NIN :: The Nine Inch Nails Discussion Thread

I wondered if one of these should be started, but Renn beat me.

As I discussed in another thread I just bought (well, got for free in a 2 for 1) Beside You in Time and the presentation is fantastic. I so wish I could actually see this live.

Weeks ago I declared The Slip NIN's best album since The Downward Spiral. Today, I have no qualms in sticking with my opinion. In terms of quality, The Slip is a fascinating, seriously satisfying comeback. And, by golly, it actually holds up!

To those that haven't given the new disc a chance for one reason or another (DaveB?...if you're reading this thread), The Slip delivers the goods. Honest.

thank you for making this thread, i seriously was considering making it as well today.

after seeing the rehearsal videos up at www.nin.com today i can't even imagine how phenomenal the shows are going to be. i was curious how the drum machine beat on "echoplex" would play out live, but seeing josh play with the machine excited the hell out of me.

my winnipeg and minneapolis shows cannot come soon enough.

Yeah, The Slip is good the only problem I have with it is "Corona Radita" could have been 2 minutes shorter. Then again I'm hypocrite in that sense, because when I made my ambient/soundscape shit for my audio class it went on for over 7 minutes.

Still a very good album, plus it was free.

We had a NIN thread cooking along when the Slip came out.

They are my favourite band and I like all their stuff including the unpopular With Teeth.

Trent is in a weird place popularity wise. He's shaking things up with the distribution model and he gets a lot of kudos from the Internet community for that even if they don't like the music. He's never been played on regular radio and is now not trendy enough for the alternative stations (not in Australia anyway). Despite that there is a solid fanbase, and it seems he's picking up new fans from all sorts of different places.

Also, here's some clips from the tour rehearsals:

http://www.pitchfork.tv/special-pres...rsals/echoplex

I've given Reznor three or four "last chance"s by now. It's not that I dislike his output since "The Downward Spiral"; I outright hate most of it and feel embarassed for both myself for listening to it and for him for releasing it.

So, with that in mind, do you still think The Slip is worth my time? If you do, maybe I'll give it a shot, but the first lazy rhyme I hear about his amorphous, still-lingering adolescent angst is my signal to proclaim you all shameless apologists.

DaveB, you've got a head like a hole. It's black as your soul. Real NIN fans would rather die than give you control of this thread. (And something rhyming "scab" with "bad.")

I'm not the most qualified person to give you advice on music. Not by a long shot. But something really seems to have changed about Reznor in The Slip. I think it's the best thing he's done since The Downward Spiral. I could be wrong and letting my fanboyism cloud my judgment, though.

Ha! I was just having a conversation last night with a friend of mine, comparing Marilyn Manson and Trent's over-lingering adolescent angst. Someone needs to give these guys a hug. For real.

Note: I am still somewhat of a NIN apologist though. The Slip is nowhere near The Downward Spiral; however, it has been giving me indications that Trent might be getting more on track.

If you don't like The Fragile, I don't even want to know you.

The problem with Trent Reznor is that when he did The Downward Spiral it was this evolutionary sound leap forward. His distopian (but whiny) vision had a visceral soundscape, similar to the evolutionary leap of Dr. Dre with the Chronic. And then he put out a bunch of albums that didn't have that cohesion, nor lacked that vision except in fits and spurts. If this doesn't have that scope, what's the point? Pretty Hate Machine is Pretty not good, but in its time it was a step forward, I guess.

Also, it makes you respect Marylin Manson because at least there, the pathos is at least a show, it's just a million times more phoney when you're a rich dude whining like a 14 year old girl (or 16 year old dude) for going on 20 years now. And that Reznor is still playing to that audience makes most of his follow up albums as sad and as artistically bankrupt as the prequel trilogy.

Touching on what Andre and Dave said, I wouldnt call his post-Spiral material bad, per say. But it's all definitely just one-more-time-without-feeling.
I guess he just dug as deep as he could go.

I still think Year Zero(as messy as it is) is the best thing he's done since Spiral. The Slip is good, but it feels... slight. I really only find myself coming back to the second half of the album(which has 2 instrumentals).

I love NIN's instrumental stuff, but the Slip is 10 tracks and 3 of them are instrumental. I figured he would have gotten his fill after Ghosts.

