Industrial music’s journey from underground movement to mainstream genre is one of the more improbable in modern music. Industrial’s pioneers—Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire in Hull and Sheffield, Einstürzende Neubauten in Berlin—epitomised its anti-pop origins, erecting violent cacophonies full of dystopian themes, gloomy electronics, amplified sheet metal, even power tools. But what in the early ’80s sounded like the collapse of industrial civilisation also unlocked whole new possibilities in sound. By the decade’s end, Skinny Puppy and Ministry, as well as Chicago’s Wax Trax! scene, were harnessing these innovations for a claustrophobic style of alternative club music. Enter Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, who in the ’90s pushed things even further, injecting industrial with rock hooks, inventive songwriting and gobs of teen angst. In the process, Reznor permanently reshaped hard rock and heavy metal for decades to come. Though industrial has once again retreated to the cultural fringes, its sonic adventurousness and profound sense of social alienation continue to inspire transgressive artists around the globe.