Horror/Hero
DRACULA WORLD ORDER may have still happened if I had not discovered Ministry and the song “N.W.O.” off of PSLAM 69, but it probably would have had a different name.
Ministry’s middle period during the 90’s is a portrait of perfect intensity. Alien Jourgensen’s forceful and paranoid outlook (apparently the big hats is a fashion choice to distract any would-be assassins) crystallized into some of the loudest and most severe rock and roll ever recorded. The song is inspired by then president George H.W. Bush’s use of the term “new world order” during his speech to Congress about the first Gulf War (sampled in the song) and the conspiracy culture that grew in a post-Cold War world (see also THE X-FILES and elements of Bill Hicks’ comedy). I’m not one for conspiracies themselves, but I am interested in the feelings of loss and powerlessness that leads one to such a drastic outlook. What I found most fascianting is that Jourgensen phrases the relationship of power in romantic terms:
How to love without a trace of dissent
I’ll buy the torture cause you pay for the rent
and
I’m in love with this malicious intent
You’ve been taken but you don’t know it yet
It intimates all kinds of relationships of domination and submission, whether they be one ones of economics, romance, or drug use (a subject of many Jourgensen’s song…as well as his life). DRACULA WORLD ORDER sets out to use the vampire myth to explore all of that.
