Likes: 
Faceplams: Trent seems to want to make headlines for some really stupid reasons (two, if we’re counting) today.Originally Posted by buzburbank
Dis-member
Trent seems to want to make headlines for some really stupid reasons (two, if we’re counting) today.
she/her/hers
i really, really, really want the PHM flight jacket, but it's $100, and it's literally just a black version of this jacket with some printing on it :/
Throbbing Member
"Bad Witch": worst NIN album/EP title ever in the history of the world.
Dis-member
It is pretty stupid, hopefully the music makes up for it. Hesitation Marks was a great title, and it ended up being kind of a turd.
Don’t judge a book by its cover?
@_@
Not at all.
Throbbing Member
Sure, if we can get used a band being called Butthole Surfers, we can get used to this. Agreed.
Throbbing Member
I like the title, there's obviously a reason and story behind it and I'm intrigued.
Dis-member
I dunno. Was there anything to the NTAE and AV titles?... (serious question, I didn’t really follow up after the releases)
Bad Witch = Trump? Don’t know, don’t really care. The music being good is the most important thing. Great artwork and back stories are just icing on the cake.
Active Member
I don't know, I feel like "Pretty Hate Machine" and "With Teeth" are worse than "Bad Witch".
But, yeah, I thought I had misread the title.
Also..."Shit Mirror". REALLY curious about that one...
Throbbing Member
Gonna post this here too: Bad Witch makes me think of the Wizard of Oz (Glinda the Good Witch, the Wicked Witch and whatnot) and another possible link to a story about alternate realities, dream worlds, and the like. Also seems kind of like a very intentional reference to a kind of narrow goth/fairy tale aesthetic, especially with the very decayed, bootleg-seeming cover art (I'm sure someone else with a better knowledge of scene and genre art could help locate some of what it might be associating itself with).
And yeah, we all want to take a look at/into Shit Mirror and see what's reflected there. "Shit Mirror," as ridiculous as that title is, almost seems like the work of another band or genre ... some kind of metal/black metal (again, I could use some help here) association?
Last edited by Pbgut; 05-10-2018 at 11:41 AM.
Dis-member
Gasp- WT is a great name! I kind of agree with PHM, but it’s always kind of been there (and is unique) so it’s hard to judge.
Bad Witch sounds like a Marilyn Manson song made for some cheesy horror flick.
Banned
Releasing albums on vinyl only is a total hipster elitist move
Dis-member
I keep thinking of 80’s hardcore punk when looking at the title “Shit Mirror”.
Active Member
It's weird...I love the ALBUM WT, but it just feels so silly to TALK about it. Like, saying the title out loud just feels...petulant somehow.
With PHM, that's a cornerstone of the industrial scene, so its silliness is cancelled out.
I'm with you as far as "Bad Witch" sounding kind of Manson-y. Actually, I think "bad witch" is what he looks like on the cover of Smells Like Children and what Ozzy has looked like for...25 years?
Active Member
I’d like to see Trent record an incredibly dark cover of “You Spin Me Round.” I think it would be quite incredible.
Hairy Member
At least he didn't call it "Bad Bitch." That's what I had thought the title was when I was scrolling down Facebook when it was announced.
.net (24.24.2.1447)
That’s my toddler-daughter’s favourite song at the moment.
Active Member
With b-side "Sex Dwarf".
Active Member
Time to get controversial ...
- I think Bad Witch is a great title and this is some Trent's best artwork in years. I'm eagerly anticipating this moreso than anything he's teased in awhile and I'm hoping for some aggressive, noisy and lo-fi sounding stuff ... here's hoping it lives up to my expectations.
- Year Zero is probably the worst title in NIN's catalog and is also my least favorite record. Trent's vocals became more goofy and a little bit more all over the place during the recording of that record and I think it has some of the worst sounding sonics within his discography. Everything just sounds like stock GarageBand loops to me and it's attempts at telling a larger story just come across as "HURR HURR BUSH IS BAD" to me. Super unpopular opinion, I know ... but even a decade later I can't get into it.
- Any song featured on And All That Could Have Been that wasn't a major single (The Frail / The Wretched, Reptile, Gave Up, etc.) should be dropped from the set list in favor of other cuts from albums.
- I think Hesitation Marks is a good album, but it suffers from a little bit of lack of direction. I like the David Bowie and Gorillaz vibe that a lot of the songs have, but tracks like Satellite just kind slow the momentum down. I think it's get a little bit of unfair hate ... same for the Slip.
- Deep is a damn good song and should be played live more.
Throbbing Member
Year Zero really does sound oddly lifeless and rigid rhythmically to me for a guy who has made some of the more organic feeling loop-based music that I've enjoyed. I think it generally takes a lot of work to make electronic music that doesn't sound dead. Though I don't know if the message comes across as that simplistic though even without the ARG; even the lead single took a broader view than attacking Bush. And I do appreciate it as a rare example of a set of NIN lyrics not being entirely in the headspace of one narrator.
And I also like the Bad Witch title. I like it basically because it's unusually heavy on folklore (or maybe Wizard of Oz) referencing for NIN.
Last edited by Pbgut; 05-12-2018 at 06:30 PM.
