Edit An Album

[BRoswell]

I thought this might be a fun idea. Rules are as follows:

1. Double albums will be condensed into single albums, albums will be condensed into EPs with no more than five tracks, EPs will be condensed into singles with no more than two or three tracks.
2. You can add tracks that were not a part of the original release so long as they are part of that era. (example: you could put Dead Souls or Memorabilia on your version of The Downward Spiral)
3. No How To Destroy Angels or Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross score material please. I may make a thread for those in their respective sections.

Have fun!

[mqhanlon]

A little bit of revisionist history, eh? This thread is bound to lead to some silly arguments, but I'll bite. I'm firmly in the camp that thinks Hesitation Marks was a bit of a disappointment (to me, it sounds like the unfinished demos for a better album), so I made an iTunes playlist for myself that culls from HM, Welcome Oblivion, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (bit of a stretch, I know), and the bonus tracks from 2013.

1. The Wake-Up
2. Copy of a
3. How Long?
4. Came Back Haunted
5. Ice Age (The Soft Moon Remix)
6. Various Methods of Escape
7. A Thousand Details
8. All Time Low
9. While I’m Still Here (Breyer P-Orridge Remix)
10. The Heretics
11. The Loop Closes
12. Is Your Love Strong Enough?

EDIT: Justification for each selection...
1. Inspired by “999,999,” “Hyperpower!,” and of course, “Pinion,” we’re going to start off with a short (almost) instrumental track that builds up to the first real song. “The Wake-Up” easily wins out over “The Eater of Dreams,” because I think it’s one Reznor's best album openers. It’s not just a simple drone repetition, and it works as a song in its own right.
2. Once a Nine Inch Nails album properly starts, it’s typically with a solid song that’s not too heavy, bordering on poppy. It’s good single material, but not typically something that becomes a single (think: “The Beginning of the End”). “Copy of a” is that song. It’s catchy and has that classic Nine Inch Nails sound. It sounds simple, but further listens reveal that there is a lot going on it.
3. This is where we get a pretty big departure from standard Nine Inch Nails. Maandig is going to take lead vocals, but that’s okay. Reznor talked back in the 90s about trying to find a female vocalist or write for a female vocalist or something. Here it is. It almost sounds like it could be the “edgy” song for a pop diva if they hired Reznor to produce a track or two. That’s not a bad thing though. It also doesn’t hurt that Maandig sounds pretty good on here. Her vocals are usually pretty subdued, but she’s going for it on this one.
4. A lot of what I said about “Copy of a” applies here too. Classic NIN. Does it hold up against other singles? Debatable, but it’s good stuff.
5. We’re still on the first half of the album, so we’re keeping it going with some muscle. We’re mixing it up here; it’s not just a HTDA song, but it’s a remix of one! Honestly, I really dig the original version of “Ice Age,” but this version is superior and fits amongst the other tracks a little more easily.
6. This would probably close out the A-side of the vinyl (I haven't actually timed it), so it’s time to dial it back a little bit. Think of it as the spot taken by “Every Day is Exactly the Same” or “The Warning.” Slow it down, keep it calm, but we’re not into instrumental territory yet. I went with “Various Methods of Escape,” but it could have easily been a bunch of other songs from Hesitation Marks. A lot of that stuff sounds the same to me. That isn’t to say it sounds bad, but when the whole back half of the album sounds like this, it’s just too much.
7. Bam. Time for an instrumental. The soundtrack for TGWTDT is a little too ambient to really stand on its own (I know others totally disagree, and that's fine), but when separated out it sounds pretty good. This is a spot to catch your breath, just like “Help Me I Am In Hell,” “Another Version of the Truth,” or the whole second half of The Slip. (Upon review, there are only two instrumentals on The Slip, but when they’re bookended by “Lights in the Sky,” and “Demon Seed,” my brain just assumes that there are no lyrics for four songs.)
8. I hesitated putting this on (and I tried to find a way to avoid that pun), but the album needed it. If this version of Hesitation Marks was released, I probably would have pointed to this one as being my least favorite - the rhyming scheme in particular is a little irritating - but how often is an album 100% all the way through? Also, upon review, it seems important for NIN to have a little bit of white-guy industrial funk included (see: “All the Love in the World,” “Capital G,” Pretty Hate Machine). I think we’re doing pretty well if this is the worst song on the album. It’s not bad, and it at least has some personality.
9. Oh, yeah! The remix here is definitely superior to the original, and made the deluxe edition worth picking up. There’s some real menace in this song, and it’s all from P-Orridge’s contributions. At the same time, I feel like it fits in well within the context of the album. It maintains song structure and isn’t a dance remix or a total deconstruction. This is evidence that Reznor should be working with other big names more often at this point. Bonus points: Trent Reznor saxophone.
10. One more dose of instrumental for the album. Is it weird to have two instrumentals? Not according to The Fragile or The Slip (or The Downward Spiral, if you ignore the whispery stuff on the title track). We’re doing it.
11. Here’s an underrated one. This fits the mold of the Trent Reznor “almost an instrumental” track; it has a long instrumental opening, and when the lyrics do kick in it’s just whispery chanting instead of actual singing. Regardless, this makes the cut though because of the electronic freak out. It starts slow, like it’s going to be pretty boring, but then it gets a little glitchy, and then it builds more, and finally it’s all weird noise and voices over some mean dance groove. Listen with headphones.
12. I know it’s off model to include a cover song on a proper NIN album, and it’s also off model not to end with a quiet drone-y thing. Screw it though, because this track is great. We’re not going to bury it as a B-side, or on the hypothetical remix album. It makes for a good ending, so we’re going off model. Anyway, it’s not too different from ending with “Right Where It Belongs.” Slow build that bursts open half way through.

