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Nine-inch-nailed

Trent Reznor fights to reinvent himself
By MATT ASHARE  |  April 25, 2007

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HAPPY CAMPERS: Having come clean about getting clean, Reznor can no longer draw on his own tortured psyche for material.

The sticker that adorns the cover of the new Nine Inch Nails album, Year Zero (Interscope), promises “16 noisy new songs.” Really? Had Trent Reznor been dropping hints about recording a collection of jazz standards or something? Noise, after all, is the essence of Reznor’s art. Indeed, noise has been integral to rock and roll ever since Ike Turner plugged in for “Rocket 88.” Reznor just happens to be one of the studio wonks who were around to realize the potential of the new digital synths that were coming on line by the late ’80s, and then to take the shaping of noise one step farther when technology made it possible for one person alone in a studio or even a bedroom to push the envelope to its limits. His particular talent lay in bringing disco beats, heavy-metal guitars, techno glitches, and white-noise hooks together into something palatable for a mass audience, and in translating his own obsessions, compulsions, and neuroses into shout-along pop songs. For all the soul-wrenching, techno-industrial complexity of a Nine Inch Nails hit like “Head like a Hole,” the results were as radio-friendly in their day as the latest Justin Timberlake single is now.

In the wake of Pretty Hate Machine (TVT), I looked forward to each new industrial salvo from Reznor. Without even realizing it, he’d been instrumental in changing the vocabulary of pop music. Sure, Ministry may have gotten there first. And Einstürzende Neubauten have always been more “industrial” than Nine Inch Nails. But sometimes you just have to go with the flow. And for the bulk of the ’90s, for a rockist like me, that flow was headed in Reznor’s direction, especially when he began incorporating Bowiesque piano respites and conceptual prog-rock elements into his ever expanding palette on 1994’s The Downward Spiral, an album that was five years in the making. Digital had made noise so easy to reproduce that by itself it no longer meant anything. So Reznor learned how to sculpt it, in the process creating an image of a vampiric mad scientist whose actual Frankenstein monster, Marilyn Manson, really did run amok and turn on his maker.

So it’s disheartening to find the crown prince of digital darkness falling back on his old ways with Year Zero, an album that does little more than plunder old Nine Inch Nails tracks to create a musical backdrop for Reznor’s one new obsession — the war in Iraq — and a few old ones (authoritarianism, alienation, human degradation, paranoia, man’s inhumanity to man, etc.). As for the “16 noisy new songs,” that’s a boast he shouldn’t have to make at this point — unless, of course, he’s kidding. “Hyperpower!”, the short instrumental burst of hard-hitting martial drums, churning guitars, and general dissonance that builds to the white-noise climax that opens the album (as if to prove he can still be as noisy and clamorous as he wants to be), suggests he’s not joking. But the real tone for Year Zero is set by the second track, “The Beginning of the End,” a straightforward guitar rocker (with the exception of a malfunctioning computer solo) that has as its ominous premise the coming end of the world.

Prophet Trent strikes again. And thanks to the war in Iraq, he’s got ample evidence to support his gloomy position. “I got my propaganda/I got my revisionism/I got my violence in hi-def ultra-realism/All a part of this great nation/I got my first, I got my plan, I got survivalism” multi-tracked voices scream-sing over a skipping beat in “Survivalism,” another not quite noisy tune that seems to borrow bits and pieces from Nine Inch Nails recordings as far back as Pretty Hate Machine. Open the trifold Digipak case and you’ll find the CD flanked on the left by a hand holding a Bible and on the right by a bare arm clutching an automatic weapon. Subtlety has never been Trent’s strong suit. And that’s never been a problem because, from Pretty Hate Machine up through The Fragile 10 years later, he proved to be a master sonic architect. If it took him five years to complete an album, well, at least every little piece was in its proper place and it sounded like nothing you’d ever heard before.

