Cabaret Voltaire, Mix-Up (side A)

In 1979, when Cabaret Voltaire made their debut album Mix-Up, rock influences were still prominent in their dark, abrasive music.  Most songs were short with structure, and prominent vocals contributed to these structures.  Guitars and bass guitars often appear in the foreground (albeit usually with a lot of effects), and they even covered the Seeds' "No Escape".  While they recorded themselves, the mixes sound surprisingly clean and professional, in part because so many of the sounds are aggressively filtered to very narrow bandwidths.  It's the group's darkest and most offputting work, but the obvious references to rock music make it surprisingly accessible.  The blurry cover image aligns nicely with the cheap simplicity of the album's construction.