Random NIN Thoughts

[ryanmcfly]

I thought it sounded great on And All That Could Have Been... or at least on some songs. Sin, Gave Up, Suck, and Reptile were the shit.

[zeegrizzle]

Since they closed the comments on that "a beginners guide" on Twitter, I think this list would have been better for a beginner.. Imo...

Terrible Lie
Down in It
Last
Happiness in Slavery
Piggy
The Becoming
Somewhat Damaged
La Mer
God Given
Echoplex

I believe they should want to uncover the rest after this.

[sheepdean]

I always found it weird that Hole supported NIN for a while. It seems absurd that Trent would want anything to do with that crazy bint Courtney Love. Also sound wise Hole's music was so different to NINs and she was from that Grunge scene of the time that Trent saw as a bit regressive. Live Through This is better than one would expect but Courtney at the time was so toxic, tabloid and car wrecky. Im sure Trent regrets his decision now but what was he thinking? Seemed like a very odd choice, i bet backstage that tour in 1994 with Courtney at her rock bottom Marylin Manson and Jim Rose Circus was fucking crazy. Can you imagine them lot in the same room? The parties? Dear god. No wonder Trent went off his rocker.

Apparently he heard the first album, though it was cool, then realised she's insane, then allegedly they did the dirty and now she hates him but still covers his songs live.

[katara]

What happened to his voice between with teeth and year zero anyways? changed so much in two years. But his voice was pretty great on the fragile, though it sounded like ass on its tour.

Age might have something to do with it. He also bulked up a lot in the Year Zero era. At that point, he was pretty much pure muscle.

[fillow]

Re: trent's voice

I believe we have to distinguish loud and slow/quiet songs here.
Some of the former (Gave Up, Terrible Lie, Suck, No You Don't, Sin, etc.) sounded better on Self Destruct/Fragility tours, because he was still able to scream on top of his lungs and hit the majority of right notes.
Quiet songs (Hurt, SICNH) sound better now than before just because he's singing them entirely clean and sober and therefore more focused.

A lot of other songs didn't really change that much though.

[dlb]

Age might have something to do with it. He also bulked up a lot in the Year Zero era. At that point, he was pretty much pure muscle.

With teeth era actually! When the first photos from the early club shows surfaced I was rather impressed with his physicality and the brute force he delivered the songs with. Of course his voice has changed during that process of "bulking up". 2005 might have been his peek:



In my eyes (well ear actually) his voice has just matured of the time and his live abilities were getting better and better and came to some kind of balance over the course of 2005-2009 IMHO. At least I find myself listening to the most recent bootlegs the most, so whenever a new tour comes to town I'm dying to have soundboard audio to listen to and replace the one before. Of course there are some "essential" performances here and there, but I tend to enjoy the most recent shows the most. And while that is mainly due to the line-up / the music it's also due to his voice.

[-digital-]

I wonder if Alessandro secretly sits back and enjoys watching "Trent Instant Mad = ON" by removing a single patch cable from one Trent's modular synths.

[jmtd]

I've trained every NIN acronym into my phone's predictive text, and now nearly every spelling mistake I make is autocorrected to a NIN acronym.

[somewhat_]

It would be cool if nin played some secret or not so secret shows the weeks before and after lollapalooza.

[henryeatscereal]

Today i was listening to The White Stripes and this image came to my head:

[theimage13]

The sound mix is cleaner overall in BYIT, too? It's a great mix... WT songs live were/are great.

Personally, I thought the audio mix on BYIT felt too flat...not enough dynamic range; not enough of what actually makes it feel like a concert. Sure, I guess "clean" works in the sense that it doesn't sound like a muddy aud mix or something. But it's always struck me as feeling a little compressed. Am I alone here?

[MrSlfDstruct]

Personally, I thought the audio mix on BYIT felt too flat...not enough dynamic range; not enough of what actually makes it feel like a concert. Sure, I guess "clean" works in the sense that it doesn't sound like a muddy aud mix or something. But it's always struck me as feeling a little compressed. Am I alone here?

Are you referring to the DVD or the Blu-ray? The TrueHD track on the Blu-ray is awesome, but I had heard the DVD version was a little flat.

[theimage13]

First time I watched it was release day - it was the HD-DVD version on a well configured 5.1 system. I remember thinking that I enjoyed the audio mix from AATCHB better, but I did love the visual edit.

[wizfan]

I really hated that the stereo and 5.1 mixes were different (I think the former was made by Dave Ogilvie and the latterby Elliot Scheiner). Just listen to the With Teeth song and you'll notice that the snare drum sounds different. Also, Trent shouting "all right!" before You Know What You Are is heard clearly in 2.0 but is almost inaudible in 5.1. I really wish the 5.1 mix had the ferocity of the 2.0 mix, as Ogilvie understands NIN's music better than Scheiner. TrueHD was better than the DD/DTS on the DVD, obviously; I remember a critic noticing that after the first verse of Hurt, Trent breathes lightly on the microphone but you can only hear it on the TrueHD mix.

