Nine Inch Nails

[thereasonbeing]

Nine Inch Nails is my favorite music of all time. In my eyes Trent Reznor is a genius - how one man can cover so many genres, sounds, textures, soundscapes, over all his albums is completely spellbinding to me. Over the past 20 years he has used Rock, Pop, Drum & Bass, Metal, Hip Hop, Electronica, Dance, Ambient, etc in his work as Nine Inch Nails with succesful results.

In relation to Zelda, i'd like to bring up the 2008 instrumental album 'Ghosts I-IV'. Many of the tracks from this album are highly reminiscent of Koji Kondo's composition work for various Zelda titles - For example, track 21 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdyRMPIKgWU , among others. I've always thought and hoped that Zelda fans would also be NIN fans, as Kondo and Reznor are my two favorite composers of all time.

So, having said that, are their any other NIN fans here? If not, I highly recommend checking out the latest album, 'The Slip', which can be downloaded for free straight from the NIN website (Reznor gave the album away for free as a thank you for loyal fan support) here : http://dl.nin.com/theslip/signup - Though not his best, it serves as a great taster and starting point.

Oh, and finally, here's a picture of my Nine Inch Nails music collection as of October 2010

 

[Valexi]

Yeah, I like NIN, though I kinda have to be in the mood to listen for long periods of time, and I'd have to be in a really good mood to listen to the instrumental stuff.
It's good music, but I think Trent takes himself too seriously sometimes, especially with those Twitter fights he had.

 

[Gooey Fame]

Not a big fan, but nice collection! Vinyl for the win!!

 

[insanity76]

I see you have the Closer to God single .. I absolutely love that version of Closer. For those who haven't heard it (explicit lyrics warning):



Memorabilia is a great song off that single too.

 

[Hanyou]

To be honest, I don't like Nine Inch Nails based on what I've heard. At all. The songs I've heard mostly have me asking where the music is and waiting for it to start.

My first exposure to them was Closer. I thought the lyrics were unnecessarily offensive and the instrumentation was...odd, to say the least. I keep hearing that this band is deep and whatnot, but they don't sound that different from the other popular apathetic bands of the 90's to me, apart from the fact that their music has a lot of strange noises.

As far as soundscapes are concerned, Progressive Rock bands were experimenting with them long before Reznor was. King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Jethro Tull, etc. all incorporated a variety of styles into their music. I suppose the difference is that prog invoked jazz and classical, whereas Nine Inch Nails invokes...well, a lot of genres that don't appeal to me. >.> I don't really like hip-hop, dance, ambient, electronica, etc. and yeah, it does seem there's an awful lot of that in their music. In fact, oftentimes their music seems downright mechanical, so that even emotional songs lack that essential human component that makes music attractive in the first place. Hurt, for example, while not purely mechanical, sounds apathetic with its incessant whining; perhaps that's the subject of the song and I'm missing the point, but that's just not a mood most people find particularly interesting (which, again, makes me marvel at the success of alternative bands in the 90's).

Maybe it's just a deficiency I have--I am unable to recognize the quality of the music because most of what I've heard is too alien to me.

In relation to Zelda, i'd like to bring up the 2008 instrumental album 'Ghosts I-IV'. Many of the tracks from this album are highly reminiscent of Koji Kondo's composition work for various Zelda titles - For example, track 21 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdyRMPIKgWU , among others. I've always thought and hoped that Zelda fans would also be NIN fans, as Kondo and Reznor are my two favorite composers of all time.

I didn't really think that sounded anything like Zelda compositions--those are usually orchestral and have a driving melody. I suppose it resembles dungeon themes from recent Zelda games like Twilight Princess, but I've always considered purely atmospheric dungeon themes to be throwaways. To me, this sounds repetitive--another problem I have with NIN songs.

This is my response to the music, but by no means am I saying Nine Inch Nails is bad. Johnny Cash appreciated their music enough to write a cover of Hurt that was pretty damn good, and I sure as hell don't know more about music than he does. But can someone please explain what's so special about them? Because whatever is good about their music, experimenting itself is not revolutionary, and the experimentation should yield listenable results.

Sorry if the tone of my post is a little harsh. Like I said, I think I'm just unable to appreciate them. But I still want to try and understand why other people do.

 

[Austin]

I like Nine Inch Nails, but my problem with them is that I find all of their (his) albums to be horribly, horribly depressing. With the exception of Year Zero, I suppose. That's not really a negative factor overall but it prevents me from listening to them (him) when I'm not in a certain mood. However, I enjoy Year Zero immensely, and the experimentation he did with that album all sounds rather brilliant to me.

In fact, oftentimes their music seems downright mechanical, so that even emotional songs lack that essential human component that makes music attractive in the first place. Hurt, for example, while not purely mechanical, sounds apathetic; perhaps that's the subject of the song and I'm missing the point, but that's just not a mood most people find particularly interesting.

That is sort of the point. Much of Trent Reznor's influences were early industrial music artists, a genre that's intended to produce a mechanical sound. Nine Inch Nail's sound, at least initially, was to take that and condense it into a somewhat pop-friendly package. You may want to listen to their debut album, Pretty Hate Machine, as that album exemplifies what I'm talking about. Additionally, you may want to briefly listen to some "pure" industrial artists like Skinny Puppy and Ministry (post-Work for Love) just to get a sense of how much Nine Inch Nails deviates from the traditional formula.