So it’s disappointing that, like 2005’s With Teeth, Year Zero seems to have been cobbled together from the same bag of techno tricks Reznor has had at his disposal since The Fragile. It tends to put more weight on the lyrics, which are about as subtle as the Bible/gun imagery. “I can’t shut it off,” he sings in a strangled voice on “Me, I’m Not.” And in “The Good Soldier,” he repeats the tortured mantra “I am trying to see/I am trying to believe/This is not where I should be.” Or how’s this for a generic rehash: “I let you put it in my mouth/I let it get under my skin/I let you pump it through my veins/I let you take me from within.” It’s the same submit/dominate lingo he’s been using all along, only this time the emperor really has no clothes.

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Related: The long good-byes, Photos: Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction, Mega-deluxe edition, More more >
  Topics: Music Features , Entertainment, Music, Pop and Rock Music,  More more >
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Comments
Nine-inch-nailed
I'll accept that we differ in opinion on the music, but I think the writer missed the "concept" part of this concept album. It's tough to sum up an encyclopedia in a soundbite. The story takes place in 2022. America's current trends have taken nearly the worst possible slide down the slope we're navigating today. Environmental destruction, greed (the non-Bush subject of "Capital G", according to Trent), increasing governmental power over the citizenry, Christian-influenced leadership, and unilateral military operations against disagreeable nations have inflated to nearly cartoonish proportions. The government used a bioterror attack on domestic soil to justify the addition of a drug to major water supplies, publicly for boosting immune systems but privately for keeping the populace docile. The company that makes the drug also manufactures the #1 illicit substance, opal, which has driven cocaine producers to starvation. LA was evacuated after the terror attack at the 2009 Oscars. We nuked Iran in response before our offensives in Syria, Yemen, Chad, Kashmir, and Turkey. Presidential elections ceased in the late teens. 2022 has been renumbered Year Zero to represent the rebirth of the nation. And, to top it all off, a whole lot of people are witnessing "The Presence", a giant hand reaching out of the sky (a la "The Wretched") that inspires fear, awe, and a sense of profound culpability. If nothing else, check out the Wiki for the innumerable web sites, phone numbers, and real-world events associated with this album: //www.ninwiki.com/ Where the album is vague, the backstory adds details. It greatly deepens the musical experience. People participating in the World of Year Zero Alternate Reality Game (ARG) of discovering new materials congregate at the Echoing the Sound forums: //www.echoingthesound.org/phpbbx/viewforum.php?f=24
By Just a Guy on 04/26/2007 at 11:16:30
Nine-inch-nailed
WOW it's amazing people like the person who wrote this article, has a job as "music writer". This is the most uneducated opinion I've ever had the displeasure reading.
By whomever on 04/26/2007 at 12:39:05
Nine-inch-nailed
without having the patience at this point to read through the other comments, I apologize if I am repeating other peoples posts. I am set back at the ignorance of this article and the lack of time and research that was put into it. Besides the comparison of this album to previous NIN releases (which shouldnt be done) there is nothing but a few scarce findings that were probably posted in teen beat or a newsite dated Feb 2007. SO much has brought this album to life, and so much can be said for what it means and stands for. Its too bad you missed it all, and its even more sad that readers have nothing more to go on then this pitiful review. Go prep for the maroon 5 release, its about your speed. For anyone else interested in what has happened in the world of NIN and would like some education, try starting at the forums at echoingthesound.org Art is Resistance -Resist
By resistancesupplies.com on 04/30/2007 at 10:08:38
Nine-inch-nailed
The author obviously did not do enough research and this was written half-heartedly. Did he listen to the whole disc before writing this? And Capital G is the most challenging track?
By SW on 05/10/2007 at 4:56:53
Nine-inch-nailed
I read this story back in April or May and was angered only by the fact that I've relied on the Phoenix myself for reviwes that were decently level-headed and reliable. Matt, you're a smart journalist with a great grip on language. Why did you do this? Long, brashly opinionetd rants suck and don't get read. So here's the truth: 1) Nine Inch Nails isn't pop. You're fucking pop. 2) It's impssible to accurately say that the songs on Year Zero "have been cobbled together from the same bag of techno tricks Reznor has had at his disposal since The Fragile." That is foolish.
By IMostlydoThisWhenI'mIrked on 09/20/2007 at 9:53:06

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