The Fragile and with Teeth are bothe guilty as charged with some auful angsty lyrics from a 35 and then 40 year old man. (I still like the music)

However Year Zero moves into more interesting territory with the 15 years in the future back story, Ghosts has no lyrics and The Slip seems more mature.

The main draw card for me is the music. It's this weird niche of electronic music with pop sensabilities and enough grit to stop it sounding like New Order (most of the time).

I can understand people turning off. My wife was a massive NIN fan but she can't stand it anymore.

Also, to anyone thinking about The Slip, just go get it. It's free. Or listen to that link I posted earlier of the rehearsals.

I said this a long time ago, but anyone expecting poetry out of Trent Reznor's lyrics after the age of 16 is deluded. The music is what has always put him heads and shoulders above the rest, and although I can grant that With Teeth and Year Zero were lax in that department, with occasional high points (The more I hear it, the more I realize All The Love In The World turning into electro-gospel at the end is one of the best musical curveballs in history), the man still knows how to layer sounds to give those words something epic to play off of. What makes these last two albums different and fresh is that Trent's letting the music just flow first, with the lyrics as sort of an afterthought. Argument can be made that that's what he's been doing since TDS, but in everything before he left Interscope, he's trying to create synergy between music and lyrics. He basically says "Fuck it" to that idea with The Slip. As a result, we meet the real Trent, 2008. And that motherfucker is happy.

My view on Reznor's work has looked like this as of late:

Bad:
The Fragile
With Teeth (All the Love in the World is amazing, I'll give the album that.)
Ghosts I-IV

Good:
Everything else.

Year Zero was a stunningly cool rebound after the depressingly insipid With Teeth, and The Slip is a very concise and well written album, if a bit slight, as someone above put it.

Heh. Let me just say I expected Chinese Democracy to be released before NIN put out an album again that I can safely say I loved. I'm definitely as far as an apologist as you can expect. NIN hasn't really been on my radar since 1999, after the disappointing The Fragile left me unnurtured and bruised. Musically is where The Slip comes back firing on all cylinders. Lyrically, it's not a departure for Reznor, but just like with Pretty Hate Machine and The Downward Spiral, the lyrics are used as a paintbrush, adding texture and drive to the surrounding beats and sounds. The lyrics don't lampoon and blotch the music like they have been doing on NIN's recent albums.

There's a clarity, finesse, and tight vision wrapped around The Slip. Trent is no longer bullshitting and biting off more than he can chew. He's allowing his intuition to steer the music again, and it's led to some visceral and aurally transcendent compositions.

That said, DaveB, I think if you can still listen to Pretty Hate Machine or The Downward Spiral with a straight face, you will find some worth in The Slip. On the other hand, if your disconnect from NIN has reached a universal level, The Slip will, well, slip into irrelevance.

First: DaveB, stay away from The Slip. If you haven't liked NIN since The Downward Spiral, you will find nothing in The Slip to change your mind. I like the album but many here are delusional.

Second: Something that comes up in every discussion about Reznor on the the CHUD boards: his angst being a manifestation of his immaturity. I find this to be weird. Is angst something that is only normal in adolescents? Is it that I don't understand the meaning of angst (language barrier maybe)? Should he be singing with bitterness instead?

Delusional? Nah. I never said The Slip was in the same league as The Downward Spiral. If Spiral is a 9.0, The Slip
is a respectable 7.5. There's enough strong material to warrant a listen or two, at the very least.

What I meant is that you are delusional if you think The Slip will turn him around about NIN. It's a good album and it is different. But it's mostly different from a NIN fan's point of view.

Here's what DaveB said:

I just don't see why he would suddenly change his mind. Ghosts is a bigger departure from the usual NIN than The Slip his. I feel The Slip is more a summary of what NIN has become over the years than braking new ground. I would also say Year Zero was more of an evolution than The Slip.

I agree with The Alexor, if anything was going to turn DaveB around on NIN it would either be Year Zero or (more likely)Ghosts. I don't hear anything on the Slip that would sway someone who no longer liked the band.

*edit- Other than the fact that it's free.

Points taken, but I wasn't under the impression that DaveB was looking for something revolutionary-sounding from NIN...perhaps just some solid music? I certainly don't think The Slip will miraculously make him a NIN diehard again. Hell, it didn't make me one. What it did, though, is give me a fine album to play during the summer months.

