Best flow, balance and narrative for me is this order:
All tracks really blend good together (sonically and lyrically). The end of TBW sounds great in that position too. Perfect album.
Best flow, balance and narrative for me is this order:
All tracks really blend good together (sonically and lyrically). The end of TBW sounds great in that position too. Perfect album.
i finally listened to all three releases in reverse chronological order (bad witch, add violence, not the actual events) and it flowed for me (both narratively and musically) perfectly. not messing with the tracks within each release maintains their individual continuity, and then having "over and out" into "less than" works so well, as does the disintegrating loop of "the background world" into "branches/bones" (as i said as soon as AV was released), so i'm happy with it like that.
Here's my playlist. It's mostly in order, but I put a few bonus tracks in that I'm currently deciding on the order to put them in. I named it Shadows on the Cave Wall, after the description for Bad Witch on nin.com
Branches/Bones
Dear World
She’s Gone Away
The Idea of You
Burning Bright
Juno
Less Than
The Lovers
This Isn’t the Place
Not Anymore
The Background World (4:04 Edit)
Halloween
Shit Mirror
Ahead of Ourselves
Play the Goddamned Part
God Break Down the Door
I’m Not From This World
Over and Out
A Minute To Breathe (With A Minute Later Outro)
The Background World (Reprise)
Last edited by raptors661; 06-30-2018 at 04:41 PM.
I didn't read every page - but interesting that I'm not seeing "I Can't Give Everything Away" in the mix. It's been such a present aspect of the first two EP's release shows. I put it after - "Burning Bright." Seems to fit - especially with all of the Bowie-esque vocals and melodies on Bad Witch.
01 Branches/Bones
02 Less Than
03 God Break Down The Door
04 Dear World,
05 The Lovers
06 She's Gone Away
07 Not Anymore
08 Ahead Of Ourselves
09 Burning Bright (Field Of Fire)
10 I Can't Give Everything Away (Farewell Mix)
11 Shit Mirror
12 Play The Goddamned Part
13 This Isn't The Place
14 The Idea of You
15 A Minute To Breathe
16 The Background World [7:01 - w/fade out]
17 Over And Out
18 I'm Not From This World
Last edited by LOVEANDZOMBIES; 07-03-2018 at 01:02 PM. Reason: 1-8 dragged a bit and felt repetitive
I got it! My own personal playlist I enjoy! Its the kind of flow I enjoy all the way through even If doesn't tell a coherent story. No instrumental, but that is my problem.
Cold & Black & Infinite
Shit Mirror
Ahead of Ourselves
Burning Bright
Branches / Bones
Dear World
The Idea of You
She's Gone Away
This Isn't The Place
Not Anymore
God Break Down The Door
The Lovers
Less Than
The Background World (part 1)
Over and Out
Last edited by PhoenixML; 07-04-2018 at 10:08 AM.
Feels like I’ve been here before
@Destruct26 awesome! Here are a couple more things for you.
The Lovers:
"Hot swollen skin want me take me perfect embrace
Black and bloody"
She's Gone Away:
"We keep licking while the skin turns black"
Also Branches/Bones' chorus "I don't know anymore..." can be linked to Not Anymore. Tentatively, there's also a line in Ahead Of Ourselves that may relate "That is if he existed (not so sure anymore)".
Edit: Also also, Shit Mirror "I left her on the bathroom floor" and Not Anymore "My feet are nailed to the floor".
Last edited by katara; 07-05-2018 at 12:57 PM.
In the latest Kerrang! magazine (UK) interview -
Trent says the trilogy should be listened to sequentially. Claiming an incredible amount of thought went into it. He also suggests there is a "riddle" there along with a "purpose" and an "intent".
Here.
"I'd like people to listen to it the way it was intended to be listened to," says Atticus. "We didn't put them in a randomiser: a lot of thought went into their order, and there's meaning throughout the three; within each release and then over the arc of all three. There's a reason that Branches/Bones starts Not The Actual Events and there's a reason that Over And Out ends Bad Witch, and they're connected. I don't know if anyone will listen to it like that, but that is obviously the hope."