[BRoswell]

An interesting post, although I'm trying to limit this to JUST Nine Inch Nails material. I've amended my original post to reflect this.

[r_z]

The Fragile:

01 The Way Out Is Through
02 Into The Void
03 The Day The World Went Away (Single Version)
04 The Mark Has Been Made
05 The Wretched (Intro snatched from the instrumental version)
06 The Fragile
07 Just Like You Imagined
08 Please
09 La Mer (Vinyl Version)
10 Complication
11 The New Flesh
12 I'm Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally
13 Leaving Hope
14 The Great Below
15 And All That Could Have Been

Still looking for a way to include Slipping Away or 10 Miles High

[Kulerage]

The Fragile condensed into one disc while mostly retaining the original story with the addition of AATCHB

1. Somewhat Damaged
2. The Frail
3. The Wretched
4. The Fragile
5. Just Like You Imagined
6. Even Deeper
7. La Mer
8. The Great Below
9. The Way Out Is Through
10. Into The Void
11. 10 Miles High
12. Please
13. I'm Looking Forward To Joining You
14. Underneath It All
15. And All That Could Have Been

[WorzelG]

The Fragile condensed into one disc while mostly retaining the original story with the addition of AATCHB

1. Somewhat Damaged
2. The Wretched
3. The Fragile
4. Just Like You Imagined
5. Even Deeper
6. La Mer
7. The Great Below
8. The Way Out Is Through
9. Into The Void
10. 10 Miles High
11. Please
12. I'm Looking Forward To Joining You
13. Underneath It All
14. And All That Could Have Been

Can you add the frail before the wretched and put in we're in this together?

[Kulerage]

Can you add the frail before the wretched and put in we're in this together?

The Frail I will put, but We're In This Together is one of a few songs that I have a certain odd relationship with (the others being Only, Head Down, Letting You and Came Back Haunted).

[joplinpicasso]

Year Zero [The Tardust EP] - Nine Inch Nails & Saul Williams

1. Gunshots By Computer
2. Survivalism
3. Me, I'm Not
4. My Violent Heart
5. Raised To Be Lowered
6. In This Twilight
7. No One Ever Does

[BRoswell]

Year Zero [The Tardust EP] - Nine Inch Nails & Saul Williams

1. Gunshots By Computer
2. Survivalism
3. Me, I'm Not
4. My Violent Heart
5. Raised To Be Lowered
6. In This Twilight
7. No One Ever Does

Again...
tenfuckingcharacters

...I'm trying to limit this to JUST Nine Inch Nails material.

[Papagolash]

This is actually the playlist I made for The Downward Spiral and listen to all the time. The 2 added songs work really well in their spots. And yes I know I'm supposed to condense, but sometimes adding makes things that much better.

1. Mr. Self Destruct
2. Piggy
3. Heresy
4. March of the Pigs
5. Burn
6. Closer
7. Ruiner
8. The Becoming
9. I Do Not Want This
10. Big Man With a Gun
11. The Perfect Drug (proper long outro from WITT halo)
12. A Warm Place
13. Eraser
14. Reptile
15. The Downward Spiral
16. Hurt

[neorev]

I took a challenge on here when I said that I personally felt the releases have been lacking since With Teeth and it began to all sound a bit samey. I said that you could make one cohesive album from The Slip, Ghosts, Year Zero, Hesitation Marks, and HTDA. It wasn't a popular comment, so I took up the challenge and came up with this. I wanted something that had both the edgier rock elements and electronics like older NIN albums.