Angsty lyrics or not, check this out! Trent released the download information for The Slip as a Google Earth file so you can see who all over the world got it.

It's at www.nin.com.

For example here is Australia.

http://www.nin.com/images/nin-downloads-australia.jpg

I'm somewhere in the tower that goes up near the word 'number' (eg. 'to see the total number').

I just checked out that map; pretty cool idea. Looks like I'm one of 345 in my city to download The Slip.

I too am one of the 300-something in my backwoods Canada town to download it. It's like a tiny spike in the middle of nowhere.

When discussing rock music, "angst" tends to carry a connotative meaning beyond the dictionary definition, which on its face could probably just as easily apply to Bergman as NIN. The connotation is that the angst expressed by NIN (or Korn or what-have-you) is a sort of unsophisticated, inarticulate anger at the world, oneself, or authority. It dwells on a barely-defined psychic pain that's particularly relatable for teens and young adults who have just started to realize that life simply isn't fair. There are a lot of accusatory "you"s, vague references to pain and sorrow, and, in the odd instance that the songwriter takes responsibility for any actions on his own part, it goes too far in the other direction, attributing all manner of evil to himself (see "Hurt," for instance). It's, again, a megalomania that a teen can love.

Last night, I was watching the documentary on Joy Division that came out last year, which helped illustrate the difference between a more interesting, eloquent angst and that expressed by Reznor, etc. Ian Curtis was only 23 when he died, which is a couple years younger than Trent Reznor was when he released Pretty Hate Machine, but his lyrics, which dealt in some of the same existential dread, were already more artful and insightful than Reznor has yet been able to achieve. Reznor's music is b-grade horror movie stuff by comparison. It's just sort of embarassing that this guy's putting out supposedly heartfelt music that sounds like it was written by a 14-year-old who just got dumped. Even Year Zero came off like dystopian lit for pre-teens.

I downloaded The Slip because it's FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
But when I listened to it it came to MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

The man can't write lyrics to save his LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFEE!
And I'm sick of him singing about all his STRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFEE!

I heard he collaborated with Saul Williams on Williams' latest album. However iTunes will not let me buy the one song I do want. That being his Sunday Bloody Sunday cover. How freakin arbitrary.

Hey, be fair. For all his lyrical weaknesses, Trent has never resorted to the hated life/strife rhyme, which to me is the second worst of all time (the worst being love/glove).

Worst is actually me/free.

But I digress.

Of course you're right. But I tend to cut Reznor some slack in the lyrical department, as I don't generally listen for the lyrics as much as his arrangement/mixing/production technique, which continues to intrigue me.

For what it's worth he may be self-conscious about lyrics himself; he's admitted having problems with writer's block, the amount of material he's released this year is a glaring exception to his general 2-5 year gap between albums (bearing in mind that about two thirds of the music he's released this year has been instrumental), and he's released what, like three b sides in his entire career.

I get that, but he puts the vocals so far out front that they're impossible to ignore. I also don't think he's come up with many new musical tricks in the last 15 years or so, so even the argument that he's some sort of musical prodigy who just happens to be a bad lyricist (a notion that I used to buy) has become less valid over time. He was once an innovator in terms of production and texture, but he's been coasting on that rep for years. I don't hear anything on his new albums that he didn't do better before.

If you're suggesting that he spends any time whatsoever struggling over lyrics, I'd hate to see his reject pile. I don't believe that he's self-conscious about his lyrics - if he were, he'd spend more time on them, and he might eventually become an adequate lyricist. But there's been no improvement since The Downward Spiral; in fact, he may have even gotten worse.

There's no sense of evolution, yeah, that's the problem. I get why people like it. I love Wong Kar-Wai, but he seems to have found his niche, and isn't going to offer too many variations. Same could be said of Wes Anderson. The art isn't necessary profound, but the grammar, the cadence is excellent, and either you find the album you like or you love the total, even if all you're getting is subtle variations (which is the case with most artists).

Bringing Joy Division into the mix absolutely shatters Reznor at his best. There's nothing he's ever done that could compare to the chills I get when I listen to Transmission for the thousandth time. Then again, I think Reznor completely captures what it's like to fuck a goth chick, so I get it. And I liked it at the time (TDS and fucking a goth chick). But in both cases, you really do have to stomach some bullshit posturing. To complete the analogy, if you're still that girl when you're in your 30's or 40's... yeah, it doesn't age well.

