nine inch nails

[modage]

it's still there.  scroll way down.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

With Teeth definitely lacks the flow that Reznor usually establishes in his albums, but that isn't to say that track by track it's a bad album... it just isn't that cohesive.

It's a good collection of songs, but doesn't really fit like a masterpiece like the Fragile.

[mogwai]

Acclaimed director David Fincher will be making a foray back into music videos for Nine Inch Nails. "Only" was shot on April 19 and will be in post through late June. Look for this video to incorporate some intensive CG effects.

[Ghostboy]

I'm a little behind here, I guess, but I just heard The Hand That Feeds for the first time and I really dug it.

I'll also mention that The Fragile is really the only NIN album I listen to with any regularity. The Downward Spiral is brilliant, but very harsh - I can only really listen to it when I'm angry or upset, which was far more frequent when I was 15 or 16 or 17. These days, I'm more prone to want to hear sad/confused/bittersweet/angry music, and The Fragile really fits the bill. I've always loved it, and always will, even if it isn't quite as great as The Downward Spiral.

[MacGuffin]

Acclaimed director David Fincher will be making a foray back into music videos for Nine Inch Nails. "Only" was shot on April 19 and will be in post through late June. Look for this video to incorporate some intensive CG effects.

Oh sure. We take away his forum, and now he starts being more productive than all three we replaced him with.

[mogwai]

Trent Reznor rediscovers pure aggression

Nine Inch Nails/With Teeth/3.5 Stars out of 5

Publication: Rolling Stone

Trent Reznor was ahead of his time. Like nobody else in the 1980s, he heard the smoldering teen rage inside the blip and bleep of early synth pop: Under all the Atari beats and shiny-shiny haircuts, there was an ordinary loser kid's heart burning for vengeance against the world, and Reznor amped that sound into the full blown sociopath New Wave splendor of Pretty Hate Machine, Broken, and The Downward Spiral. No rock star had ever shown such a subtle appreciation for the dark side of Adam and the Ants, and no rock star had ever worn black leotards out of such deep inner conviction. On With Teeth, he makes his long-awaited comeback, with Dave Grohl on drums to help bang the Nine Inch Nails formula into nasty shape.

Once prolific, Reznor now labors over each album as if it were a five-year plan, finessing the sonic kinks of four years, eleven months, thirty days, and twenty two hours. Plus a couple of hours for lyrics, which he apparently composes by skimming the poems his fans leave on message boards. ("Oooh, 'Sometimes I forget I'm alive?' I can use that one!") On With Teeth, he abandons the quiet piano diddles of The Fragile for pure aggro. The first half is basically Reznor saying, "You want a hit single? I'll give you a hit single," with simplistic, radio-ready sludge ala "The Hand That Feeds". But the second half has Nine Inch Nails' richest, heaviest music since Downward Spiral, with the "Billie Jean" drums of "Only," the monolithic synth crunch of "Beside You in Time," the Pixies-meet-Pere Ubu clang of "Getting Smaller." It all builds to the one big "Hurt"-style piano ballad on the album, "Right Where It Belongs," so mournful that Johnny Cash must be singing it in heaven. It's vintage Nine Inch Nails: New Wave with a heart of darkness.

[Sigur Rós]

http://www.myspace.com/ninofficial¨

Oh yes, they have a site on myspace.

[Two Lane Blacktop]

Trent Reznor rediscovers pure aggression

http://www.myspace.com/ninofficial¨

Oh yes, they have a site on myspace.

"don't spam our comments with advertisements for your shitty fucking band."

Classic.  

2LB

[Film Student]

Am I the only person who thinks this album (as a whole) is very reminiscent of the last half of the Downward Spiral?

[Film Student]

Was I the only one who seriously loved The Fragile?

i  love the album also.   i was so fucking excitied when it came out-snatched it up day one.  i still think its the best thing they have done.  i like all of the songs with the exception being starfuckers .   RK has a problem about not knowing which is the superior album [i.e. lateralus>aenima!!!]

