Random NIN Thoughts

[The_Prowler]

That was a hell of a lot better than I thought it was going to be. I like those kids

[Charmingly Miserable]

When I teach high schoolers, they often ask me what kind of music I listen to. When I say NIN, they say, "Oh, my dad listens to Nine Inch Nails!!!" I'm unsure if that was a compliment or a diss. Since when did NIN become dad rock?

[sheepdean]

When I teach high schoolers, they often ask me what kind of music I listen to. When I say NIN, they say, "Oh, my dad listens to Nine Inch Nails!!!" I'm unsure if that was a compliment or a diss. Since when did NIN become dad rock?

TR has two kids, pretty sure if it wasn't dad rock already, it became it once Lazarus was born.

[allegro]

When I teach high schoolers, they often ask me what kind of music I listen to. When I say NIN, they say, "Oh, my dad listens to Nine Inch Nails!!!" I'm unsure if that was a compliment or a diss. Since when did NIN become dad rock?

The first NIN album was released 25 years ago so that spans 2 generations, at least. TDS was released before your high school students were born.

[cashpiles (closed)]

I am listening to Appendage at a very low volume... and it seems like there might be a layer under the main vocals of "never be enough" where's he also whispering "never be alone" "never be alone" "never be home"....

Also... does he yell "I'm going downtown!!" over and over near the end?

[Vertigo]

Sounds like "I am gobbling down nuts" to me (which fits "Never be enough to fill me up" quite nicely).

[Halo Infinity]

When I teach high schoolers, they often ask me what kind of music I listen to. When I say NIN, they say, "Oh, my dad listens to Nine Inch Nails!!!" I'm unsure if that was a compliment or a diss. Since when did NIN become dad rock?

This topic has always interested me no matter what band it was. And as mentioned, it's always best to consider the year the debut album was released. And from what I've noticed, it seems like the majority of NIN's youngest fans were born in the late 1980s and early 1990s these days, especially since With Teeth came out. (I could very well fall into that category since I was born in late 1985.) And while they're out there, as there's always exceptions, I can hardly find any NIN fans born in the mid 1990s and later.

I also recall posting about this a while back too.

http://www.echoingthesound.org/commu...377#post155377

And also here, in a way.

http://www.echoingthesound.org/commu...chine-came-out

[Vertigo]

To be fair, mid-1990s and younger means teenagers (or less). NIN certainly wasn't my sort of listening as a teen, and Hesitation Marks was an album that's about looking back on your life experience - could you really expect a youngster to relate to that?
I think NIN plays to an older demographic these days, even if you discount the established listener base.

[Halo Infinity]

While I love the entire video, I also love that fucking shriek, howl, whatever it is on the 4:09-4:14 mark of Ringfinger live here. What a great way to close the song, which is why I hope to see it live some day, even if that might never happen. (And yes, I know that it won't be exactly the same at all times even if it did, but still.)

[Ryan]

While I love the entire video, I also love that fucking shriek, howl, whatever it is on the 4:09-4:14 mark of Ringfinger live here. What a great way to close the song, which is why I hope to see it live some day, even if that might never happen. (And yes, I know that it won't be exactly the same at all times even if it did, but still.)

Dear Trent,

PHM Live 2015 plz.

[Edo]

To be fair, mid-1990s and younger means teenagers (or less). NIN certainly wasn't my sort of listening as a teen, and Hesitation Marks was an album that's about looking back on your life experience - could you really expect a youngster to relate to that?
I think NIN plays to an older demographic these days, even if you discount the established listener base.

I was surprised to find many teenage NIN fans on Tumblr. Even though a lot of them seem to mentally live in NIN's 90s era because they find it more relatable, I suppose? Still, there may be a new generation of lifelong fans in the making...

[seasonsinthesky]

Also... does he yell "I'm going downtown!!" over and over near the end?

the usual assumption is "going down fast​"

[sick among the pure]

I am listening to Appendage at a very low volume... and it seems like there might be a layer under the main vocals of "never be enough" where's he also whispering "never be alone" "never be alone" "never be home"....

Also... does he yell "I'm going downtown!!" over and over near the end?

I always thought it was "Im going down hard" like crashing from a drug induced high. (Never be enough to fill me up being bout drug use)

[Halo Infinity]

Dear Trent,

PHM Live 2015 plz.

