Art as music or music as art always presents some sort of problem. Either the art critics don’t get the music or the music critics don’t get the art of it all. Or both. Even beyond that, when attempting to work up something completely new – and actually arriving at something that appears to be so – there’s nowhere for this new thing to fit.

Throbbing Gristle came about during the punk era – pre and post. But lumping them in with the Sex Pistols is obviously not proper. Bands like Wire and the Fall, though, aren’t any more appropriate. At least everyone realized that what Throbbing Gristle and Genesis P-Orridge were doing counted as unique. So unique, that here and there, the band gets referred to as the first industrial band. Of course, other groups – namely Pere Ubu – have been graced with such a title. In a face off, though, a tie would have to goto this group of weirdo Brits.

The group’s third album is generally seen as its creative peak. Fans obviously have their own opinions. But it’s difficult to refute the impact 20 Jazz Funk Greats has had. If nothing else, the album’s sense of humor, while still dispensing what might be perceived as art, is a slippery step stone on the way to new wave.

Despite the title, though, 20 Jazz Funk Greats has more to do with electronic music than it does with earthen soul music from the States. Certainly, portions of songs like “Tanith” and its persistent bass figure sport some semblance of groove. It’s just not of the American south, though. Does it count as industrial?

It might. But the use of tape loops far predates 20 Jazz Funk Greats’ 1979 release date. Still, though use of space, those loops and whatever other disquieting sounds might have been tossed in count as something out of step with then current trends in underground music.

Obviously, P-Orridge and his/her cohort didn’t intend to make rock music, but more than a few times on this disc some nascent electronic pop music crops up. “Convincing People” is one. And even if the robotic pulse which opens “Hot On The Heels Of Love” doesn’t initially sound as if pop related sensibility is behind it all, by the time the keyboards kick in, the track could easily have been shoehorned into radio ready musics. But that was the time period from which so much music sprung. Hear the radio today? It’s not so adventurous. Throbbing Gristle is.