A great literary mind passed away over the weekend. The twisted, dystopian writings of JG Ballard influenced countless bands throughout the history of post-punk/new-wave/electro music. His tone and even references to his work can be heard in the music of Joy Division, Gary Numan, Cabaret Voltaire, Chrome, Empire of the Sun and one of my favorite electronic songs of all time, The Normal’s “Warm Leatherette”.

The chilling song was written and recorded by Mute Records founder Daniel Miller in 1978 as The Normal (it was his one and only 7″ b/w “TVOD”–a great song as well) and is often cited as the earliest example of minimal electro. The lyrics, spoken in haunting dead-pan by Miller, reference JG Ballard’s disturbing 1973 novel Crash. This is the description that Wikipedia offers:

“The book explores themes such as the transformation of human psychology by modern technology, and consumer culture’s fascination with celebrities and technological commodities. The human characters in the novel are cold and passionless, unable to become sexually excited unless some kind of technology is involved (typically architecture and cars). The gruesome damage inflicted on car-crash victims is not seen as shocking, but as the liberation of new sexual possibilities, that have yet to be explored, such as in one scene where a man and a woman have sex in a car that was involved in an accident, but rather than have vaginal sex, he penetrates a wound on her thigh that she received in a crash.”

(The book was adapted into into a film in 1996 which was directed by David Cronenberg and starred James Spader)

Read more about the legacy of JG Ballard on The Guardian.

The Normal – Warm Leatherette

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