Ministry (band)

Ministry is an industrial rock band of the 1980s and 90s. The band was formed in 1981 (1981 in music) by Alain Jourgensen. The debut album was With Sympathy (1983 in music), but sales were sluggish. Jourgensen, then the only band member, decided to take the band in a new, more hardcore direction for Twitch (1985 in music).

Though Twitch did not sell well, it set the stage for Ministry's move into industrial music. With Paul Barker, William Rieflin, Mike Scaccia and Chris Connelly, Jourgensen recorded The Land of Rape and Honey (1988 in music). The album was a smash success in the underground music scene. The follow-up, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste was just as acclaimed.

After several years of touring and recording, Ministry broke into the mainstream in 1991 (1991 in music) with "Jesus Built My Hotrod" (co-written by Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers). The music video was a hit on MTV, and the full-length Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs was another hit. The three other albums were Filth Pig (1995), Dark Side of the Spoon (1999) and Animositisomina (2003). In spite of their growing success, Ministry was derailed by a series of drug problems and arrests, and finally, the suicide of guitarist William Tucker. In 2000 (2000 in music), Ministry's "Bad Blood" was nominated for a Grammy, though it lost. Label problems have prevented much recorded material being released in recent years, except the Sphinctour album and DVD in 2002 (2002 in music).