Originally Posted by
kleiner352
Songs (one per album):
That's What I Get
It's endearing in its earnestness, its got a sincerity in its cheesiness, and instrumentally/production-wise it's fucking great. You can hear Trent figuring out "the NIN sound" on it in a very serious way, and I'd say that it and Ringfinger are the two clearest examples of the learning he was up to at the time.
Help Me I'm in Hell
NIN isn't a band I often associate with guitars when I think of how it sounds. This is the real beginning of Trent branching out into instrumental songs along with Pinion (and this more ... dynamic? than Pinion is). Historically alone it's important for the band that would go on to release an incredible wealth of instrumental work, and it feels like a precursor to the work he'd later do with film scores. It's interesting, it's cinematic, it's haunting and a much-needed anxious break from the assault of Broken that makes the whole release more interesting to me. It's all the helplessness beneath the rage revealed for just a second, for just long enough to make the anger iod the surrounding songs seem desperate rather than childishly triumphant.
I Do Not Want This
It's hard to say that there is anything "underrated" about The Downward Spiral, but IDNWT is less-mentioned and sonically impeccable. It has the dual personalities at war with one another illustrated more clearly on one song than anywhere else on the album, aiding the clarity of the concept heavily, and the production is just totally immersive. The use of distortion, the rise and crash of the dissonance, the last-ditch attempt at any form of empowerment -- it's a perfect and yet less-obvious example of what the album is doing so well, just with less of the glamorousness of other choices.
Complication
It tells a narrative with no words, it does what Help Me ... does which is making the NIN sound guitar riff oriented, it feels like an intense and incredible amphetamine rush followed by the empty burnout at the end that anyone on coke has felt and always makes me pixture cars speeding down a dark highway before stalling out beneath an overpass. It's fantastic and I'd listen to it over most songs with vocals on Right. It shined hard on the Fragility tour and it's a damn shame it has been entirely absent from live shows ever since.
Adrift and at Peace
Gentle, charming and understated, it's one of the least heavily-depressive songs from this time period and yet seems like a calm meditation on an underlying sadness present. It's a beautiful piece and an example of what I love most about Trent sat behind a piano.
Only
NIN is one of those bands where people tend to shit the most on all the singles. Only has been mocked, bitched about and generally treated as a punchline, with Trent himself once jokingly referring to it as his "gay disco song" at a live show some time in 07. But I think it's got way more to it of merit than the average fan gives it credit for -- an excellent representative of the classic fight between two sides of the self that NIN is all about, it presents the solipsistic, fading-from-reality vibe of With_Teeth perfectly while digging its teeth into the more groove-oriented sound that would go on to color the band's more accessible songs in the future. Trent Reznor knows how to write a compelling pop song that you can't play on the radio and Only is a fine example of that.
The Warning
Another song bitched about by live veterans and many fans, The Warning is conceptually a massive puzzle piece in the Year Zero box and gives a voice to The Presence in a way little else does. Trent offers a subdued, seething vocal take and the bass line drives the whole thing home, the song playing with vocal effects in a way oddly reminscent of The Downward Spiral and the comic built around it from the ARG only makes it a better song. Live it shines with a fantastic example of the intricate minimalism the band is capable of and it manages to offer a breather without being a snooze, trading high energy for brooding intensity.
36 Ghosts IV
This is sad, pale sky setting sun as the stars have just yet to ahine Reznor composition that I think of whensver I think of his sparse, melancholic piano style. After such a massive album it's understandable that it's somewhat forgotten, and it offers none od the overt thrills that some of the busier Ghosts tracks provide, but it does what the whole album sets out to do beautifully: creates a specific mental space that allows you to fill in the rest. The ending always reminds me of the sucking sounds on erasser, and it leaves me feeling haunted by something I can't remember even having, let alone having lost, a perfect closing point to an album titled Ghosts.
Echoplex
Another gripe-favorite. It captures the sense of withdrawn irrelevance that all post-Fragile era NIN material has revolved around in a compelling way, with an interesting groove that it seems to never escape, mirroring the feeling of walls closing in that you can't get away from. It may bore people now, but the drum machine on stage for Lights in the Sky was jaw-dropping the first time any of us saw it, and it offers a rarity in the NIN catalog for live shows -- something more mid-tempo, not pulse-pounding but not totally solitary, either. It feels like everything The Slip centered around sonically and lyrically all wrapped up into one song, and I love it.
Running
If Trent Reznor tried his hand at making a song intended for Talking Heads' Speaking in Tongues, this would probably be it. It's an exhausting listen, which is exactly where the narrator finds themselves, featuring a bizarre and alien sound that absconds structure and builds itself around an increasingly-anxiety-inducing groove, feeling like you're dehydrated on a treadmill and losing your mind, with a nice lyrical reference to Hurt to boot, a nice reminder of Hesitation Marks' ties to The Downward Spiral.