YMMV / Killing Joke

• Broken Base: Brighter Than a Thousand Suns. It was the most unapologetically synth-led album of their gothic era, not to mention their poppiest (aside from Outside the Gate, but that wasn't even intended to be a Killing Joke album to begin with). Fans of their early and later eras tend to despise it, while goths tend to view it as an excellent and unfairly maligned album that needs more love. Given that they haven't played anything from it in a very, very long time, it would appear that the band is in the former camp.
• Crazy Is Cool: Jaz. This article came out after someone hacked Killing Joke's FaceBook impersonating Jaz and trash-talking The Cult. It pretty nicely shows how Jaz is awesome, even if the initial insults weren't by him. For bonus points, type "Jaz Coleman" into Google; "Jaz Coleman crazy" is the first suggestion.
• Epic Riff:
  • "Requiem" and "The Wait" from the debut, so of course Foo Fighters and Metallica covered them respectively.
  • Other classic Geordie Walker riffs: "The Fall of Because" from What's THIS for...; "Empire Song" from Revelations; "The Gathering" and "Let's All Go (to the Fire Dances)" from Fire Dances; and "Eighties" and the title track from Night Time. "Here Comes the Singularity" from Absolute Dissent is an impressive modern-day addition to this list. "Eighties" was even supposedly ripped off by Nirvana for "Come As You Are", though a one Captain Sensible, author of "Life Goes On" from years before either song, might like to have a word with both bands.
  • "Exorcism", "Whiteout" and the title track from Pandemonium must have made Al Jourgensen proud.
  • Practically all of the 2003 self-titled makes an Epic Riff out of only a handful of notes and chords.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Outside The Gate, both because it's much more heavily based around synthesizers than their other albums, and because Executive Meddling was what made it part of the Killing Joke discography to begin with: Though most of the then-current Killing Joke lineup were involved ^note Jaz Coleman, Geordie Walker, and an uncredited Paul Raven, who left the band after recording the album, it was going to be billed as a Jaz Coleman solo album until the record company put the Killing Joke name on it, in the hopes of recouping the album's admittedly expensive production costs. The band themselves have admitted it shouldn't have been a Killing Joke album, but it isn't quite in Canon Discontinuity - it was reissued alongside the rest of their discography in 2008.

• First Installment Wins: Their debut eponymous album is considered a landmark in Post-Punk and heavy music, to the point that every album since has to be compared to it, especially since the original lineup reformed.
• Mistaken for Racist: See the below.
• Music to Invade Poland to: They were often accused of being Fascists back in day due to various comments Jaz and the others made to the music press which were intended purely as Refuge in Audacity or trolling. Their music is aggressive and harsh enough to back up those who really want believe such things, of course. Their actual politics tend towards the other direction. Lampshaded by the band themselves in Wardance:
  This is music to march to
  It's a wardance
• Nightmare Fuel: In a way, Jaz Coleman's creepy and downright chilling stare. He currently has more image links than anyone else on the Death Glare page.
• Refuge in Audacity: Many of their comments in interviews seem to imply racism and such, but are really just them messing with the music press for laughs and free press.
• Signature Song: "Wardance" and "Love Like Blood".
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Nirvana were brought to court over the riff of "Come As You Are" being a little too similar to the Joke's "Eighties". The riff for "Eighties" in-turn is almost exactly like the riff for The Damned's "Life Goes On".