In the latest instalment of “why didn’t I consider this subject before?”, this week and next cover twin subjects that I’m genuinely surprised that it took this long to think about.

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/amodelofcontrol.com now has a Patreon page, at this stage purely as a potential way of helping to cover the running costs of the site. There is absolutely no compulsion to do so: if you feel you can chuck a small amount to the site each month, that would be appreciated.

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Inspired, as usual, by hearing a particular song in a totally random context, this week I’m considering songs that are about being dirty, or filthy. Which gives an awful lot of leeway, but as you’ll see from the songs chosen, they mostly went down a certain path.

Thanks, as ever, for all the song suggestions. The flipside to this will follow next week on /Tuesday Ten /610.

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A quick explanation for new readers (hi there!): my Tuesday Ten series has been running since March 2007, and each month features at least ten new songs you should hear – and in between those monthly posts, I feature songs on a variety of subjects, with some of the songs featured coming from suggestion threads on Facebook.

Feel free to get involved with these – the more the merrier, and the breadth of suggestions that I get continues to astound me. Otherwise, as usual, if you’ve got something you want me to hear, something I should be writing about, or even a gig I should be attending, e-mail me or drop me a line on Facebook (details below).

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/The Breeders
/Mad Lucas
/Last Splash

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On an album that – beyond the best-known song Cannonball – is not exactly accessible at points, Mad Lucas stands out as the true oddball. Perhaps that’s appropriate. Apparently about James Lucas, a famous hermit in what is now Hertfordshire in the mid-1800s who was known to both Charles Darwin and Charles Dickens, he reputedly kept his mother’s dead body in their house for three months after she died, and when he died many cartloads of things were taken just to clear the house. The song, though, feels grimy. Nothing is in focus, the aural equivalent of peering through a filthy window, and you have to concentrate really hard to make out the lyrics…aside from the key line, where Kim Deal snarls “…you’re a nuisance / and I Don’t Like Dirt“, presumably as an onlooker of the time to Lucas’s life.

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/Panic Shack
/Lazy
/Panic Shack

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Panic Shack don’t want to do anything on Lazy. They sleep through their alarm – and the snoozed alarm that follows – and they can’t be bothered to get up and tidy the house. Or do the dishes, or do the laundry, or go and buy supplies. Instead, they’d rather procrastinate and live in whatever state their house is in. I can relate: for a long time, we weren’t the best at keeping our house clean, or ever having what we needed in the house. Lockdown seemed to jolt us into doing something about it: we now have a cleaner that helps us to keep the house more presentable, we plan our shopping and meals, we eat (mostly) better. But we know that not everyone has the capability or mindset to do this…

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/Princess Nokia
/Gross
/Everything Sucks

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Part of an avalanche of material Princess Nokia released at once in early 2020 – two albums, one searing and spoiling for a fight (Everything Sucks) and one that’s more sensitive (Everything Is Beautiful). No prizes for where the don’t-give-a-fuck nature of Gross sits. Something of a warts-and-all boast, Princess Nokia lists what might be perceived flaws (body image, untidiness, laziness and more), the chinks in armour that others will see, owns them all and makes it clear that she sees her flaws as making her stronger and more powerful than her peers. After all, if you show off your flaws and own them, how can someone use them against you? The video is quite something, too, where Princess Nokia becomes a circus performer and, among other skills, swallows swords…

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/Alice In Chains
/Dirt
/Dirt

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Dirt as an album is a descent into the hell that members of the band were enduring at the time, and at points the album is absolutely relentless in it’s misery – even among their peers in the peak of the grunge era, Alice in Chains were darker than all of them, and Dirt remains their peak. Layne Staley’s lyrics on the album – he shares writing credits with Jerry Cantrell on most songs, but it is obvious which are Layne’s – are often dealing with his own failings, mostly revolving around the heroin addiction that would eventually kill him. The title track here is the epitome of his self-loathing, as he addresses an unknown party, almost pleading with them to help him end his suffering. But he admits he’s down in the dirt, wallowing in filth of his own creation, and uncomfortably wears it as a badge of pride: this is what he is, take it or leave it.

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/Skinny Puppy
/Shore Lined Poison
/Too Dark Park

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The Exxon Valdez oil spill, on 24-March 1989 in the Prince William Sound in Alaska, is one of the worst human-caused environmental disasters known. The ship that ran aground caused immense damage to the local ecosystem along miles and miles of Alaskan coastline, and was made even worse by blunders in trying to treat it (and only a tiny fraction of the oil spilt was ever recovered). Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was far from the only oil spill or pollution incident involving Exxon over the years, never mind their competitors.

