Cabaret Voltaire – The Crackdown

Though Red Mecca and 2x45 are often mentioned as Cabaret Voltaire's quintessential releases, this one will almost always qualify as my favorite. And the particular reason is because this is the point at which the Cabs went truly electronic and a little more mainstream with their sound, moving away from the paranoid, noisy rhythm experiments on which they'd concentrated for the last two LPs and developing instead a smoother, more palatable James Brown-inspired sound. Just about every track on this landmark album is a state-of-the-1983-art electrofunk piece that takes a few inspired ideas, both musical and lyrical, and works them into an incredibly repetitive frenzy. Stephen Mallinder's once-dehumanized voice now sounds almost warm, though the abundant themes are still "industrial" in nature... drugs, technology, socialism, globalism, urban noir. Though most would equate this record with its standout bass-heavy dance tracks like "Over and Over" and "Just Fascination," it is the variety in the more unusual tracks that make it truly worthwhile. The opening pairing of rhythmic dissonance ("24-24") and alluring gloom ("In the Shadows") could almost be viewed as a segue from their former sound, while the almost humorous "Why Kill Time (When You Can Kill Yourself)" grants the Cabs an ass-shaking post-punk anthem that is still wholly underrated despite the fact that entire subgenres have developed from its sound. The original record closed with the album's best track, "Crackdown," a hard synth-pop piece that gave birth to industrial dance—and was later cribbed quite neatly by Skinny Puppy's "Testure" in 1988.

This CD version has been the prominent CD version of this record for more than 25 years. It tacks on the four soundtrack pieces (from the Cabs' first video compilation) that originally appeared on the bonus EP that came with the LP. The most interesting of these tracks is "Diskono," a Cabaret Voltaire classic and one of their best abrasive dance tracks.