BYIT had horrible audio editing in certain scenes, such as Trent's "oooh" on the March of the Pigs intro. They probably weren't experienced enough with HD audio and video to create a flawless product in the time frame they were given. After all, it was 2007 and the HD technology back then was problematic as hell (Microsoft had to optimize VC-1 just for BYIT).

[jmtd]

I've only tried to listen to the BYIT 5.1 mix once (on my inadequately-configured system) and I was very surprised that the mix was different. My initial, non-objective assessment was I prefer the stereo mix, but I've listened to an MP3 rip of it many times so it's very familiar to me.

[Amaro]

My recent WT era (and general NIN) reemergence has inspired me to really want to rearrange the track listing as well as add to it (see to NINJA sampler), for once and for me, as I see now clearly that's where I've personally found a fault in its presentation. (@seasonsinthesky Oh, brother.) BYIT reminded me how significant and cool that time must have been for Trent as a person and an artist, coming back to the big stage with a fresh feeling and take on everything. And WT is where it all started up again. A most honest record.

[BenAkenobi]

...
BYIT had horrible audio editing in certain scenes, such as Trent's "oooh" on the March of the Pigs intro. They probably weren't experienced enough with HD audio and video to create a flawless product in the time frame they were given. After all, it was 2007 and the HD technology back then was problematic as hell (Microsoft had to optimize VC-1 just for BYIT).

that's nothing compared to Robin sporting different haircut every minute on AATCHB

[eversonpoe]

I've only tried to listen to the BYIT 5.1 mix once (on my inadequately-configured system) and I was very surprised that the mix was different. My initial, non-objective assessment was I prefer the stereo mix, but I've listened to an MP3 rip of it many times so it's very familiar to me.

the stereo and 5.1 mixes of AATCHB are quite different as well...that's what happens when you have differing channels of audio between mixes. because you're dealing with different amounts of physical space (i.e. creating a surround field as opposed to a stereo field), you can't just move stuff around, you have to actually change the way some of it sounds.

[jmtd]

I think I meant I was surprised just how different it was...

[eversonpoe]

I think I meant I was surprised just how different it was...

eep, sorry...i totally sounded like a jerk. i constantly get frustrated with the lack of tone conveyed through text on the internet.

i was just trying to say "yeah, i agree with you, there's probably a big difference, and i think this is why."

i've always found the stereo mix of AATCHB (especially on the CD) to be atrocious compared to the 5.1 mix. everything sounds over-crowded and there are so many high-frequency artifacts. but the 5.1 mix sounds great and has lots of good use of space. i haven't watched/listened to beside you in time enough to really check out a lot of the differences (i literally think i watched it once when i first bought it...not sure why i haven't revisited it), but it's possible that they just didn't put the same amount of effort into the 5.1 as the did into the stereo (which is odd because it didn't get a CD release). :: shrug ::

[hobochic]

Of post Fragile NIN, there's one gem that often (not always) gets left out of discussions related to the recent NIN sound for mysterious reasons. To me it's the closest to the Fragile's ethereal and experimental quality that I loved about that era. It's distinct, bold, insane, amazing and one of the last pieces of NIN that Trent released as NIN with vocals: Demon Seed.

Conclusion: When and if Trent taps into his mad scientist mentality there's "recent" proof in Demon Seed that he's still fully capable of delivering crazy shit.

[Max Leo]

The "Corona Radiata-TFOUAD-Demon Seed" combo is some of the best stuff that Trent has ever made imo.

[sheepdean]

I still don't think LITS/CR should've been 2 tracks, they flow together so perfectly, it should've just be a song with a very, very long outro

[-digital-]

I wonder if Trent ever did a midnight Taco Bell drive-thru run and thought "I should totally track my vocals through this piece of shit speaker."

[ZeroisGreg]

thinking of new name for this...new direction.

4.5 inch nails
a-nina-incha-nails-a
muscles. kids. happy.
nine inch smiles
dancin' nails
Mr. Meat

[BRoswell]

thinking of new name for this...new direction.

4.5 inch nails
a-nina-incha-nails-a
muscles. kids. happy.
nine inch smiles
dancin' nails
Mr. Meat

Ever thought about starting your own one man band called Bitchy McGee and The Bitchettes? Yeah, and you can do alternating covers of this:

[richardp]

What was that one online game thing where you had to name every NIN song within 15 minutes and see how many you could get? Now that the ol' NIN is back I want to see if I still can obsessively remember songs or not.

[sheepdean]

What was that one online game thing where you had to name every NIN song within 15 minutes and see how many you could get? Now that the ol' NIN is back I want to see if I still can obsessively remember songs or not.

From good ol' botley http://www.sporcle.com/games/botley/ninsongs

[ninsp]

111 out of 113 with 5:22 left...I forgot about Metal and The Great Collapse.

[danebraddy]

My Ltd Edition Shirt (Red one) arrived a couple of days ago, but I only got my hands on it this morning. Great fit!