 

[Valexi]

Hayou, where did you hear that NIN is supposed to be deep?
I mean, this might be my opinion, but I don't exactly find them deep.
Dark? Sure. Depressing? A bit. Deep? Not really.
I mean, a surprising amount of the songs seem to center around....well, sex.
I don't want to take this conversation into a mature direction, but really most of the songs that I hear from NIN are about sex and bondage, which, I don't find to be particularly deep in content. Sure, there's those people people out there who will argue that sex can be deep and artistic and all that, but....."Big Man with a Gun?"
I guess the point is....no, I don't find NIN to be all that deep.....in my opinion.

 

[Hanyou]

That is sort of the point. Much of Trent Reznor's influences were early industrial music artists, a genre that's intended to produce a mechanical sound. Nine Inch Nail's sound, at least initially, was to take that and condense it into a somewhat pop-friendly package. You may want to listen to their debut album, Pretty Hate Machine, as that album exemplifies what I'm talking about. Additionally, you may want to briefly listen to some "pure" industrial artists like Skinny Puppy and Ministry (post-Work for Love) just to get a sense of how much Nine Inch Nails deviates from the traditional formula.

I don't even know what industrial music is, but I'll check it out. Thanks.

Hayou, where did you hear that NIN is supposed to be deep?
I mean, this might be my opinion, but I don't exactly find them deep.
Dark? Sure. Depressing? A bit. Deep? Not really.
I mean, a surprising amount of the songs seem to center around....well, sex.

I've noticed that the songs center around sex. That wouldn't be so bad (it was part of the original rock movement), but it seems Reznor also sings about rape and other terrible things. I don't understand why anyone would want to sing about that. There's the cartoonish stuff (like Alice Cooper) and then there's the grit and grime that NIN SEEMS fond of. And since Reznor and NIN fans seem to take the music VERY seriously, the whole attitude is a bit unsettling to me. I know Black Sabbath's faux Satanism is just for show, but I don't know what NIN stands for. Reznor says he's against music being used for torture, etc. but he also seems to enjoy writing about it an awful lot.

So many NIN fans have told me it's art and I'm too stupid to understand it. It's quite off-putting. So I assume there are stylistic flourishes or lyrical nuances I'm missing, even though I am very used to listening to music with multiple meanings or complex compositions. I'm not saying all NIN fans are like that, just that that's the experience I've had with the band. I assume it's all to be taken very seriously, so I hold it to that standard. For the record, I've had the same experience with Tool, another band I just don't get.

 

[Valexi]

Well, it seems like you're just dealing with pretentious jerks who are too full of themselves.
If they're telling you you're too "stupid to understand it" then that's just a case of big headed elitism.
I mean, I have all of NINs main CDs, but as I said before I don't find them deep in the least and anyone who would take it to that level is just talking out of their butt.
I guess since Trent takes himself so seriously his hardcore fans have to do the same as well, ah well, c'est la vie.
It's okay music, not for everyone understandably, but it's good if you're into that sort of thing, nothing worth worshiping in my opinion, but, eh, there's a lot of different people out there.

 

[Hanyou]

Fair enough. I'll listen to them with more of an open mind and less stringent standards in the future, and perhaps one day they'll grow on me.

I do think it's good to take one's own work seriously, but there's always room for being a little tounge-in-cheek

 

[thereasonbeing]

Well, this thread was either going to go one way or the other

In response to some of Reznor's early lyrics involving rape, bondage etc - I always took that as highly metaphorical, and early NIN videos should definately be taken with a grain of salt. Some of them were indeed AWFUL. I remember in an interview from around '94 where Trent said that the lyrics to Big Man With A Gun were just him making fun of the lyics written by gangsta rap artists that were around at the time.
In my opinion, the second half of Reznor's career (1999 onwards) was superior. NIN was a very different band after the release of The Fragile, and you could tell the guy had grown up a lot. Anyway NIN's music was always more important than the lyrics to me - when I heard his early stuff and he was singing about death and dying and all that stuff, I still thought the music rocked, and thats why I dug it.

My musical taste veers largely toward the electronic side of things, i'm a big fan of Hip hop, dubstep and electronica in general and I think NIN strays toward that kinda stuff rather than Metal or Industrial (these days, at least). In that respect, I can understand why, you know, a Metallica fan just wouldn't be feeling it at all. I'm glad you guys who don't really like this music are actually putting forth valid reasons and explanations behind your points. I find the 'depressing' comments a little off at least in my opinion though, i've never really felt depressed listening to a Nails record, but more of a fist in the air, 'eff you world!' kind of feeling. Although i supposed im talking about 1999 onwards again. Anyway, its a nice change for me to see discussion in a discussion forum! I think i'll like it here

Oh, and regarding the Ghosts track sounding like some Kondo stuff, I was really just referencing some reviews I read that mentioned a likeness between the two on certain tracks on the record. Thanks for the responses and the constructive criticisms guys!

In regards to the music feeling mechanical and emotionless, check out the 'Still' EP from 2002. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuky6gaWncU