I'll Become The Sky
rantings on nine inch nails

10.30.99
    OK, so here's some stuff on NIN for today.
01. Trent claims "Starfuckers, Inc." is a joke. As good as the song is, I always thought it was a joke too. You can read in somewhat damaged: about the new nin album... my objections to its inclusion on the album. I didn't think it was appropriate for such a mature new album to feature this track. It still doesn't fit in well, thematically or aesthetically. That doesn't mean it doesn't segue well, it does. It just doesn't belong. But we have to remember the real reason it was put on The Fragile: to sell copies to idiots. Seriously, every person who wasn't a major NIN fan already that I got to buy the CD came back and the first thing they commented on was "Starfuckers, Inc.". Like that's the best song on there. In a way, it's the worst. OK, it has funny lyrics, and they do make me crack up. And the music is awesome, really does remind me of some of the drum 'n' bass artists like Squarepusher and Plug that Trent Reznor is distributing through his nothing records. But the song is just not very deep. It shamelessly invokes a Carly Simon song. Sure I know it was only to help add to the feeling of "betrayal" of the song. But come on, we all know Trent is fully capable of writing his own music without ripping off another artist (and leaving it totally uncredited, mind you. I wonder if Carly Simon has heard this?). The song comes off kind of shallow and pretentious too. Yes, I know the whole song was written to bash people who acted like superstars and all that. But come on, Trent is just as guilty sometimes of that as other people. We're all human. Trent made a nice quip about Fred Durst in a magazine and although it was totally on target it was also completely inappropriate. The apeish Fred took it very personally and dropped from being a fan to being an enemy, making fun of Trent in the press and at concerts. What the hell is the point of all that? Seriously. Trent, your music is great but please be the respectful and classy individual we all know you are.
02. Reviews have begun to turn very mediocre. Trent planned ahead of time to send literally only 6 copies of the album to music critics before the album was released. This ensured very positive reviews prior to the fan's being able to hear it. So everyone figured it was going to be a landmark album of the '90s, a true classic, the double CD that would return music back to the way it used to be. Nuh-uh. To quote NIN itself, "Not this time, no, you don't." Seriously. Sad but true, and all that. OK, so 250,000 people bought the album in its first week making it Trent's first #1 selling album. Cool. But how many people bought it the next week? 90,000, dropping it all the way down to #16, the biggest drop from #1 ever. Ouch. Guess no one is down in it anymore, huh? Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the new album. I love The Fragile and I am so glad it finally came out. But who else cares? The kids don't like it, no no no, the kids don't like it at all. A lot of kids haven't even heard the new single. And certainly no one is talking about. Just what are they talking about then? They go by the names of Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, Korn, Orgy, Smashmouth, Blink 182, System Of A Down, Method Man, Sevendust, 311, Creed and Bush. Sick sad world. Now that the album has been released it has continued to get very good (but not perfect reviews because it's not all on one disc - yea, people just don't get it, do they?) reviews. It has also garnered a small handful of poor reviews. One recent review I heard about was written by kids. They said they were "not depressed enough to like this stuff" and gave it a 2 out of 5. These kids were high school seniors. What a bunch of idiots. Another better review I read totally trounced the album. But it was really well written and made some good points. They completely laughed at the lyrics which I actually think are good. They did cite some somewhat cliche lines which raised some good points as to whether or not Trent is progressing as a writer. They also called the 2+ years it took to make this album "self-indulgent", and that's actually pretty much true. But it is Trent's album, why can't he indulge himself? I mean, seriously. The years he's spent on making this album show. No one minds that there are 64 layers of sounds in a song. In fact, that's the main reason people like NIN. It is interesting and friggen innovative. If you want simple music listen to 311. If you want music that is complex and challenging, do yourself a favor and buy The Fragile and a damn good pair of headphones, which brings me to my next point.
03. WEAR HEADPHONES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You have not listened to this album until you have listened to both discs in their entirety with headphones. It is the ultimate experience. You will be totally sonically overwhelmed and quite pleased with this great music. I know a girl, I won't say any names but she'll probably read this anyway, that listened to the album with bad sounding tiny computer speakers. And she couldn't even listen to the whole thing. She said the album was "OK". ??????????????????????? Am I the only person that sees something wrong with this??? She's barely even touched the album since she bought it. Still she thinks she knows it well enough to say it's "only OK" and that she doesn't like it. She claims she did listen to it once with headphones but I kind of doubt it. She probably listened to like one disc of it with headphones as she did her homework or something. Ugh.
04. Dr. Dre all day, every day. According to SLS News, Trent is still working with Dre on new music. Does that excite anyone else? Dre's new album, whatever it's called, comes out this Tuesday after a hiatus even longer than NIN's, 7 years. Of course, like Trent, Dre has been involved with soundtracks, compilations and production of other albums, just not his own.
05. Programmed a few tracks off of The Downward Spiral and both discs of The Fragile on my stereo today. My mom was around so I didn't want to play anything, you know, rude. So just for fun I picked some of the beautiful instrumentals and songs with no controversial lyrics. The tracks I programmed: 1: A Warm Place - 2: The Frail - 3: La Mer - 4: I'm Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally - 5: Ripe (With Decay). OK, so I got through the first three tracks before ny mom left to go somewhere. During "The Frail" I told my mom she has two guesses as to what "band, oops, I mean musician" she was listening to. Her first guess was "National Symphony Orchestra" and I said no, and her second guess was "Boston Pops." So I smiled and said it was Nine Inch Nails and she thought I was kidding. Just a weird story, I guess...

more later, maybe....

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