Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero

[Avarice-ness]

I know it's like... really early in the morning (for me atleast), but I'm wondering if anyone's picked up the new NiN cd. I'm -planning- on going to buy it today but I think the rain is trying to stop me.

But still With Teeth was mediocre (compared to other NiN cds) and I always fear the cd after the cd were the songs where just... that.

So for those who may have it in their possession, please give a thumb up or something.

If you don't have it, what are your thoughts on a new cd, are you going to buy it today, are you as excited about it as I am?

[Nominus Experse]

Ever since The Fragile, NIN has steadily become a mediocre mess that is an insult to the raw and gritty wonders found in such albums as Pretty Hate Machine and Further Down the Spiral.

With Teeth was just a final nail in the coffin, truly showing what a sad, sad poppy-watered-down version of Trent we now have.

I'll likely download this album to see whether or not its actually worthy of listening to, seeing how Trent hasn't put such an album out in many, many years.

[Avarice-ness]

Ever since The Fragile, NIN has steadily become a mediocre mess that is an insult to the raw and gritty wonders found in such albums as Pretty Hate Machine and Further Down the Spiral.

With Teeth was just a final nail in the coffin, truly showing what a sad, sad poppy-watered-down version of Trent we now have.

I'll likely download this album to see whether or not its actually worthy of listening to, seeing how Trent hasn't put such an album out in many, many years.

I DON'T WANT THAT TRENT. ; ;
I was raised with "Pretty Hate Machine" as are my neices. My sister started listening to NiN when I was 4 (just turned 4 seeing as she bought the cd a few days after it came out way back when) and I always listened to them through her, luckly she plays "Pretty Hate Machine" in the car when taking my neices to school who are 8 and 2, to show them, in my opinion, what good music is.

And yeah that's true, alot of people are like "No, "The Fragile" is the best cd" which easily could have resulted in the fall of the music, seeing as he's apparently aiming at a fan base that is -not- the one's he had back in the day. If you have a large fanbase that likes all the previous cd's, the chances of you losing that fanbase by aiming to the smaller fan base, goes up. *sigh* "The Downward Spiral" is my favorite cd by far, including "Further Down the Spiral" 'cause it's all remixy.

But if you download it keep me updated, I don't want to go out in the rain only to come back with a cd that will make me go "BACK IN MY DAY, NiN WAS GOOD. ; ;"

[blim]

Ever since The Fragile, NIN has steadily become a mediocre mess that is an insult to the raw and gritty wonders found in such albums as Pretty Hate Machine and Further Down the Spiral.

With Teeth was just a final nail in the coffin, truly showing what a sad, sad poppy-watered-down version of Trent we now have.

I'll likely download this album to see whether or not its actually worthy of listening to, seeing how Trent hasn't put such an album out in many, many years.

couldnt have put it better, i swapped my copy of with teeth cos i knew i would never want to listen to it again.

[Sephex]

Finally came out today. Though, I am glad that Trent didn't decide to take another five years off before making yet another album. If you are picky about it, Year Zero came out JUST under two years from the release date of With Teeth. I think I'll do what I did for With Teeth...review every track!

1) Hyperpower!-- A very interesting opening instrumental. This track does a good job telling you what's in store for the rest of the album. Cool drums, power chord driven guitar, if you're a NIN fan you know the drill. It sounds like a riot is going on in the background too.

2) The Beginning Of The End-- The opening drum beat kind of sounds like "My Sharona" for a second! Anyway, this actually kind of sounds like NIN's cover of "Metal" by Gary Numan. However, like a lot of NIN songs, the song slowly builds up by adding new sounds as it goes on.

3) Survivalism-- This is the current radio single. I have heard people say this album sounds like With Teeth, but I only think this is the only track that does. With that said it has it's own unique flavor. Very political song. Heavy on the electronics.

4) The Good Soldier-- While this is another beat driven song, this also has a nice soft feeling to it. The music really syncs well with the lyrics. This is probably one of my favorites off this album. I don't know, it just drew me in.

5) Vessel-- Those of you who love the gritty, dirty side of NIN will love this song. This song has a ****ing NASTY beat. If you want to show off your superpowered sound system to someone, this would be a good song to show off.

6) Me, I'm not-- Another favorite of mine. I dig the splashing sound effects from the drums. I like the pace of the lyrics, too. Once again, good use of electronic sounding effects. Though I doubt it will happen, I really want to see this one live.

7) Capital G-- An obvious shot at George W. Bush throughout the whole song. The way the lyrics are sung have a childish feel to them--but in a good way. It makes sense. This is going to be another weird anology, but it sounds as if the insturments themselves are drunk at parts. Once again, that's a good thing. This might be the next single by the way.