It’s hard not to see this searing track at least being partially inspired by the disaster. Tumbling drums and the usual dense patchwork of synths and samples accompany ohGr as he rages at the filth created by human environmental damage to the world, a world that 35 years on, is still being pummelled by human activity, made worse by the idiots in power right now.

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/Midnight Oil
/Blue Sky Mine
/Blue Sky Mining

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Asbestos is a naturally occurring silicate material that has been found to be highly toxic and carcinogenic (fibres of it get into the lungs and cause mesothelioma or asbestosis, which usually result in death). Thanks to it being highly heat and fire resistant, it was used in buildings and vehicles for many years, before discovery of the dangers began to see use of it banned, although removal of asbestos has taken some time. Remarkably, it was only made illegal to use in the US in 2024, and there are still some countries where it is legal to use.

The lead track to Blue Sky Mining in 1990, sees Peter Garrett telling the story of workers in the town of Wittenoom in Western Australia, a town has since been abandoned and sealed off, such were the dangers of the aftermath of the blue asbestos mine that used to exist there. Over 2,000 people that used to work there have been recorded as dying of asbestos-related diseases, and there will likely be many more in time. It was reported last year that some unauthorised people were trying to get in to explore the area, despite the extraordinary danger in doing so.

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/An Axis of Perdition
/One Day You Will Understand Why
/Deleted Scenes From the Transition Hospital

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North-eastern blackened industrial metal band An Axis of Perdition remain one of the most extreme bands I’ve ever heard: coating their extraordinarily intense sonic attack in a layer of grime and dirt that blurs the detail of their sound, instead making their sound absolutely, and utterly overwhelming. Vocals get distorted and buried in the mix of guitars, blastbeats and distorted electronics, and at points they sound like they have successfully summoned something from the depths of hell to guest on their records. Which makes One Day You Will Understand Why all the more shocking – a slow-paced drum tattoo and gently picked guitars accompany a spoken-word piece that appears to describe an end-of-the-world scenario, humans wallowing in their own filth as they destroy the world once and for all.

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/OTEP
/Filthee
/Sevas Tra

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OTEP were very much outliers in the Nu-Metal boom of the millennial years. Formed around vocalist Otep Shamaya, they took in art-rock, hip-hop and thumpingly heavy metal, and with Shamaya’s searing, uncompromising lyrics that took in difficult subjects, found themselves a fanbase quickly (and indeed, were hand-picked by Sharon Osbourne for Ozzfest after just a few shows). Filthee was one of the many savage tracks on the 2002 OTEP album Sevas Tra, and one that took in allusions to abuse and neglect (as well as Christian ideas of purity), but also was one highlighting the self-loathing of a victim of such events that cannot escape the shadow of what has happened: the filth of the abuse that they cannot “clean” away.

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/Peter Gabriel
/Digging In The Dirt
/Us

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Six years on from the surprise success of So – a deeply experimental album that became a worldwide hit and sold millions – Us was a darker, bitter album that reflected the turmoil of his life in the meantime. Divorce and familial issues were at the heart of the troubles, but I can’t help but feel that Gabriel – despite two decades in the public eye by this point – was entirely unprepared for the demands of worldwide fame that So unequivocally brought him. Digging In The Dirt brings all those uncertainties into the open, with bleak, angry lyrics that hold echoes of furious arguments and deep self-loathing, the title of course being a metaphor for uncovering uncomfortable truths. The song – the first single from Us – was also accompanied by another state of the art video, which mixes the organic and the technological to unsettling effect.

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/CharlieOctogirl
/When’s Bins?

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Back in March 2025, a strike began in Birmingham by refuse workers, protesting against proposed pay cuts and Waste Recycling and Collection Officer (WRCO) roles, and as of the time of writing, the strike remains ongoing and unresolved. The cuts also have origins in the effective bankruptcy of the City Council a couple of years ago, which has resulted in the city having to make draconian and vast cuts to almost every service that they offer, in an attempt to save hundreds of millions of pounds. This is hardly an unusual case: most local councils in the UK have cut services to the bone, and even with some additional support from the current Government, the problem is not going away (and is the current Local Government Reorganisation really going to change anything?) – but Birmingham was unusual in having to settle an enormous equal pay claim following a case nearly fifteen years ago that was part of the issues too.

An in-joke between friends in our wider scene, and the beginnings of that strike, inspired Birmingham resident, DJ and online activist CharlieOctogirl to write a song, and When’s Bins? was the result. It inspired a stack of remixes, became a minor dancefloor and online hit, and frankly is quite the joy. But I’m sure CharlieOctogirl, like the rest of Birmingham, would like the strike to be resolved in favour of the workers, and for bin collections to become predictable again.