Throbbing Member
Still like it.
It's a pretty typical NIN song really, I like NIN.
To me it sort of sounds like the music we may have gotten if TR had released an album after The Fragile but before WT. Getting it now it feels like a retrospective to those times, but keeping the bite of The Slip's early tracks.
Love those growly synth bass notes rumbling under the beat.
Throbbing Member
So we've been told, but i find this to be more of a convenient excuse. He essentially said the same thing about WT.Originally Posted by Jon
I think that The Slip was good, but it could have been much better with some refinement.
Stubby Member
Mastered and released same day.
Favorite part of the song is the xylophones. Didn't even notice them the first few listens. Trent basically made a mash up of his own songs or elements of.
Re Member
cant get this fucking song out of my head. lol.
and someone posted last page that they wished he had vocally delivered a little more playful...but that is one of the things i really enjoy with this song..i feel and hear a great deal of playfulness in the singing.
to my ears the lyrics do not match the music or the vocals.
oh i love it. cheesy, rambunctious and hyper. love it.
the vevo has over 917, 000 plays. lol.
Banned
one thing is, even though TR can still sing the same as he used to, he can no longer scream or hit the high notes like he used to...which may affect the way he writes songs, knowing he cant hit the high notes/scream anymore....
Unicorn Member
It's a bit playful, especially compared to a lot of other NIN stuff, but I feel like it's played a bit too straight at times, if that makes any sense. I had the same criticism of Into the Void, which I thought would have benefitted from a lighter approach because of how whimsical the music is, but TR yells his way through a fair bit of it. So I guess it's just a personal preference; this is about as subjective as it gets.
Hairy Member
Going by CBH-H-H, I say Hestitation Marks will have better lyrical content than Year Zero but fall short of Ghosts. Discuss.
Last edited by Bokononist; 06-10-2013 at 12:34 PM.
Active Member
It was probably around the Fragile that I started getting a sneaking suspicion that Trent was a bad lyricist... When With Teeth came out I had no doubt that he was a shi**y lyricist.
RA-MEN ROPPAI
You're probably right; those lyrics for Ghosts I–IV are nothing short of amazing
Hairy Member
Sometimes less is more . I really like the h-h-h by the way. It's like that thing I learned in first grade music class with "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" that I can't remember the name of. Beats the hell out of the diction in the rest of the song.
"I sat by the ocean and drank a potion..."
That album turned out alright. There's hope.
Last edited by Bokononist; 06-10-2013 at 01:13 PM. Reason: King in my Browning
Stubby Member
I have an immediate visceral response to CBH. My body connects right away, and my head starts bobbing. There go the shoulders. There's a little tickle of joy in the center of my chest. Chair dancing now. Oh, fingers are snapping. Is that a smile? Yesss. Singing along...haw, haw hawnted. Along the way I notice familiar riffs, lyrics, and I smile more because they remind me of how much fun it has been to be NIN fan.
Feels like I'm in a NIN-themed amusement park dark ride/roller coaster. Zooming through the dark, past scenes of NIN through the years.
What a great idea! Next time I'm at Knoebels, I'll listen to CBH on the Phoenix. Summer just got better!
tempus est umbra in mente
Considering that Youtube didn't exist when Into the Void and Starfuckers were released, that comparison means nothing
Throbbing Member
judging his "part" in Fairweather Friends i claim he's still able to scream (if he likes to). that album will be amazing (2nd courageous prediction, same game as with Keep It Together on welcome oblivion).
Throbbing Member
He's probably dumbfounded that his some of fans are still looking too his lyrics for solutions to all of life's problems.
He's earned the right to some obla-dee-obla-da.
I think some of his lyrics on Year Zero are quite good. Wait till the full album comes out. I'm sure TR is aware of the widespread criticism of his lyrics, and I bet he'll bring the lyrical quickness on a track or two.
Banned
I still claim his lyrics on Broken are fucking brilliant. Songs like gave Up/Wish and Last especially. And Fragile has some amazing lyrics (Fragile, WITT, Great Below) Not every song he has written may have brilliant lyrics, but when TR hits the mark, he hits it dead on...