01) IN TWO
02) PARASITE
03) TOO LATE, ALL GONE
04) 7 GHOSTS I
05) 1,000,000
06) SURVIVALISM
07) WELCOME OBLIVION
08) FIND MY WAY
09) 8 GHOSTS I
10) MY VIOLENT HEART
11) ALL TIME LOW
12) AND THE SKY BEGAN TO SCREAM
13) BBB
14) VARIOUS METHODS OF ESCAPE
15) 10 GHOSTS II
16) IN THIS TWILIGHT
17) CORONA RADIATA
18) THE SPACE BETWEEN

It fits onto a CD and flows quite nicely. Though songs could probably blend better at points with some overlay transitions. I even left off songs that I love to make a more cohesive and flowing album. I suggest reading the lyrics along with this because songs actually connect quite well with each other. I use Ghost tracks as a way to separate the release into segments, more like interludes. Having both NIN and HTDA tracks make it feel like Trent and Mariqueen are these dueling entites. Words and phrases in tracks reference each other.

Here's the collection as a Spotify playlist...
https://open.spotify.com/user/iamneo...F76vVwymNIEfTL


P.S. I'd like to do a single disc Fragile/Still/Things Falling Apart collection.

[BRoswell]

I took a challenge on here when I said that I personally felt the releases have been lacking since With Teeth and it began to all sound a bit samey. I said that you could make one cohesive album from The Slip, Ghosts, Year Zero, Hesitation Marks, and HTDA. It wasn't a popular comment, so I took up the challenge and came up with this. I wanted something that had both the edgier rock elements and electronics like older NIN albums.

01) IN TWO
02) PARASITE
03) TOO LATE, ALL GONE
04) 7 GHOSTS I
05) 1,000,000
06) SURVIVALISM
07) WELCOME OBLIVION
08) FIND MY WAY
09) 8 GHOSTS I
10) MY VIOLENT HEART
11) ALL TIME LOW
12) AND THE SKY BEGAN TO SCREAM
13) BBB
14) VARIOUS METHODS OF ESCAPE
15) 10 GHOSTS II
16) IN THIS TWILIGHT
17) CORONA RADIATA
18) THE SPACE BETWEEN

It fits onto a CD and flows quite nicely. Though songs could probably blend better at points with some overlay transitions. I even left off songs that I love to make a more cohesive and flowing album. I suggest reading the lyrics along with this because songs actually connect quite well with each other. I use Ghost tracks as a way to separate the release into segments, more like interludes. Having both NIN and HTDA tracks make it feel like Trent and Mariqueen are these dueling entites. Words and phrases in tracks reference each other.

Here's the collection as a Spotify playlist...
https://open.spotify.com/user/iamneo...F76vVwymNIEfTL


P.S. I'd like to do a single disc Fragile/Still/Things Falling Apart collection.

Someone didn't read the rules.

[SchwarzerAbt]

Someone didn't read the rules.

Keep them coming anyway! Those fusion lists are reaaly cool! :P

[BenAkenobi]

I'd edit PHM by swapping “Head like a hole” with a Slate or Clay mix, leaving everything else as is.

p.s.
the topicstarter says album should be condensed... so okay, throw HLAH away altogether

[Kulerage]

The Slip as an EP, as it was originally planned

999999
1000000
Discipline
Head Down
Lights In The Sky
Demon Seed

EDIT: Put Head Down in place of Echoplex by popular demand

[PhoenixML]

The Slip as an EP, as it was originally planned

999999
1000000
Discipline
Echoplex
Lights In The Sky
Demon Seed

How dare you take off one of the best NIN songs!! (Head Down)

[implanted_microchip]

Slip as an EP? I can get behind that:

Discipline
Echoplex
Head Down
Corona Radiata
The Four of Us Are Dying
Demon Seed

Also, because I don't think it'll get talked about as much, I like the idea of an alternate Pretty Hate Machine a lot:

Now I'm Nothing
Terrible Lie
Sin
Down In It
Sanctified (2013 version)
Something I Can Never Have (Still version)
That's What I Get
Ringfinger
Head Like a Hole

[Kulerage]

How dare you take off one of the best NIN songs!! (Head Down)

As much as I love that song, it suffers from something I like to call "WereInThisTogethervirales" (as do Only, Letting You and Came Back Haunted). These songs are all awesome, but do not sound like they belong on the albums they are on, so if I edited those albums, I'd remove them despite their awesomeness.

[Swykk]

The Fragile:

Somewhat Damaged
Please
The Frail
The Wretched
We're In This Together
The Fragile
Into The Void
Just Like You Imagined
Even Deeper
The Great Below
The Day The World Went Away
The Big Come Down
And All That Could Have Been

[Amaro]

Poor @BRoswell

Good thread, and it would be better if people read every line of rules. We're in the --->NIN<--- section after all...



