Random NIN Questions

[FULLMETAL]

Of all songs whose bright idea was it to go with re-recording 1987's "Whores" in 2009

From Slicing Up Eyeballs:

"Continuing its new retro-’80s bent, the recently re-reunited Jane’s Addiction on Friday issued its first new recordings since 1990’s Ritual de lo Habitual to feature original bass player Eric Avery: a pair of songs that date back more than 20 years. Jane’s is offering Trent Reznor-produced studio recordings of “Chip Away” and “Whores” — which previously only had appeared on the band’s 1987 self-titled live album — as part of a free EP issued in conjunction with its joint summer tour with Nine Inch Nails. The six-track NIN/JA 2009 Tour Sampler also features two new NIN tracks, plus two cuts from opening act Street Sweeper, featuring Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello and Boots Riley of The Coup.

Although the reconstituted Jane’s — which played a not-so-secret “secret” set at South By Southwest last week — has been recording with Reznor, Perry Farrell told Billboard.com not to expect a new record. “Just to get some creative juice flowing, we went into the studio for about two weeks,” Farrell said. “We had the idea to re-record two tunes, just because they’d never been done officially in the studio. And we had some fun writing some new things. A handful that are close to finished, but not quite done. But there’s no rush to put anything out at this point. For me, the idea is to introduce one or two songs into this touring cycle along with the ones everybody loves and knows.”

[thelastdisciple]

@FULLMETAL I mean I figured it was someone in the band so of course it's a "we" thing, it was probably Perry and they all just agreed and went along with it. Who knows if there were any objections made.. I guess they didn't work or maybe there just wasn't any thought put into it at all and they drew songs from a hat. No doubt it's much ado about nothing in 2024 but the whole thing just kinda left me stunned is all, like they did WHAT? Well that was a choice.. Anyway I have nothing else to really inquire about, so I'll leave it alone unless someone has any thoughts about it.

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[trollmanen]

I can think of a handful of songs that use the word that are sung by white artists over the years, most notably Patti Smith's song "Rock N Roll N*gger". While it was from 1978, her version was on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack in 1994, and Marilyn Manson's cover was on Smells Like Children and a live staple for a long time afterwards. But the list goes on of white artists using the word: John Lennon, Freddie Mercury, Mick Jagger, Dead Kennedys, Frank Zappa, and Guns N Roses, who have tried to distance themselves from the song and didn't include it in the box set of Appetite For Destruction in 2018.

Maybe there's a fine line between singing it in the context of a song vs conversation? To bring up the Michael Richards incident, he was responding to a black audience members interruption to his comedy set, so a very different situation and clearly meant as a racial slur.

I think it's simply that those two songs were probably their favorites off the first album, which was a live record that didn't sound as good as a studio recording, so they wanted to warm up by recording some old songs that needed a proper recording done. I doubt much thought went into the use of that word during it.

[thelastdisciple]

I think it's simply that those two songs were probably their favorites off the first album, which was a live record that didn't sound as good as a studio recording, so they wanted to warm up by recording some old songs that needed a proper recording done. I doubt much thought went into the use of that word during it.

That's fair i guess even if a little disappointing and i can kind of understand the Patti Smith track getting a resurgence in the 90s. Both being on the NBK soundtrack and having that Manson cover, the 90s were a weird time with a lot of counter-culture so that's a little less surprising plus NBK was about shitty people in America doing shitty things lmao. I read the quote of Manson's rationale for doing the cover, he spoke of how using the n-word as a synonym for being an outsider made the song relatable to him, i think that's complete horse shit but that's just me.

The others well... a few of them are now no longer with us and back in their heyday there was definitely a lot less mindfulness and consideration toward minority groups than there is now (well in some cases while in others it's one of those "the more things change, the more they stay the same" kinda vibes). While you bring up a good point about the Richards incident where he was directly targeting someone in a face to face environment, i just have a hard time with how these white artists thought they could see some sanitized usage of the word beyond a re-enactment of history in film or a period piece. Like who cares if it's indirect, the word has been negatively charged from it's inception and everyone knows the group of people you are talking about when using it. So how else is it supposed to be received other than negatively? I guess I'll just never quite see the allure beyond being shocking or lazy.

[trollmanen]

A quick look at the Wikipedia page for the word features this paragraph:

The word n*gger has also been historically used to designate "any person considered to be of low social status" (as in the expression white n*gger) or "any person whose behavior is regarded as reprehensible". In some cases, with awareness of the word's offensive connotation, but without intention to cause offense, it can refer to a "a victim of prejudice likened to that endured by African Americans" (as in John Lennon's 1972 song "Woman Is the N*gger of the World").

Of course, I don't see the allure either. It's not a word I would ever use. I'm not in Perry's head, but I would assume given the subject matter of the song, he might have intended the word as a metaphor. It's a song written in 1985 about whores, so it's clearly of a different time and place, and perhaps should be judged differently than if it was written in 2024. As far as it's being re-recorded in 2009, again, I think it was simply a desire to record a song that was never properly recorded.

[botley]

The example of Freddie Mercury (who was not white) using the n-word was just his making reference to an obsolete British term for cane sugar, in a throwback to 19th-century language also used elsewhere in the song "March of the Black Queen". Not every use of the n-word is racist, but I do find its appearance in "Whores" completely inexplicable.