8) My Violent Heart-- Another gitty track, at least during the chorus and the end of the song. The verses almost sound narrated, and they are carrying a nice beat right along with them. This is the best example of how Trent Reznor can take noise and make like it is a natural part of song structure.

9) The Warning-- Trent wasn't kidding when he said this album would sound noisy and beat oriented. However, this track has some nice funk to it. I like how the song itself flows. It doesn't slow down and it doesn't need a chorus.

10) God Given-- This is yet another favorite of mine. The high sound effect heard throughout most of the song is simply haunting. This is another classic NIN track where it builds and builds into a well placed chatoic mess.

11) Meet Your Master-- Very cool bass line. This is a song I can easily be performed live. It has that attitude about it. If you are a NIN fan, you know what I am talking about even if you haven't heard this track. Also, this is one of the most industrial sounding songs on the album. Then this song slids right into...

12) The Greater Good-- This is where things start getting more ambient. Don't get me wrong. A nice beat is still present, but the lyrics sound more like instructions. Like something is taking somebody over. One of the most eerie NIN tracks. The most common lyric you hear whispered is, "Beathe us in...slowly...slowly."

13) The Great Destroyer-- This song has alot of melody to it, and it is also one of my favorites. The climax to this song is simply excellent and comes out of nowhere. I'll probably end up overplaying this song!

14) Another Version Of The Truth-- Another insturmental. The most ambient track on the album. I like it a lot. Very peaceful sounding. It almost sounds as if it were something you were to hear on The Fragile.

15) In This Twilight-- If Trent Reznor decided to make music for a Silent Hill game, this would what it probably would sound like. Not to say that the music is all distorted and TOTALLY ambient or anything. There is a very solid song structure here.

16) Zero Sum-- As usual, Trent decides to put heavy empahisis on piano for a closing track...BUT...like most of the album, there is a heavy beat that is in your face. It's a perfect closing track for Year Zero. The verse sounds like he is talking to someone with a regretable attitude while the chorus is amazing. What's cool about this song is that the beat and the piano sound as if they are battling one another, but at the same time they are working together.

Overall: I love the album a lot. I already like it better than With Teeth, but time will tell if I decide I like it better than The Downward Spiral (my favorite NIN album to this day so probably not) or The Fragile. Trent already said the next album he releases will be tied into this one, and I already can't wait!

Oh! And here is something that's REAL cool about the CD itself...

****SPOILERS FOR SENSITIVE PEOPLE****

When you first see the CD, it is all black and at the bottom you see in small font "Year Zero". After I listened to it the CD is white with a lot of random lines and binary code written on it! If you let it sit for awhile it goes back to being all black (at least it looks like it is doing that now)!

EDIT: Actually it fades more to a biege color, but gets brighter when you play it and take it out. UPDATE: It IS fading back to black now!

EDIT2: I forgot to mention that the CD package has this paper attached to the back of it that has a fake "US Bureau of Morality" message on it with a number. Call it, it's pretty funny. 1-866-445-6580.

[theundeadhero]

If it wasn't for you I would have never known this was out, and now I am happy. Hopefully I'll see a copy around here soon.

[Avarice-ness]

Yeah, we'll just pretend my NiN thread doesn't exist and how I wanted people to talk about the new cd and their thoughts in general.

:eep:

[theundeadhero]

You should have known better than to make one instead of Sephex :nonono:

[Psychotic]

Now neither of your threads exist. Behold the power of merge!

[Avarice-ness]

Now neither of your threads exist. Behold the power of merge!


I love you long time Psy. Mostly 'cause you just confused the mittens out of me, good job, have an invisible cookie. :heart:

[Momiji]

I might get it, I don't know. I recently started liking Nine Inch Nails, but I think the older songs I downloaded were better than the more recent ones. I'll download it if anything.

[Jowy]

Bleh, after With Teeth I don't think I can sit through another new nine inch nails album. D:

*editga* also, nothing is better than The Fragile.

[Momiji]

I liked Head Like a Hole, Closer, and Hurt. Which albums are they from? I heard some from With Teeth and didn't really care for them. I liked The Hand That Feeds though...

[Sephex]

I don't get all the hate towards the new stuff. It's kind of closeminded to not even listen to Year Zero just because of With Teeth. Form your own opinion, not one based off of how you felt about a completely different album. Also, I have no idea where people are getting the idea by saying Year Zero sounds like With Teeth.

And it's pretty funny that people are saying that The Fragile is cool now because when it came out, everyone was showing the same type of distaste for it like they do now for With Teeth.

As much as I love NIN, I hate the ****ing elitist fanbase.

