Hidden Things & Mysteries on NIN albums

[acoz]

I have loved NIN since the moment I first heard them in 1994. I still cannot believe the depth and totality of Reznor's creativity. I am a 40 year old man, and I still am in awe when I think about all of the different creative avenues he has explored with music, right down to really beautiful album covers.

There are a few things I have always wanted to post about, and I am wondering if anyone else has noticed these, or can offer further insight, in no particular order:

1) Year 1995 [Further Down the Spiral (US version)]: On the song "Erased, Over, Out," is essentially a long noise track without any lyrics. However, if you listen to that track on particular CD players from that era, and if you hit fast forward on that song, you will hear Trent scream "erase me, erase me" over and over again. Trent slowed down "erase me" from eraser to the perfect speed to coincide with a CD fast forward system, so if you do fast forward you will hear his vocals clearly. It's amazing, and I wonder if anyone else discovered this.

2) Year 2000 (Things Falling Apart): On 'Ten Miles High' at about the 3:30 mark you can hear whispering lyrics mixed in with a soul-music sounding sample. Anyone know what is being said within the lyrics or the soul music sample?

3) Year 1994 (The Downward Spiral): At the beginning of 'A Warm Place' you can hear a loop of a man saying something. Does anyone know what the man is saying, or if this might be a sample from somewhere? I think I remember that there was a lot of sampling on that album.

Apologies if any of this is redundant, or if any of it has been posted before. Always wanted to share it.

[Toadflax]

1) Year 1995 [Further Down the Spiral (US version)]: On the song "Erased, Over, Out," is essentially a long noise track without any lyrics. However, if you listen to that track on particular CD players from that era, and if you hit fast forward on that song, you will hear Trent scream "erase me, erase me" over and over again. Trent slowed down "erase me" from eraser to the perfect speed to coincide with a CD fast forward system, so if you do fast forward you will hear his vocals clearly. It's amazing, and I wonder if anyone else discovered this.

This is pretty obvious and well known. I remember hearing the slowed down voice when I first got the CD and speeding it up right away.

2) Year 2000 (Things Falling Apart): On 'Ten Miles High' at about the 3:30 mark you can hear whispering lyrics mixed in with a soul-music sounding sample. Anyone know what is being said within the lyrics or the soul music sample?

I had never paid much attention to this (though I'm sure others on here have). It sounds like the female singers are saying "invitation" and "situation" and a couple other "-ation" words. Googling "invitation situation song" didn't bring anything up.

3) Year 1994 (The Downward Spiral): At the beginning of 'A Warm Place' you can hear a loop of a man saying something. Does anyone know what the man is saying, or if this might be a sample from somewhere? I think I remember that there was a lot of sampling on that album.

You can find a thread about this here.

[Destruct26]

I have loved NIN since the moment I first heard them in 1994. I still cannot believe the depth and totality of Reznor's creativity. I am a 40 year old man, and I still am in awe when I think about all of the different creative avenues he has explored with music, right down to really beautiful album covers.

There are a few things I have always wanted to post about, and I am wondering if anyone else has noticed these, or can offer further insight, in no particular order:

1) Year 1995 [Further Down the Spiral (US version)]: On the song "Erased, Over, Out," is essentially a long noise track without any lyrics. However, if you listen to that track on particular CD players from that era, and if you hit fast forward on that song, you will hear Trent scream "erase me, erase me" over and over again. Trent slowed down "erase me" from eraser to the perfect speed to coincide with a CD fast forward system, so if you do fast forward you will hear his vocals clearly. It's amazing, and I wonder if anyone else discovered this.

2) Year 2000 (Things Falling Apart): On 'Ten Miles High' at about the 3:30 mark you can hear whispering lyrics mixed in with a soul-music sounding sample. Anyone know what is being said within the lyrics or the soul music sample?

3) Year 1994 (The Downward Spiral): At the beginning of 'A Warm Place' you can hear a loop of a man saying something. Does anyone know what the man is saying, or if this might be a sample from somewhere? I think I remember that there was a lot of sampling on that album.

Apologies if any of this is redundant, or if any of it has been posted before. Always wanted to share it.

all of this can be found on ninwiki.com.

As for 10 miles high I can tell you right here just for the fuck of it:
”my nightmare’s everywhere but inside, a living indication of every situation, but it seems I have neglected complication, hindered my salvation, but I try and I try and I try”
it is also trents voice run through some filters, and the music behind it is a guitar riff from the end of 10 miles high (version) also prominently featured in its entirety with 10 miles high (instrumental) which is more or less an entirely different arrangement than what the original sounds like.