I'm also greedy enough to wish for a Broken show to be attached to it too. At a total of 18-20 songs if you also throw in Now I'm Nothing and Get Down Make Love, it might just work.

[implanted_microchip]

I'm also greedy enough to wish for a Broken show to be attached to it too. At a total of 18-20 songs if you also throw in Now I'm Nothing and Get Down Make Love, it might just work.

Open with Now I'm Nothing, then PHM, then GDML as a main set end, then Pinion and all of Broken as an encore ending in Supernaut. The fact that I think that would be a great show is why I don't get to choose the setlists, I think Trent would kill himself if he had to sing That's What I Get again.

[Halo Infinity]

Because it's almost that time of the year again, and well, the NIN joke of the past 2 decades and 5 years.

[Dryalex12]

You know.......I actually used to hate NIN, really bad........I don't even know why I did, but i do remember telling my mom to change this crap around that time THTF first came around....then I listened to hurt.........

[Volband]

You know.......I actually used to hate NIN, really bad........I don't even know why I did, but i do remember telling my mom to change this crap around that time THTF first came around....then I listened to hurt.........

So that's why every NIN-setlist ever starts with Hurt being on it. Thanks a lot!

[pwing47]

It baffles me that artists like Trent can craft an album like The Fragile with so much complexity both in terms of layered music and in meaning that can evolve with you over time. I've literally heard some of these songs hundreds -- maybe closer to thousands -- of times.

Yet there are still subtleties to pick up on and elements buried so deeply that it can encourage one to switch up equipment (the actual format, types of headphones, types of speakers; heck, even sitting closer to or further away from the sound). It's exciting knowing that if we're lucky we'll someday ("soon," I'd suppose) have a version with 6 discrete channels and quite certainly many more years of enjoying the album in a new way.

Anyway, others on this board have expressed the same sentiment elsewhere, so I won't ramble too much further. However, does anyone remember if there are interviews where Trent specifically discusses his work, process, and/or mindset while putting together the sounds and pieces of The Fragile?

[Edo]

However, does anyone remember if there are interviews where Trent specifically discusses his work, process, and/or mindset while putting together the sounds and pieces of The Fragile?

Lots of interviews and stories from The Fragile era and later. The Fragility tour book, off the top of my head. Loving this album and totally obsessing over it, I'm thinking of pulling all the scattered infobits into one place (assuming no one's done that yet... aside from nin.wiki, of course). The making of The Fragile is not a happy story but a fascinating one.

[Dryalex12]

I dont know why this took me so long to figure that the still version of TDTWWA basically the quiet mix, just turned down to eb instead of E

[Joy Prevention Hotline]

The making of The Fragile is not a happy story but a fascinating one.

That speech still makes my neck hairs stand on end. The highlight of my live NIN experiences … and La Mer has never sounded better to me than it did that night.

[pwing47]

The making of The Fragile is not a happy story but a fascinating one.

Thanks for sharing that. I've seen it before but must've forgotten about it for awhile. Powerful stuff, especially given the beauty of the song. I think I would have been in tears if I had heard him give that speech live.

[nooneimportant]

"Adrift and At Peace" just feels like a Christmas song to me, except it's not a Christmas song and I listen to it whenever but man it really works for this time of year. It's weird.

[L'Acephale]

*double post, please delete*

[L'Acephale]

Nine Inch Nails have become extremely generic to me, especially the deeper I get into pre-Skinny Puppy industrial music (Metal Machine Music, Throbbing Gristle, whatever).

This is not a problem I have with Manson, whose style has always been a little of this, a little of that; or the Germans - Nitzer Ebb, KMFDM, and so on, who have always had a very specific, national language for industrial music; or even the more extreme industrial metal acts like The Kovenant.

But since rehab, Trent's albums all basically sound the same to me. Year Zero was the most venturesome with the inclusion of the glitchtech elements, but that was present only on about a third of the record, the rest being very conservative, midtempo rock, strictly middle-of-the-road stuff.

The three other records since 2005 are much worse.

You could mix them together into a shuffled playlist and I would have a Hell of a time telling you which song came from what album. It's all incredibly safe and bland, nothing to alarm the high art critics who Trent so likes to court.