"You'll find if you do take the time to listen to it sequentially, there is an incredible amount of thought that's gone into that for the discerning listener," adds Trent. "There is a riddle there; there is a purpose; there's an intent; there is careful thought of the order of the songs. They were written in that way, they were mixed that way. We're not demanding that you do that, but this is the type of art that interests us and that we choose to make."
"It's not said with any pomposity," adds Atticus, by way of clarification.
"Well, a little bit of pomposity," laughs Trent.
*paragraph-long explicit "fuck modern music consumption trends, you do what you want and I do what I want" rant*
^
Exactly. I really do not understand people change the order. Why are you doing this? Do you do the same with other NIN releases as well?
The artist chose the order of the songs.
Last edited by StockAvuryah; 07-06-2018 at 08:17 AM.
I've made edits and variations on pretty much all the albums at some point. Trent & Atticus are right, but that doesn't mean it's not fun to play with the order of things and see what happens.
Updated it where I felt was necessary, hope this is a little clearer
Last edited by Destruct26; 07-07-2018 at 11:04 AM.
I like the chart, and I'm glad the Kerrang interview finally stopped this bizarre idea of entirely reordering the trilogy. It never made any sense to me on any level.
The idea behind it is just to see what happens when you take the songs and put them into a certain order. When I did it, I found that there was a nice flow to the order that made for a fun listening experience. Honestly, I think some people are taking it too seriously, as if we're saying that Trent & Atticus got it wrong by releasing the songs in the order that they did.
I never thought it was gonna be like Tool’s Lateralus Fibonnaci playlist reorder thing, but I would be lying if i said I didn’t have fun making a different order out of it. But I do enjoy listening to them in proper order.
I reorder and add non album tracks to my album playlists for different bands I love A LOT. All the time, If I love an album and have heard it 20+ times maybe I don't like this or that track as much as a b-side or another song from another album by the same band. I've never thought "the original track listing is shit". We just like tinkering with the play order.
I am messing around with a massive playlist of NIN & HTDA songs that sound like they exist in the Year Zero world at the moment, Were they intended to be mixed together? No, but they have a lot in common in sound or themes and it keeps things interesting.
From the interview on NIN.com:
IT WASN’T FULLY MAPPED OUT BUT IT WAS MEANT TO FEEL LIKE IF WE BROKE UP ONE BIG RECORD – IF IT WAS DOWNWARD SPIRAL, WHICH HAS ACTS, IF WE DO AN ALBUM LIKE THAT, BUT RELEASE ONE ACT AT A TIME, IT WILL BE MORE IMMEDIATE AND THE LEVEL OF ADRENALINE AND MOMENTUM WILL BE HIGHER.
I think I am beginning to “get” the trilogy. This is his Downward Spiral at the age of 53. Not that he’s trying to recreate that or go backwards, but that’s he’s doing the same thing he did back then. He’s telling a semi-autobiographical story that allows him to go down the path of a dark fantasy. It’s not who he actually is, but it’s also not NOT who he actually is.
He’s indulging his darkest ideas. He’s allowing himself to feel it all. He comes to a similarly pessimistic conclusion, though this time it isn’t to end it all, it’s to stare off into the future with no sense of purpose or reason and do nothing at all. He doesn’t try and do something great and he doesn’t kill himself. He doesn’t have an answer at all.
It’s arguably just as bleak, but very different coming from a 53 year old man instead of the 28 year old man who wrote TDS.
This is just as creative and epic and troubling and awesome and bleak as it’s predecessor. Just as great, on its own terms.
This is how I currently understand it. Many have said that TDS was his greatest work but I think with time, many will believe that this trilogy is just as important and revelatory and profound.
Art, true art that isn’t a cheap commodity, that is authentic and brilliant, feels so rare these days. I feel fortunate that Trent Reznor has decided to keep digging so deep to create work that is this epic.
I feel a lot of meaning and joy in mining the depths of his recent work.