I may contribute later. God knows I've tried so much different shit over the years in this ballpark, perhaps way too much.

[Henrie_Schnee]

What's The Downward Spiral? Never heard of it. But my favorite NIN-release sure was the Self-Destruct EP Trent released back in the mid-nineties. I ushered in a new era of sexy self aware careless drug fueled goth kid soul metamorphosis that did to the late nineties what grunge had done to the early nineties. The world was never the same again!

01 mr self destruct
02 all the pigs, all lined up *
03 hurt (quiet) *
04 reptilian *
05 self destruction, final

run time: 36 glorious minutes

* since this is alternate history, these remixes might as well be called by hurt, reptile, march of the pigs

I just tested it, it's pretty bi-polar sonivally. Half of it noise of self-anihilation, half of it those catchy fuck society-songs. And Hurt in the middle, to sort of "ground it" somewhere, sort of like Ice age did Welcome Oblivion. Anyway! I was skeptical first, but this is actually a very nice idea for a threat!

[neorev]

Someone didn't read the rules.

Honestly, no offense, half the people broke the rules if we're gonna be nitpickers here lol.

- mqhanlon (includes HTDA and didn't turn an album into EP)

-Kulerage (Slip EP is 6 tracks)

-joplinpicaso (EP is 7 tracks, plus non NIN material)

- Papagolash (added tracks to an album, didn't turn an album into an EP)

- kleiner352 (Slip is 6 tracks, PHM didn't turn an album into an EP)

What about them rules again?

As for Rule #2 adding tracks from that era that weren't a part of that release would mean you're adding extra tracks to a single album you're already suppose to be condensing down to 5 tracks. For every non-album track you add, that's one less album track you can include. Just to clarify. For example, what Henrie_Schnee did

[BRoswell]

Honestly, no offense, but half the people haven't followed the rules if we're gonna be nitpickers here.

Well, yeah, I'm going to nitpick about it. The rules are right at the top of the thread. It's not hard to see them and follow them. I like the other contributions that people have made, but I'm trying to make this more about making a cohesive album/EP/single than a Trent Reznor mixtape, if that makes sense.

As for Rule #2 adding tracks from that era that weren't a part of that release would mean you're adding extra tracks to a single album you're already suppose to be condensing down to 5 tracks. For every non-album track you add, that's one less album you can include. Just to clarify.

You're not adding tracks. You're substituting them. Here, let me give you an example.

BRoswell's Alternate Downward Spiral For The Purpose Of Clarification EP

1. Mr. Self Destruct
2. Closer
3. Dead Souls
4. Eraser
5. Hurt (Quiet)

You'll notice that I still kept it to five tracks while also using a non-album track and a remix from the era. Simple, no?

[neorev]

You're not adding tracks. You're substituting them. Here, let me give you an example.

BRoswell's Alternate Downward Spiral For The Purpose Of Clarification EP

1. Mr. Self Destruct
2. Closer
3. Dead Souls
4. Eraser
5. Hurt (Quiet)

You'll notice that I still kept it to five tracks while also using a non-album track and a remix from the era. Simple, no?

I perfectly understand that since I say exactly what you just said. I even gave an example from one of the members above that did it right. My response was directed toward the folks that were doing it wrong. Since many were creating EPs that were too long or just adding EP tracks to a single album that was suppose to be condensed down to only 5 tracks according to the rules.

All I was trying to explain was that an album must be condensed down to 5 tracks. If you include an EP track, that's one less track from the album that you can use to squeeze into 5 tracks.

Yes, a simple rule. Sadly, broken by many lol.

[Kulerage]

All I was trying to explain was that an album must be condensed down to 5 tracks.

Pretty sure Broken (considered and EP) is 6 tracks, and that's not including the bonus tracks.

[BRoswell]

Pretty sure Broken (considered and EP) is 6 tracks, and that's not including the bonus tracks.

Yes, Broken has six tracks (not counting the bonus tracks), but I wasn't necessarily saying that you should use Broken as the standard. Five was just a number I felt comfortable with.

[nowimnothing]

And bam! What was looking like a pretty cool thread idea has turned into petty bitching.

[BRoswell]

Let's just forget it and move on. Pretty pwease?

[neorev]

I'm not bitching, I just found it funny that 7 out of the 11 suggested track orders did not follow the rules.

Then I was just trying to help clarify rule #2 since one of the most broken rules seemed to be rule #2.

[BenAkenobi]

Everybody forgot the rule #34