‘Headhunter’: Front 242’s most defining song
Belgian electronic quartet Front 242 is the archetypal EBM group. The genre, an acronym for ‘electronic body music’, for over 40 years the band have defined EBM’s combative industrial groove and militaristic aesthetic, becoming an underground force with aggressive club hits like 1984’s ‘Don’t Crash’ bringing punk to the dancefloor.
With international distribution via cult Chicago label Wax Trax!, they were propelled to the fore of the late-1980s industrial landscape alongside the likes of Ministry and My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult. Founding member Richard 23 even joined forces with Ministry’s Al Jourgensen for the notorious Revolting Cocks side-project. Front 242’s continued rise set the stage for a slew of synth-based rock to follow, with Nine Inch Nails and KMFDM (although worlds apart) reaching greater commercial heights than the EBM pioneers.
Front 242’s beginnings were far more indebted to the chilly, minimal-synth that smattered the European post-punk of the era. While their debut album harnessed some of the taut, sinewy sequencers pumped out by Neue Deutsche Welle groups like DAF and Liaisons Dangereuses, their early work was less muscle and more frigid, a coldwave residue that frosted ’82’s Geography from Patrick Codenys’ and Jean-Luc De Meyer’s prior group Underview (a project that was revisited in 2016 with their long-awaited ‘first’ album Wonders & Monsters).
The following years and subsequent EPs, Endless Riddance and Politics of Pressure, saw their icy edge soften, giving way to an energised, visceral strain of new wave that emphasised the muscular presence of drum machines, warped media samples, and De Meyer’s commanding, martial vocals. This evolution culminated in Official Version, which epitomised the band’s developing EBM sound and attitude, ultimately earning Front 242 a coveted spot supporting Depeche Mode on the European leg of their Music for the Masses tour.
The combative banger ‘Headhunter’ gifted Front 242, and the entire scene, its enduring and defining cut. Everything the group was building to reached its creative zenith on Front by Front‘s lead single, a powerhouse of primal club stomp and mechanised, post-punk heft scoring thematic anxieties detailing predatory corporatism.
Speaking to Technology Works fanzine, De Meyer divulged the track’s lyrical inspiration, stating: “I had the chance to work in an insurance company before, and I worked in the department of human resources, and I saw the way that this company was trying to hire people. It was very polite and very nice with men in suits, but at the same time, it was very cut-throat. I wanted to make a parallel between tribal warfare and these activities. The song means both of these activities.”
‘Headhunter’s bruising production was the result of a happy accident, Codenys revealing in the Belgian music documentary series Belpop: “The wrong floppy disk got loaded into the machine with a sequence, and suddenly everything came together with a distinct sonority, and we immediately thought: ‘Wow, that’s something cool!'” The anecdote surrounding the track’s genesis illustrates its alien energy as if it could only have been stumbled upon by some technological blunder rather than ever conventionally written or demoed.
Its video helped too. Already saving Depeche Mode’s public image with his unique promos and album artwork just in time for their big America break, Dutch filmmaker Anton Corbijn provided ‘Headhunter’ with an arresting video shot in his signature monochrome black and white, depicting the band in full, ice-cool military garb and alpine shades at the centre of various suits and glamorous models shifting an egg around Brussels. Apparently, Corbijn mistook the title ‘Head’ for ‘egg’ and drafted the video accordingly, which was another ‘mistake’ that worked out well for everyone.
Powerful, groovy, timeless, ‘Headhunter’ still stands as Front 242’s defining song and one of the greatest underground cuts of the late ’80s. Now embarking on their farewell tour, make sure you catch them in a city near you and witness ‘Headhunter’s’ tribal, physiological trance.