At least it's better than How To Destroy Angels, though. The amount of time and money syphoned into that project depresses me. There are lots of great industrial. rock bands with female leads on them: Ego Likeness comes to mind immediately, as do Mankind Is Obsolete and even Emilie Autumn. How To Destroy Angels is not one of them.

The whole subject depresses me, for that matter. I made the comparison before and will do so again: Trent's newer material sounds increasingly like Gravity Kills with more production and less heart.

I'm not asking, as I'll probably be accused of, for another vitriolic release like Broken. Quite the opposite: if Trent wrote and released a single album-length movement for strings, I would have a great deal of respect for that. Anything, really, but for more tepid midtempo Wax Trax knockoffs.

[sheepdean]

Nine Inch Nails have become extremely generic to me, especially the deeper I get into pre-Skinny Puppy industrial music (Metal Machine Music, Throbbing Gristle, whatever).

This is not a problem I have with Manson, whose style has always been a little of this, a little of that; or the Germans - Nitzer Ebb, KMFDM, and so on, who have always had a very specific, national language for industrial music; or even the more extreme industrial metal acts like The Kovenant.

But since rehab, Trent's albums all basically sound the same to me. Year Zero was the most venturesome with the inclusion of the glitchtech elements, but that was present only on about a third of the record, the rest being very conservative, midtempo rock, strictly middle-of-the-road stuff.

The three other records since 2005 are much worse.

You could mix them together into a shuffled playlist and I would have a Hell of a time telling you which song came from what album. It's all incredibly safe and bland, nothing to alarm the high art critics who Trent so likes to court.

At least it's better than How To Destroy Angels, though. The amount of time and money syphoned into that project depresses me. There are lots of great industrial. rock bands with female leads on them: Ego Likeness comes to mind immediately, as do Mankind Is Obsolete and even Emilie Autumn. How To Destroy Angels is not one of them.

The whole subject depresses me. I made the comparison before and will do so again: Trent's newer material sounds increasingly like Gravity Kills with more production and less heart.

If you're comparing NIN to industrial music, then it should be anything BUT generic, as nin is totally not industrial
Also Ghosts is a thing, all the albums hardly sound the same
HTDA are not an industrial band. Or a rock band. So, again, comparing apples to oranges. Not to mention ... it's a band, not a project. And it's not just Trent.

Basically your post boils down to "I don't like NIN". Which is fine to have as an opinion, I don't like the Beatles. But I wouldn't post on a Beatles forum either.

[L'Acephale]

Let's not kid ourselves: NIN is an industrial rock act. What that means anymore I might not be able to tell you, but it's like pornography - I know it when I hear it. 90% of my problem with NIN musically is that it's all variations on that theme, actually, nothing too far removed from The Downward Spiral except less angry and oh, we got our old cover artist back, that's nice dear, have some tea.

And I LOVE NIN. The Fragile is the best pop album of the 1990s. What I do not like is neo-NIN.

[Vertigo]

How exactly is NIN still (if ever) industrial? They barely even use prominent sampling anymore. If drum machines, synthesisers and a little vox reverb are all it takes to be industrial, then so is every modern non-country pop artist.

Also, can't begin to understand how WT, YZ and HM can sound the same to anyone. Where are the sledgehammer Grohl drums and ultra-crisp Sound City board on the latter two? Where are the mad glitch synth solos on the two autobiographical ones? Where are the virtuoso bass and guitar guest performances on the first two? Not to mention that each has a distinct concept.

[sheepdean]

Let's not kid ourselves: NIN is an industrial rock act. What that means anymore I might not be able to tell you, but it's like pornography - I know it when I hear it. 90% of my problem with NIN musically is that it's all variations on that theme, actually, nothing too far removed from The Downward Spiral except less angry and oh, we got our old cover artist back, that's nice dear, have some tea.

And I LOVE NIN. The Fragile is the best pop album of the 1990s. What I do not like is neo-NIN.

That's like saying I'm sure Bob Dylan is metal because I just KNOW he is. And yeah, he's less angry, he's sober, not trying to kill himself, married with kids, his shit's gonna sound less "just do it" and more "discipline".

And The Fragile is a pop album, but NIN is industrial? I'll concede NIN's a fairly pop act, with PHM, With Teeth and The Slip all having heavy pop-formulas, but aside from Ghosts, TF is the LEAST poppy album.