Vertiginous Member
There's some epic screaming in Is Your Lav Strong Enough (a biting commentary on the declining size of the average cistern). And a brief foray into castrato notes on 1,000,000, though generally I agree his voice has deepened and cracked in recent years.
I'm emphatically not someone who thinks Trent produced his best work in the '90s, but I do think his voice was at its best then (particularly on Broken and TDS).
Unicorn Member
Total agreement. I love In This Twilight, but I've never seen a live performance vid of it that I thought was just perfect. I eventually realized it's because in my mind, I'm imagining 90's-era Trent singing it. One of the things that really grabbed me about Broken back in the day was how the music was so abrasive, but Trent could hit these amazing high notes that you just didn't hear in other rock music.
To be fair though, it may be less that he can't sing like that anymore and more that he just doesn't try to sing like that anymore, I don't know.
EDIT: Although, come to think of it, 90s era Trent would probably have been too macho and insecure to sing ITT. "What are these lyrics-- 'we'll find a better place?' Fuck this pussy shit!"
Last edited by KarenLeslie; 06-10-2013 at 05:15 PM.
Active Member
Could be just age as you say. There's also the possibility of vocal damage/warping due to the extended, gruelling tours in which he screamed his guts out almost every night for six months or more at a time.
Active Member
Or the muscle gain
Or he decided to take vocal lessons and has adjusted his signing accordingly.
Unicorn Member
Yeah, unfortunately that's probably the most likely scenario. It seems hard to believe that someone could abuse their voice that much for so long with no consequences. I prefer to think that it's a style choice though, since that means I may get my perfect vocal performance of In This Twilight someday
Or maybe we just need to hold Trent down and inject helium into his pipes until he starts sounding like 1993-era Trent. For science.
Active Member
Listen to bands like Slipknot or Metallica when they started and the way they sound now. Playing heavy songs like that does take a toll on your vocal cords over an extended period of time.
Starfuckers, Wink.
http://<a href="http://www.youtube.c...bxGgCY9PKw</a>
Banned
Phil Anselmo's voice is destroyed now compared to how it used to be. Manson as well. The only singer who can scream as well now in his 40's as he did in his 20s is Mike Patton, but MP is an enigma....
Stubby Member
I was moving my body to this again and adding lyrics to Spotify for the the hell of it, being pretty positive as to how they went after countless plays. Still decided to check ninwiki and what the shit, it's THROAT is deep - not FOOT. Another few close listens... yeah, maybe. Hey man, it could so be foot. You know, foot-in-mouth. Mouth is wide, foot's deep in it. As in he said and promised too much and is regretting it to some extent. Fits in pretty well I'd say.
Anyone?
Throbbing Member
I'd like to take you up on this point. ITV is, in my opinion, one of those perfect NIN songs (I think CBH might have been near perfect with better lyrics -- I think the only word Trent literally hasn't used before in his diction is the word "haunted"). ITV has this amazing carnival feel and the dark lyrics and biting vocal delivery act as fantastic counters to the song's instrumentation.
I'm also picking up so many details in CBH as I go along. And the "h-h-haunted" part is playful enough and reminds me of the "ah-wha-ah-ahhhh" part near the end of ITV.
Last edited by joplinpicasso; 06-10-2013 at 06:42 PM.
Throbbing Member
or with-ah-teeth-ahh.
Throbbing Member
Well, yeah. Seriously loving this song with a great pair of speakers. It truly is a marriage of "Heresy" and "In Motion".
Last edited by joplinpicasso; 06-10-2013 at 08:43 PM.
Bite me
Sorry, ain't hearing "Heresy" at all. (TDS is one of my top 5 albums of all time since the day it was released, so I'm rather intimate with all aspects of TDS).
But at least 3 people I know said, "sounds like The Hand That Feeds."
Last edited by allegro; 06-10-2013 at 09:11 PM.
Stubby Member
Most of his PHM's songs were included in the "Purest Feeling" demo, which included some juvenile/cheesy/too 80s lyrics according to many people, however songs like HLAH, Terrible Lie, SICNH or Sin were written later if I remember well, when he worked with producers like Flood in the studio, and those are the songs that he has kept playing along the years and have lyrics a little bit closer to what he did later (I love the rest of the songs though). Then he made Broken and TDS with Flood too, and both albums had in my opinion some of his best lyrics and vocal delivery.