Active Member
You know what ... I will give it to you in terms of the lyrics on the Survivalism. On my walk this afternoon I was listening to old bootlegs of some of the Nine Inch Nails shows I've seen and that song came on and I forgot how genuinely good the lyrics on that song are. I think what takes me out of it though is hearing Trent's live vocals and how they almost come across like baby talk to me. "IGOTMYVIOLENCE IN HIGHDEFULTRAWEAAAALISM!" "BUT U'D DO DA SAME TING IN DA SURCUMSTANCE IMSUREUDUNDERSTAND!" Yikes.
In hindsight, the ARG did nothing for me ... which was shocking because it was the same company that had a hand in the coolest ARG I've ever been a part of with the whole viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight.
Throbbing Member
To chime in, I loved and remember the ARG for The Dark Knight 2008 and remember photographing myself in Joker makeup, etc. I was ambivalent about the Year Zero ARG. I just wanted to hear the music at the time. I don't dislike YZ as much as you seem to do, but I do revisit infrequently. That being said, I think a good deal of the voicing and intonation of his vocals are delivered either sarcastically or with a certain flair or flavor, to fit the world and oddness. Some of it works IMO. I think it works best in Capital G. I enjoy the more 'seriously' sung tracks the most, though.
Active Member
I seriously don't like Year Zero either. It was the beginning of the disappointing NIN era for me. Artificial, cold, sterile, lifeless. And that is coming from someone who is a huge fan of electronic music. The only tracks I liked were My Violenct Heart and In This Twilight. But Year Zero, Welcome Oblivion, and Hesitation Marks all sound the same to me. These albums just leave me bored and just don't excite me. I can't make it through any of them without wanting to skip a track.
I'm one of the folks who loves With Teeth. I know, blasphemy, right? But I do love that album and it was the last NIN album that I cam listen to from front to back. The best thing from this post-With Teeth era was Ghosts. There is probably an amazing NIN album hidden in there if developed further. Thankfully, Trent finally did blow me away again until Not The Actual Events. Hearing Branches/Bones gave me that same feeling when I heard All The Love In The World for the first time. I just smiled and was completely enthralled in what I was hearing. Then Add Violence kinda started to retread that YZ/WO/HM sound again, but it was at least a bit better than them. I am thrilled about Bad Witch become it seems more like Not The Actual Events than Add Violence. I want more unsafe Trent production. Destroy my fucking speakers, Trent, please.
Active Member
Wow, we're pretty much almost in the same boat when it comes to a lot of feelings. I too still love With Teeth and even though it has more punchier song writing compared to the album that came before it, it still has this dirtiness to it that feels like what made Nine Inch Nails so appealing to me in the first place. I like The Slip and Hesitation Marks fine, but like you call to ... a lot of Trent's work post-WT does have a very similar production style and besides some noticeable differences has a few tracks that could easily be interchangeable with each other. I suppose Year Zero is the most unique of them all, but like you ... the electronic music feels so artificial compared to so many other electronic artists working within the same boundaries. My Violent Heart is a highlight for me on that record too! However, I think I'm alone in feeling cold on In This Twilight ... haha. I thought it sounded like a '90s Filter song when I first heard it. Whoops.
I love Ghosts as well and I think it's because it has so much more variety production wise in it. What makes The Downward Spiral and The Fragile still so revisit-able to me is how meticulous every song's arrangement is ... but still feels like it could fall apart into a wall of noise at any minute. There's just so much going on that it's dizzying in all the right ways that makes me love certain kind of music. I've been wanting Trent to experiment and take risks as well, so I'm hoping this next record feels like a step into the direction Not the Actual Events started!
Hairy Member
I'm sorry that this happened.
Hairy Member
Down In It 12" is still the greatest NIN release ever.
Stubby Member
Hesitation Marks is rapidly moving up my "best albums" list. Will rank them once Bad Witch comes out.
Throbbing Member
Hesitation Marks has really grown on me. The songwriting, the emotional engagement, the range of moods is pretty impressive, and it has a quality to it that I thought was missing from the 2005-2008 run of albums; it seems more contemplative. (With Teeth's status has improved for me specifically as an album about addiction, and it is reflective, but I'm still not a huge fan of the marriage of the kind of conventional Dave Grohl rock sound and NIN; I like the dirtier, weirder rock NIN had done previously.)
It definitely has my some of my favorite NIN songs in what had been awhile, and I can listen all the way through without skipping any, though I don't love 'Came Back Haunted.' "Various Methods of Escape" is so insanely good; one of his best songs, I think. I certainly enjoyed songs in that 2005-2008 run but there weren't many of them. I think Hesitation Marks, and the improved production work of Welcome Oblivion after the relative quickies of Year Zero, The Slip and Ghosts, were the beginning of an upswing in my interest in Trent again. Not that I ever really stopped paying attention.
Banned
I'm really happy that Trent has matured and how that reflects in his lyrics. They're not as "whiny" anymore. I'm not 14 anymore.
NIN fans are very snobby and elitist.
Active Member
Hard to imagine him singing something along the lines up "Now I'm slipping on the tears you made me cry" on Bad Witch.
Reply With Quote