[katara]

As for 10 miles high I can tell you right here just for the fuck of it:
”my nightmare’s everywhere but inside, a living indication of every situation, but it seems I have neglected complication, hindered my salvation, but I try and I try and I try"

This is correct.

Interestingly, 10 Miles High also features a two-note flute sample from The Downward Spiral in that break. I'd say that's more hidden than the lyrics.

All of this is very well-known. Year Zero has a ton of them, such as images in spectrograms, morse code, phasing, etc. Not to mention the ARG outside the album.

The most recent one is most likely the whispering in the break of Shit Mirror.

[acoz]

Cool, thanks for the responses. I have no doubt that this stuff is very well known, but I never post on these boards or dig as much as I'd like to, so these responses are super insightful to me.

And, yeah, I don't even know where to start with the genius of Year Zero. Had no idea about Shit Mirror. This guy just operates on another level, and so do a lot of his fans by the sounds of it, as I am way behind the posters on Echoingtheound and Reddit.

[Destruct26]

This is correct.

Interestingly, 10 Miles High also features a two-note flute sample from The Downward Spiral in that break. I'd say that's more hidden than the lyrics.

All of this is very well-known. Year Zero has a ton of them, such as images in spectrograms, morse code, phasing, etc. Not to mention the ARG outside the album.

The most recent one is most likely the whispering in the break of Shit Mirror.

Funny you should mention the two note flute sample- I discovered it last year and had someone throw it on ninwiki. Like many, im super obsessed with dissecting his music for correlations and sampling’s from his own music and from other media.

[zecho]

One thing that I've always found really neat that never seems to come up is that in The Downward Spiral, in the moment that there's an explosion of instruments and the screaming starts, the left channel shorts out and gains a wind recording for the rest of the album. People always mention "static" in Hurt, but the distortion starts in The Downward Spiral, and I believe it represents the gunshot and bullet hole. If you listen on headphones, it's only one side of your head that's affected and the wind recording that plays the entire time could be seen as a hole. It's not really hidden, but I think it's something most people never quite get.

[acoz]

Zecho, that's an awesome observation. I had never noticed that. Going to listen to that a few times today. Amazing.

Another thing that I forgot to mention in my post is that Closer appears to be a direct metaphor/parallel to sex. The beat starts simple. One, two, one, two, and gradually builds and builds - layers are always building in this song and it ever never backtracks. When the lyrics are over, the layers and intensity really pick up, and pick up, and pick up, and pick up until..... it ends on a peaceful moment of bliss, i.e., orgasm.

Again, not sure if that observation has been posted before, but something I noticed back in the TDS era, and it remains cool nonetheless.

Also, on 'I Do Not Want This' from TDS, around the 4:10 mark there appears to be a repeating word or two words that my friends used to joke sounds like "ketchup," but it is clearly something else, of course. Not sure if anyone else has noticed.

[piggy]

Also, on 'I Do Not Want This' from TDS, around the 4:10 mark there appears to be a repeating word or two words that my friends used to joke sounds like "ketchup," but it is clearly something else, of course. Not sure if anyone else has noticed.

Are you sure you don't mean "Reptile"? There's a sample that starts at 5:08 where a girl is saying "Kirk, help" and it's from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

[botley]

Re: the flute sample. It's just a mellotron, playing a repeating tritone interval... I'm pretty sure they didn't have to 'sample' that, but sure, it could be considered a callback to TDS.

[ekrekel]

One thing that I've always found really neat that never seems to come up is that in The Downward Spiral, in the moment that there's an explosion of instruments and the screaming starts, the left channel shorts out and gains a wind recording for the rest of the album. People always mention "static" in Hurt, but the distortion starts in The Downward Spiral, and I believe it represents the gunshot and bullet hole. If you listen on headphones, it's only one side of your head that's affected and the wind recording that plays the entire time could be seen as a hole. It's not really hidden, but I think it's something most people never quite get.

Great stuff. Have you listened to how this was mixed into the 5.1?

[zecho]

Great stuff. Have you listened to how this was mixed into the 5.1?

I have. Around the time he says "in one determined flash" both the front left and front right speakers get distorted and begin playing the wind sound. It's actually a LOT more obvious in the surround sound mix as well.