But for The Fragile he did all the production work by himself with Moulder, but there was no Flood, and he said many times that he really didn't know what to do and recorded a lot of unfocused stuff, he even had to call Bob Ezrin to help him "build" the album (mostly choosing songs and its order).
I remember how back in the mid 90s Trent was considered a genius not just for his music and his production, his lyrics were also pretty good, not just because they were "angsty", fans (and lost of critics) didn't worship TDS just because it sounded cool and different at that time, but also because they liked the lyrics and found a smart concept behind them.
It was with The Fragile that I started to see some people being critic with some of Trent's lyrics, and it got worse with his next albums. And I thought that maybe it's because Alan Moulder and Atticuss just help him with the technical side of his productions and Trent doesn't have a creative producer to advice him, maybe Flood helped him in certain PHM's songs and with Broken and TDS. I have no idea if this is what happened, but after TDS his voice on record sounded different, still good but different, maybe closer to the way he sings live.
I don't think that this has to be a bad thing, I like his vocal delivery in many (most of) post-TDS's songs, but sometimes his voice sounds in a certain way that I don't know how to describe it exactly, but maybe it's less mature, I'm probably not explaining myself very well. XD
He also tends to repeat a lot of stuff in his lyrics bordering the selfparody, and those times I miss that someone told him: "Don't write again those on my hands and knees lines Trent", or: "Trent, those lyrics sound too much like those other lyrics that you've already written a billion times, your fans will make fun of it, write something different".
And I think that he can be a very clever and good lyricist, all of his albums have good stuff, sometimes pretty great, this is why I don't know how some times he doesn't realize about certain things he does that are going to cost him seeing people making fun of how bad he is as a lyricist, and maybe this is because he could need a new producer that adviced him in the songwriting department and not just with the technical stuff. But of course this could also be a very bad idea if said producer tries to control him too much or makes him sound too different to the point of his fans hating it.
I could be wrong regarding Flood's creative involvement, maybe he just pushed bottoms in computers, but I remember how Trent said that Flood didn't want to use the "Just Do It" song, and maybe he adviced Trent with the creative stuff, or maybe it was Vrenna or other people in the band, or maybe he just changed some of his songwriting style, I don't know.
Anyway I like all of his songs, some more than others, but I don't think that he is a bad songwriter nor such a bad lyricist, I think he can be pretty good, but sometimes like in this "CBH" song he seems to use certain clichés that maybe he should avoid, and I certainly don't love his vocal delivery in the chorus, just pick any old song and his voice sounded much better and stronger, just listen to Wish, Gave Up, Happiness In Slavery, Closer, Heresy or even WITT and compare it with this CBH song. Maybe I'm too naive for expecting a song that was as good as his old singles, I don't want a new HLAH or Wish, but I would like something as good.
And I repeat that I'm not a "please Trent, go back to the 90s or do drugs and be unhappy again" fan, I like all of his 21th century stuff, and I think singles like THTF, EDIETS or Only are far better than this one in every possible level, and YZ is one of his best albums even in the vocal and lyrical department, also Ghosts and the scores were fantastic, and even The Slip had several gems despite the short time they had for its recording, with a song like Demon Seed among Trent's best stuff ever (even lyrically, imo), this is why I don't understand how he releases this song as a single when the album necessarily must have far better songs for its promotion, but I might be wrong.
God is an American
^ "Down In It" is the exception to "Flood did everything worth keeping from PHM" arguments. See my analysis on it.
No, it's "throat"; the metaphor here is of a pit, to which the narrator willingly returns even after seeing the promise of redemption. Say what you will about word choice, this song's lyrics are textbook NIN: a grappling-with-my-addiction metaphor, executed with the precision of a well-crafted essay.
Lots of people here seem to equate "hook-filled pop tune" with BAD SONG, which is baffling to me. Clichés are clichés because they resonate emotionally to a lot of people. Simple rhymes and melodies give TR purchase on the listener's attention because they're catchy, then the sounds of static and dissonance provide the dramatic tension. This is the NIN formula and always has been.
Last edited by botley; 06-11-2013 at 01:34 AM.
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