Y'know, screw it, this is my top three albums in NIN discography. It's a masterpiece in my eyes just like. I can safely say it isn't "new album" bias anymore. It just gets better with time for me.
Y'know, screw it, this is my top three albums in NIN discography. It's a masterpiece in my eyes just like. I can safely say it isn't "new album" bias anymore. It just gets better with time for me.
Last edited by HWB; 12-04-2017 at 01:32 PM.
If “Hez Marks” (I like that lol) didn’t have “Satellite” it’d have been way, way better off. I’m super critical of including that one in the lot. -___- Throwaway, for me. Year Zero stinky.
I feel like a lot of people have said the same about “Everything” (for what it’s worth, both songs were supposedly made to be released on a greatest hits release), but I see Hez Marks as quite the “here and there” album. There‘s a nice representation of all of the vibes NIN is know by at that point (while still sounding fresh and very nicely cohesive altogether), with “Everything” landing smack-dab in the middle, providing a fair shakeup, which I find the whole unit benefits from having. Really, I feel twisted when I hear the song. Like it or not (I like it), it isn’t a joyful sounding song throughout.
*resists temptation to defend “Not Anymore” in this thread...resents people going off topic...hesitation mmmmmmarks*
Hesitation Marks is somewhere in my top 3 NIN albums. Some of the best material since The Fragile, hands fucking down.
Last edited by Amaro; 12-04-2017 at 04:24 PM.
Satellite's a cool song, I just wish it had a less dominant and more varied drumbeat. Or that it had multitracks available so I could change that myself.
This was the first NIN album to be released when I'd become a fan, the first time I got to experience the feeling of new music coming out from the band and the first time I got to attend a concert in general, let alone for NIN. Came Back Haunted, the festival streams, the Tension tour, the Halloween date I caught, all of it was an electric and exciting time for me and was a big deal in my life, along with the 2014 shows (I ended up making some of the best friends I've ever had because of those shows), and Hesitation Marks was the soundtrack to all of it. It was on in every car, playing every time I was at home, going through my head all of the time.
While I'm Still Here/Black Noise, Copy of A, Various Methods of Escape, it was full of stuff that clicked with me right away and was the poppy synth-heavy sleek and dark with style material I was interested in at the time. The Sanctified rework that came about from that era is a great example of where Trent's approach to his work was at and the growth that HM showed to me -- tapping into the same beats, the same themes, the same frustrations and the same fears but doing it with a confidence, a sharpness and a focus that was fantastic. It represents a particular point in my life and the subject matter of fighting with old versions of yourself, having a life that should make you happy but still dealing with mental illness and feeling like you're only postponing the inevitable is still vivid and interesting ground for NIN.
The fact that this, Welcome Oblivion, the Gone Girl score and the touring for it all happened within a roughly one-year period is amazing and was the most overloaded I'd ever been with new work from my favorite artist. I don't listen to it as much as I once did (and I think I probably overplayed it at release) but seeing Copy of A live again this year reinforced by affinity for it and the album it's from. It wasn't a wild leap in a new direction, but it was a mature and stylish attempt at pushing forward and I admire it a lot. The new EPs are much more to my taste these days, but HM feels like Pretty Hate Machine and Year Zero had a baby and left it home alone unsupervised and I just wish they'd released multitracks for it because I feel like the remix potential was high for a lot of it.
Running is shockingly underrated I think. It kinda sounds like it could belong on Radiohead's The King of Limbs or something, it's got an insistent rhythmic feel to it. Those scratchy guitars and Trent's vocals are brilliant.
Running sounds like an outtake from Niggy Tardust tbh. Expect Saul's voice popping up anytime.
I luv that record & thought the show was phenomenal. I saw them when they had the backup singers. Sure it was different for NIN but still excellent. That being said, the stripped down band of this year was beyond the beyond. So intense!
So...I'm curious, has "Everything" grown on people, or do people still think it's the worst thing NIN has ever done?
Personally, I dug it from first listen and haven't stopped.
I love Everything, always have.
If it would have been played, im sure it would have been as heavy as Branches/Bones is live.
@paul_guyet
Loved it from first listen. Shame a bunch of whiners ruined a good song that should have been a single and played live.
Agreed. While it's far from being a favorite of mine, I have always felt that it got an undeserved amount of shade thrown its way. I would have liked to see the music video for it and hear it live. Who knows, it might have fallen into the category of songs that are better live and maybe those that hate it would have warmed up to the live version.
It was a single, just no music video for it.
Trent apparently just didn't like the music video (which happens far more often than you'd think) and the song became an irritant for him personally (not sure if due to people's reaction it or not).
Shame it not being played live.
I dont know, when I first listened to it I was confused to why it sounded different from the rest of the album, but hey I guess Im just used to his dark and also quiet moments. I should probably give it a few listens so I can appreciate it atleast heh.
I always wondered how folks would have reacted if that Best Of had just come out with "Everything" and "Satellite" as the only new tracks on it. I feel like there would have been a revolt.
@paul_guyet Everything and Satellite happen to be my favorite HM songs and since I wasn't thrilled with much else from HM (except for In Two), so I probably would have been all good here.