[Elly]

i totaly agree i remember when The Fragile came out all the eletist NIN fans hated it without giving it a fair chance, now 2 albums later and people are hailing it as genuis, just wait another album and people will do the same thing to With Teeth, it'll become the next great album people compare the new album after Year Zero to without listening to it also...

[Nominus Experse]

I still hate The Fragile, and find With Teeth the single worst moment of crushed hope and anticipation in my life (in concerns to NIN).

Elitist? I wouldn't term it as such, but rather say that it was too much of a change for what I grew up with.

Same thing can be said of other bands I have followed for ages: Marilyn Manson, Skinny Puppy, KMFDM, Flogging Molly, etc....

It's just my opinion. It's still going to sell, and people will praise it, but I am not about to agree with any of the praise.

[Avarice-ness]

Marilyn Manson, Skinny Puppy, KMFDM


*brainoverkill*
I declare on this day of... ... Uhh now April 18th, 2007, Nominus is officially the most awesome person ever. :love:

Also, new Manson cd coming out.. Least that's what Myspace says.

... And when Myspace says things about bands, I get very very very very very very worried...

[Rostum]

I had a friend burn me a couple of mixed CD's of Nine Inch Nails songs, so I don't know any of their older album names. I really like their stuff. So much that I bought 'With Teeth' half a year ago and was incredibly disappointed.

But I may download a few tracks and see if this is worth buying.

[Avarice-ness]

And so I am listening to it.




..................................

Dammit. The first song already fails and it's only been 10 seconds.
It still has the "With Teeth" feel.




*skips to the one with the so called "nasty" beat*
..
:cry:

Excuse me, I'm going to go listen to Ruiner, Kaythx.
*So -so- glad she downloaded and not bought*

In my opinion, being a NiN junkie, He's seemed to try to combine his with teeth style with like, older songs styles and they just don't sound good.

Someone go listen to "Reptile" on "The Downward Spiral" and then listen Capital G, and if you say this is a good NiN cd, I hope you punch yourself.

Even the chorus didn't save this song.. :cry: *so... so sad*

[Sephex]

That's really too bad that you don't like it. And once again, this album does NOT sound like With Teeth. Survivalism vaugely does. That's it. I'll admit that Capital G isn't one of the strongest songs but The Good Solidier, Vessel, My Violent Heart, Me I'm not, and tracks 10-16 are all classic (though I'll also admit that those tracks as well as the album in general work better as a whole).

Oh, and reptile while being a good song, is very overrated, much like Pretty Hate Machine.

Yeah, I went there.

[Avarice-ness]

xD I never even heard reptile until 3 weeks ago because I was procrastinating on listening to every song on every Halo, and my friend kept being all "I can't believe you wouldn't listen to that song"

I'm not the biggest pretty hate machine fan though, and no, I -grew up- listening to NiN, and this is not the NiN I grew up with. I guess that's why I have issues. My sister (who is the reason I love NiN and has listened to NiN since 1989) also believes that "The Downward Spiral" was the last good cd.

I can prolly tolerate some of the songs, but when you have to tolerate songs to attempt to be able to like them, it's against the music.

Music I grew up with is my heart and soul, so when a band tries to get the newer younger crowd (-not- the one's who listened to NiN in the range of 1989 - 1996, if you started listening to them after 1996/1997 (and that's cutting it close) you -are- the new one's they are aiming at) they tend to change, which I can accept, but they lose the flare that held the rabid fans up so close.

It may take alot of listening to, to get me to like it, but -none- of the songs just gripped me as many of their past songs had done before.

Yes, my reaction was harsh, but when you grow up with something and later realize they arn't what they used to be, that feeling can be just as harsh as the reaction.

[Mitch]

NiN fans sound pretty goddamn elitist to me.

I'd be interested to hear this album because I haven't listened to any NiN album ever.

[Sephex]

EDIT: This was directed towards Avarice-Ness. I am too lazy to quote.

Fair enough, but I personally think that Trent has evolved with Year Zero. The Downward Spiral didn't sound like Pretty Hate Machine. The Fragile didn't sound like The Downward Spiral. The Fragile didn't sound like With Teeth. And Year Zero doesn't sound like With Teeth.

I can understand the whole "growing up with" thing. In fact, I grew up with NIN, too (among other bands). I would be a liar if I said that I didn't miss the old style of Trent. However, I do not believe that he is trying to market to a new crowd. In fact, he explicitly stated that he pretty much ignored all of his feeling of any expectations on any level, including current market conidtions and fan expectations (which I thought to be funny because as I said earlier, the NIN fan base is probably the most elitist fanbase EVER).