As a musician he's compelling. As a lyricist he's a 13-year-old girl.

What made Pretty Hate Machine and The Downward Spiral so visceral, compelling, and effective is that Reznor's anger and frustration felt natural and real. It was like a demon was bottled up in the depths of his soul. After that, his post-Spiral work drowned in angsty proclamations that simply didn't register with me on a reactionary level. The majority of his music escalated into angsty paranoia and manufactured hostility. The reason an album like The Slip even surprised me--the music itself was stronger than I've heard from any NIN album in more than a decade. That's not saying much, I know, but when your expectations are very low, almost any improvement will resemble a revival of sorts.

I'd include Broken in that mix as well. I know they aren't popular around these parts, but I'd say Korn had the same problem(as in I could only take them seriously for the first album). Trent had a better run. Say what you will, but production-wise the Fragile is fucking brilliant, and the same goes for "the Perfect Drug".

I'm quite fond of the Year Zero sound, but I know it's a bit messy for most people, and the production is very stripped-down. Also, it's full of loops "the Trent of old" never would have relied on. The beats are all rather basic, especially when compared to some of his more complicated work(the aforementioned "the Perfect Drug", for instance).

I dig the 'The Perfect Drug'. I think it's one of Trent's best songs (and most overlooked). If I were Trent, I'd branch out into composing scores. I could see him having a highly productive stint in that field.

As for Broken, has got to be one of the greatest "work-out" discs ever. That sucker is chalk full of combustible adrenaline and enough testosterone that would make Michael Bay explode.

I've been thinking this ever since I first heard "A Warm Place", and I've been vocal about it ever since I got my hands on the Fragile. The problem back then is that someone would have made a film, handed it to Trent completed, and gotten it back with a score 2 years later.
I think Trent's eased up on his perfectionist tendencies enough nowadays that he could actually score a film in a reasonable amount of time. I really hope he does.

Bumping this thread as The Slip streets tomorrow. It's a limited edition; I know I'll end up buying it, but I always feel so stupid rushing out to buy a CD or DVD that's limited because I always end up seeing it still lingering on store shelves two years later, taunting me for being a Pavlovian consumer whore. And I'm too OCD-ish to not buy it.

But I'm a fan and will keep supporting Trent (and seeing him live next monday!) even though I've been conditioned to think I'm really lame and NIN is a passe 90s band or whatever. I'm hoping the concert is not a Ripoll-esque neurotic nightmare where I feel like an awkward asshole and don't know how to act or applaud properly. I don't go to a lot of shows and I'll be in a strange city far out of my comfort zone.

I'm going to pick up my copy of the LE later today. Looking forward to hearing the live tracks.

http://theslip.nin.com/physical/

Thanks for bumping this. Snagged my copy yesterday, and it's the first time I've been able to listen all the way through. Just never remembered to download it. Upon initial listen, it's not bad, but I'll need another to see how it stands up. Anyone watch the DVD yet?

Anyone going to Lollapalooza? I'll be there. This will be the first time I've been able to catch NIN live (various shitty circumstances have conspired over the years to keep me from seeing them up until now).

Can't wait, as seeing Beside You In Time has reassured my assumption that they're one of the best live acts touring today.

Just got floor tickets for DCU Center in Worcester on August 8th. Helllll yessss. The setlists I've seen look absolutely killer too, including some nice Ghosts medleys.

I'm on the fence about buying The Slip. I'm waiting to find out if there will be a SACD hybrid or DVD audio/dualdisc release. I haven't been keeping up with the news about The Slip physical release, but it doesn't look likely. The high res version was available for free download, but it sounded kinda funky to me, poorly mastered. I'm hoping the CD version at least has a better sounding master, since the initial download one was rushed and had some technical errors.

i'm heading out wednesday to see them in winnipeg, then driving to minneapolis for the show after. i'll be the guy at the front of the GA line, if anyone's interested. im going early. ... early.

I still can't believe NIN are going to Winnipeg and Edmonton but not Montreal. Yes, I'm jealous.

that is kind of strange. personally im in thunder bay and there's zero chance of them ever coming here, so im content to drive 7 or 8 hours to see them.

no montreal though.. huh.