[acoz]

Are you sure you don't mean "Reptile"? There's a sample that starts at 5:08 where a girl is saying "Kirk, help" and it's from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Yes, I'm sure. But I think I got the time stamp wrong. It starts closer to 3:50 on 'I Do Not Want This.' It's hard to tell exactly where it starts, to be honest.

Cool info about Reptile though. Didn't know that either.

[ninjaw]

in broken, Physical you forgot to mention they slowed down when Maise is biting Sean Beavan, and he says "Oh, fucker" http://ninfrance.free.fr/son/physica2.wav broken's booklet mentions : "Roars and barks: Maise"
here's Erased over out faster : http://ninfrance.free.fr/son/overout2.wav

[ekrekel]

What's going on in the Gave Up(fixed) chorus starting around 1:20 and continues throughout most of the song? Sounded like some seriously destroyed backwards vocals, but it isn't.

[piggy]

The vocals are chopped up, not backwards. Charlie Clouser did something kind of similar with his remixes from Further Down The Spiral, though I think those vocals are chopped and reversed.

[Harry Seaward]

What do your nipples look like?

[Destruct26]

What do your nipples look like?

That’s none of your damned business, Robin.

[acoz]

in broken, Physical you forgot to mention they slowed down when Maise is biting Sean Beavan, and he says "Oh, fucker" http://ninfrance.free.fr/son/physica2.wav broken's booklet mentions : "Roars and barks: Maise"
here's Erased over out faster : http://ninfrance.free.fr/son/overout2.wav

Thanks for sending samples, ninjaw. Haven't heard that in decades. Still love they took the time to do that.

[Kulerage]

I guess here would be a good place to mention something that might already be common knowledge, but oh well. The opening acoustic-sounding guitar riff on Where is Everybody? reenters the song at 4:00, panned left and at a very low volume.

[acoz]

Does anybody know if there is something hidden going on at the end of 'The Background World?'

[zecho]

Does anybody know if there is something hidden going on at the end of 'The Background World?'

Nah, it's just a steadily building amount of distortion. I'm sure people will imagine things in it, but there's nothing.

[acoz]

Nah, it's just a steadily building amount of distortion. I'm sure people will imagine things in it, but there's nothing.

Thanks, Zecho. There is definitely a percussion that develops over time, but you are right, that is more of an evolution of the distortion rather than anything mysteriously hidden.

[Priestess]

I remain perplexed by what the sawtooth patterns on the trilogy covers represent. I have always felt that they resembled the sort of guides graphic designers would use to overlay one picture on top of another as if the three covers were meant to rest atop one another in some way, but the result has never seemed to produce anything I found coherent.

[nmitchell86]

Does anybody know if there is something hidden going on at the end of 'The Background World?'

Nah, it's just a steadily building amount of distortion. I'm sure people will imagine things in it, but there's nothing.

Yes there is!!! If you play it backwards and run it through a silicoscpe in a inverted phase with higher amps and allowed the USBM (I set mine to .6 GHzAmps) then a hidden code or shall I say cipher in 2048bit TSLLA at MILSTD 117-D-459 encryption can be found, We just now need to crack that code. Shouldn't take too long with a quantum organic computer. I currently have some part on order from newegg for my next QOC project, I'm going "old school" and going to air cool this bad boy. Should run Doom95 so good the game will play itself. Just need to get ahold of a good secure OS. Any recommendations? I'll let you all know what I find.

~Cheers!

[Erneuert]

I remain perplexed by what the sawtooth patterns on the trilogy covers represent. I have always felt that they resembled the sort of guides graphic designers would use to overlay one picture on top of another as if the three covers were meant to rest atop one another in some way, but the result has never seemed to produce anything I found coherent.

Didn’t @kraw once say that we’d find out it’s relevance eventually?

[nmitchell86]

Didn’t @kraw once say that we’d find out it’s relevance eventually?

Well @ninlive did get confirmation that Still would be re-released on vinyl, maybe that is the significance?

[ninlive]

Well @ninlive did get confirmation that Still would be re-released on vinyl, maybe that is the significance?

Sorry, I never got confirmation that it would be released on vinyl (it was never released in that format). It was the Walledof Hotel score they did for Banksy that I got confirmation they are working on getting it pressed.

[Erneuert]

Well @ninlive did get confirmation that Still would be re-released on vinyl, maybe that is the significance?

I mean the little sawtooth patterns. Didn’t he say they’d make sense eventually also?

[nmitchell86]

Sorry about that... But didn't we here that Still would be released on vinyl?