Apologies, didn't notice the mention of Apples.

I'd also like to throw Ligeti in the hat. A lot of what he was doing in the 50s-60s as a composer was astonishingly original, and breaches into a lot of ambient/thematic areas a lot of people were not willing to for awhile.

Fifty Foot Hose were pretty original and experimental for the mid-late 60s. I guess they never really got that popular though so I don't know if you can really consider them ahead of their time.

But, but... industrial music technically began in 1976 with Throbbing Gristle's somewhat extensive list of cassette releases. Some people even go so far as to say that industrial music started in the early 70s with Cluster/Kluster's early albums... Half Machine Lip Moves wasn't released until 1979... several years after the genre was created. However... you could say that Chrome was a few years ahead of their time in a sense that they were early pioneers of noise rock and post-punk.

Popularity is irrelevant in this situation. Luigi Russolo was what? Fifity or sixty years ahead of his time? And yet he was still rather unpopular... In fact, people in the audience would boo at him and start a bit of a ruckus during his performances.

You could look at it like cult classic films in that they don't get popular until later, thus being ahead of its time, but I understand what you're saying.

Anyways, here's rapping in 1968.

You can judge it in terms of popularity though. It's only one way to do it. For your example of Russolo, he was a pioneer, sure, but if he's not well received in any real time period, then he himself is not ahead of his time as an artist in terms of popularity, but rather he made music that was ahead of its time in style. If he was never received well by any audience, then he's not ahead of his time (again, in terms of popularity).

Haha yeah there was really no reason for arguing over this. Your's is the more common view of it. Not sure why I was thinking that way going into this thread anyways.

Those drums are unreal

They formed in 75, releasing their first album in 76. They are seen as forerunners for the wave of bands that were to give the burgeoning scene an identity in the late 70s/early 80s. The melding of rock instrumentation with synthesized, heavily manipulated sound was not only an influence on Industrial, but as you said, Noise Rock too.

And Cluster were a band ahead of their time, but not because they invented industrial. Kluster were more proto-industrial, but Cluster were more into ambient, 'kosmische' electronics and subtle rhythms.