Some scene members argue that there is no "current state of industrial", claiming that industrial music ended with the demise of Throbbing Gristle and Industrial Records and that the idea of "genre" is antithetical to industrial music. The terms post-industrial and alternative electronic are often applied to genres spawned or influenced by the original industrial music movement.

Co-founder of Industrial Records, Peter Christopherson, had the following input on the newer waves of industrial music: "We went into this record shop out in the middle of Wiltshire and they had an 'Industrial' section - so many of which I'd played on and I suddenly felt separate from it - like, this is not me, this is not what I'm about."