Album a Day (Single Edition): Icon of Coil - Android

In general I'm not a big fan of singles for a few reasons: First off, they often take up almost as much if not just as much (I have yet to see more) room as regular CDs with only one to four songs (more than four and you've got an EP on your hands). They also usually include some b-side that if you're a die-hard fan you have to have and singles usually have a much more limited pressing life so the disc can become rare so having that one song can get expensive unless it gets released on some sort of b-sides or rarities collection at which point you're pissed that you spent the time tracking it down. There's also the price. If you are a fan of imports like I am then you can wind up spending as much for a single as you would a regular album from the States. Now, a lot of this is solved in the digital age and we're already seeing fewer singles get released physically (unless as bonus-tracks on an album). The thing is that the rarity of that single is often what makes a b-side or remix on it so hot, especially if the song has club value. This was certainly the case with Icon of Coil's Android single. In the early 2000's Icon of Coil was one of the top two or three most popular EBM bands even pushing on the doors of mainstream consciousnesses with their 2002 release The Soul is in The Software which featured the popular goth/industrial club songs Access And Amplify and Other Half of Me. By 2003 their fanbase was craving new material and so the band released the precursor to what would become their third and final album (at least for now) Machines Are Us (great album). While Machines Are Us would wind up having the familiar Icon of Coil sound, the single Android told a different story, perhaps one more indicative of the direction the individual members of the band would take. The title track is a much more aggro and sounded closer to vocalist Andy LaPlegua's new project Combichrist (which has now become just as popular as Icon of Coil was). It's also interesting to see the two remixes of the song on the album are from LePlegua's Combichrist (though I'd actually say the Combichrist remix makes it sound less Combichrist-like bizarrely enough) and main-Icon of Coil-programmer Sebastian R. Komor's Moonitor. The two remixes are decent but what really makes the single worth it is that b-side I talked about earlier, a cover of Front 242's Headhunter. For anyone that was going to Goth/Industrial clubs in the late 80's early 90's they will remember the popularity of this song and then again in the late 90's when the band re-recorded the song and released it in 1999 with a slew of remixes. Generally when people make lists of club anthems in the goth/industrial scene this song will make everybody's list so you can venture the guess that there have been a number of covers of the song, however none quite so successful as this one. IOC does such a great job respecting what the song means and then finding subtle ways of reinterpreting it that makes for a great cover and a rejuvenated club track. This is also so interesting in Icon of Coil's discography because this to date was their first and only cover. I guess my point in all this is that if you're going to do a single then using Icon of Coil's model is probably a good one: A song from an upcoming album that will create intrigue, a rare b-side (maybe a cover), and a couple of remixes (and using those remixes to promote your other projects since you're not sticking with this one is probably a good idea as well). Favorite Tracks: Android, Headhunter, and Android (Mix by Combichrist)