Last edited by neorev; 12-09-2017 at 02:10 PM.
Everything is 100% Jimmy Eat World cheese. I hated it when the album first came out, but now I don't mind it as much. The obligatory "I'm married with kids and my heart is so full" song that every badass rock musician from Dave Grohl to Josh Homme eventually composes. It sits smack in the middle of an album I never get tired of listening to, so it gets a pass..
That's not even what the song is about. It's about being too cocky about surviving previous brushes with death and thinking you're invincible. I don't know why people still think it's a happy song. It's a song about being in denial of how fucked up you are. You can hate the lyrics or the music all you want, but if you think it's a song about being happy, you're wrong.
From the wiki (the original interview has been taken down apparently):
"I was trying to make something that leapt out of the speakers in a very umfamiliar way. At first listen, it might seem to be in praise of life but it's supposed to come off as an arrogant, 'Fuck you. I've survived!' It also gets less triumphant and more reflective and melancholy towards the end."
Last edited by BRoswell; 12-10-2017 at 03:06 PM.
Jimmy eat world?
Uh, I think you need new headphones or something. Maybe give it another listen with an open mind.
I’ve never understood the hate for Everything. It’s like he can’t do anything different.
All the walls begin to dissolve away
Feel your hands begin to shake (to shake, to shake, to shake, to shake)
And just who you think you used to be
All begins to bend and break (and break, and break, and break)
But this thing that lives inside of me
Will surely rise and wake (and wake, and wake, and wake, and wake)
And his seed that bleeds right through to me
And it comes to grab and take (and take, and take, and take)
How joyful! If anything, it is really dark, as is entirety of Hesitation Marks.
Last edited by HWB; 12-10-2017 at 03:44 PM.
"Everything" might have been Trent's business acumen showing in full force. What better way to appeal to the Green Day and Blink 182 fans then make this horrid pop punk song that 3rd stage Warped Tour bands might play...I still find it odd that some people vehemently defend this song, as if the criticism of this song is somehow a knock on Trent's legacy. Imagine if this song was sequenced in the middle of Downward Spiral or Fragile, and how embarrassing it would look next to majestic pieces of art like "Becoming' and 'Reptile' and 'Somewhat Damaged' and 'TDTWWA' etc.....I'm sure Trent would admit the song is a piece of shit if you got him alone.
Last edited by Helpmeiaminhell (is now in hell); 12-10-2017 at 04:05 PM.
I guess that post I made last month defending Hes Marks:
...where I championed it as a daring, creative outlier in his discography went completely over your head. Hell, I never even once claimed Everything was bad, per se. But offer anything close to a judgement in regards to a song you yourself enjoy and suddenly I'm a close-minded asshole who needs new headphones?
My headphones are just fine. So is thinking for myself. I am free...I can see...always here...finally..
The problem is that your judgement of the song is wrong according to the guy who wrote it. I could talk about how "Closer" was really about Trent standing in line at Arby's and getting "closer" to a roast beef sandwich, and that would be fine as my opinion, but that doesn't mean it's right, or that I'm safe from any critique of my opinion.
Also, spiral here felt the need to PM me about their opinion and how I'm just "bitter" because they don't share my opinion of it. Thanks for the PM, but I'm going to stick with what Trent said.
Last edited by BRoswell; 12-10-2017 at 04:11 PM.
Here we are coming up on 5 years later, and the Everything topic still simmers. Wow.
Aw, c’mon man. I love you to death and genuinely do get a skewed enjoyment out of your posts, but Trent is on record stating the track was more his take on Joy Division and New Order material. And that thematically it was his arrogant declaration of survival against the odds. The track almost seems more poignant as time rolls on and more and more of his contemporaries are sadly forever gone.
Is it one of the best nin tracks? No. But not every track can be Happiness in Slavery. There is nothing wrong with criticism, but the aftermath on Everything was over the top with the outrage and the alleged petition from fans to remove it from the album, just hilariously absurd. Simply push the skip button for the track. Or buying the tracks you like and not the ones you don’t is also an option.
Going for a range of sounds and moods is a good thing for an album, giving it emotional peaks and valleys. Treading new ground and trying different things is important to most artist. While on it’s own Everything isn’t a personal favorite of mine, it works (albeit a little jarring and weird) within the album. But are you gonna tell me that a track like Big Man With A Gun isn’t a little jarring and weird within TDS, or Starfuckers, Inc. isn’t a little jarring and weird within TF?
I’d like to think that when Trent goes to Arby’s, he orders the Meat Mountain.
I still find it odd that defending it bothers people who can't back up their claims. Curious...
Trent has talked about what influenced the song and what it's about, none of which has to do with him being married, having kids, or trying to appeal to the Jimmy Eat World/Green Day/Blink-182/Kidz Bop/etc. crowd. If that's not what the song is about to the guy that wrote it, then that's not what the song is about. You can argue about what it sounds like to you, but if you're going to argue about what Trent's intentions were with the song, then you'll have to ask the man himself, which is what several people have done, and what has been quoted quite a few times in here and other threads.
Of that I have no doubt.