Starfuckers is a great song.  You're on crack.

PS  Lateralus is far superior to Aenima.

[modage]

i agree with neon and ghostboy.  i'm not a huge NIN fan, as i figure there are two types of teenagers: depressed and angry.  (sometimes a combination, but usually one more than the other).  i was always in the depressed so i never really had a need for NIN around the Downward Spiral era.  however, when i went to college and The Fragile came out i gave it a shot and really liked it.  starfuckers being the exception, the lyrics are sort of dumb.  (asskisser?)  anyways....

[mogwai]

(i've probably written this before in this thread)

i was seventeen when downward came out. i was still into grunge but this really changed my view on music. that album is very challenging with it's sick distorted guitars. it sounds like trent poured acid on his instruments. the fragile is something else, a big mess. the cocaine album. that's why it's so long. starfuckers is great lyrically except the asskisser part.

[grand theft sparrow]

Reznor ain't no Dylan and never has been.  His whole career, he's never really been able to progress past the point of "angry high school freshman" lyrically.

"You make this all go away.  I'm down to just one thing and I'm starting to scare myself.  I just want something I can never have..."

"You can have it all, my empire of dirt, I will let you down, I will make you hurt..."

"I wanna do everything, I wanna be everywhere, I wanna fuck everyone in the world, I wanna do something that matters..."

"You and me, we're in this together now, none of them can stop us now, we will make it through somehow..."

"There is no you, there is only me..."

None of these are particularly great lyrics.

The Rolling Stone review nails it.

Once prolific, Reznor now labors over each album as if it were a five-year plan, finessing the sonic kinks for four years, eleven months, thirty days and twenty-two hours. Plus a couple of hours for lyrics, which he apparently composes by skimming the poems his fans leave on message boards. ("Oooh, 'Sometimes I forget I'm alive'? I can use that one!")

His brilliance is in fitting those lyrics with music that better expresses his emotion than the occasionally stale poetry does.  The music elevates the lyrics.  That's why I like The Fragile so much; it may not be groundbreaking musically but it's the most ambitious work he's done.

But that "asskisser" line has always made me wince.

[mogwai]

why do you compare reznor with a old and overrated piece of shit?

the two first lyrics you posted are brilliant and simplistic. if i heard a fiona apple song about love i'd kill myself.

[grand theft sparrow]

why do you compare reznor with a old and overrated piece of shit?

Only because he's so widely regarded as the best lyricist ever.  I'm not a Dylan fan either (wouldn't call him a piece of shit but old? yeah. overrated? a lot of the time, yeah... but that's another thread) but since a lot of people think he's the best lyricist of the last 50 years, I was merely comparing Reznor's lyrical prowess to Dylan's reputation.  If I had said, for example, "Reznor ain't no Bowie," (which he's not), it would have been a little more difficult to get at what I was saying.  Since Bowie's not instantly synonymous with legendary lyricists (though I think he's underrated as such... but that's another thread).

the two first lyrics you posted are brilliant and simplistic.

Simplistic, yes.  But again, I think the brilliance of the lyrics comes from the music behind them.  If you heard a poem with some of Trent's lyrics read at a poetry slam or something, you'd make faces.  But the music fits the lyrics so well that the lyrics sound better in the song than they really are.  It's just how he works and it works for me.  

I'm not even really asking for him to be a better lyricist. I love NIN and I wouldn't change a thing.  That's what I was getting at, a lot of complaints pop up about the lyrics on The Fragile in general but I think they're not much different from anything he did on any of his other albums so, outside of your "cocaine album" description, which I understand (because that's what I like about it), I can't really understand any other gripes with The Fragile in reference to Downward Spiral in particular.  But I'm not here to add fuel to the Fragile/Spiral argument.  They're both great albums as far as I'm concerned.

And Trent's far from being the worst lyricist ever (Lenny Kravitz holds that position... but that's another thread) but he's far from being the best.

if i heard a fiona apple song about love i'd kill myself.

Huh?