New Shit" (where you may skip the silent opening minute's earnest lecture in ESL, but sticking with it ended up making me laugh out loud). I've also gotten rid of enough industrial albums to make my point to myself.
Vampire Rodents did record two great industrial albums, Lullaby Land and Clockseed, and I wish they'd made a one-song reduction of their gifts for this countdown: start with "Iron Clad", if you're curious, but the point is that everything they did is almost that good without them ever running out of ideas. Die Warzau's Engine is my favorite non-NIN industrial album, though, and I didn't even create an "industrial" tag because I wouldn't use it again. (NIN themselves will be represented, near the top of the list, with a song filed under "experimental pop".)
And in all that machine noise, all those pounding beats, all those chanted vocals, "Shakespeare" stood, and stands, out to me. Lots of songs are fast (although fewer than I'd've expected). Lots of vocals are percussive, but most of them aren't as basically good-natured-sounding about it as Marcus's. Lots of songs are relentless, but by hammering home one or two ideas until I'm sick of them. Fast, relentless, and *agile*, that's what's rare. Circle back to a good idea, sure, this is pop, yeah yeah yeah -- but vary your routes, explore new scenery. It takes, it seems, a special confidence and focus to explore new territory at a sprint. And special breath control to report back what you find out as you go.
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