With all that said, I still say The Downward Spiral is the best thing Trent has ever done (though "And All That Could Have Been" is my favorite song). However, I rather Trent get away from older sounds and I hope NIN continues to evolve. I can't stand it when bands sound the same album after album or try desperatley to emulate an older sound.

Example: If for some bizarre reason the original members of Pink Floyd got back together and recorded a new album, it wouldn't come close to their classic stuff and it would sound different (although in their style)...but that doesn't mean it would be a bad thing.

I guess I like Year Zero and I liked With Teeth (though I will admit that it is NINs weakest album) because of that fact that there is a real musical change through each album. Look at today's music. All the top sellers. I won't name any bands here (because that would just start a different debate altogether and it's not fair too), but how many artists out there have a TRULY different sound from album to album? There's a reason why the music industry is in such a ****ty state.

Year Zero is one of the most original albums I have heard in awhile, and I welcome it.

[Necronopticous]

This record was so immemorable to me.

It's a shame, I hate to feel so apathetic about a new record when it's from a band that has made so much special and unique music in the past.

[edczxcvbnm]

So through out all of this I still have not heard what this album sounds like. Give me a comparison to songs...preferably from Sephex as he would probably be able to describe this to me the best given that I don't listen to much music.

Also Fixed was totally awesome. It fixed everything that I had a problem with in Broken XD

[Sephex]

Well, my good friend ed, I am not sure if you would like it but you do seem to like things with a beat so maybe some songs would click with you. Off the top of my head here are the list of songs that I may think you would like.


Vessel: Can't remember if you like "The Becoming" or not off The Downward Spiral, but it has that same type of rough beat an attitude. To me, this is a song that resembles old style NIN.

Capital G: This song sounds very playful and has a good hook. It's pretty upbeat too and throughtout the years I have noticed that you like upbeat stuff. I honestly can't compare this to any song.

My Violent Heart: You actually heard this, but you probably weren't paying attention. This one has a cool beat to start off with and it has cool electronic noise...iness. It has the attitude of "Burn" and kind of has the rumbling effects of "Mr. Self-Destruct" when it gets heavy.

The Great Destroyer: This kind of has the same kind of melody attitudes of stuff on Pretty Hate Machine. This does NOT mean it sounds like it. But I am not sure you would like the other half of the song where it goes crazy with a lot of electronic sound effects. Then again it's so crazy and unique that you may like it because of that. I know I do.

For the record it has been VERY hard to compare this stuff to their past works because this album is a very different sounding album. Sure, you can still tell it's NIN, but at the core of it, you can only draw vauge comparisons like I did. Who knows? Knowing my luck you'll either like different songs that I listed or you won't get into it at all. XD

[edczxcvbnm]

I wasn't really looking for comparisons to just past NIN. I was looking for comparisons to anything anyone has done.

I also remember that I didn't really care for my violent heart.

Also upbeat happy sounding music rocks. It just gets me pumped...but not like that crappy fallout boys song from that crappy commercial. That song does NOT get me pumped :D

I will give the songs you listed a shot.

[kikimm]

I'm listening to it right now (Vessel just finished and oh my god :drool: x a million bajillion. That was amazing.) and I already love it. But then, I didn't really have any doubts about it, as I've at least liked all of NIN's albums a lot. I'm so excited to listen to the rest of it. I wish I could listen to all the songs at once. Jesus Christ. :anxious:

[Sephex]

Cool, glad to see someone else here is enjoying it! And yes, Vessel indeed does kick a lot of ass.

[kikimm]

Yeah, I listened to it a bunch yesterday, and wrote a review on it for my school newspaper, haha. It's so easy to just listen to the whole entire thing. It's a lot harder for me to do that with past CDs.

Also, I thought it was really cool that a lot of what you said about the songs was true. Although...maybe it's just me, but the last song sounds oddly like Phil Collins. Besides that, though, I'm so impressed with this. Funkalicious. ;D Addicting.

[Ryth]

Year Zero wasn't bad, it was certainly a step-up from With Teeth, but it didn't really do that much for me. The Fragile will always be NIN Album Numero Uno in my book.

[Sephex]

Yeah, I listened to it a bunch yesterday, and wrote a review on it for my school newspaper, haha. It's so easy to just listen to the whole entire thing. It's a lot harder for me to do that with past CDs.

Also, I thought it was really cool that a lot of what you said about the songs was true. Although...maybe it's just me, but the last song sounds oddly like Phil Collins. Besides that, though, I'm so impressed with this. Funkalicious. ;D Addicting.

Well, I am glad that I was able to be able to describe the songs somewhat accurately. I agree that this album is very easy to listen to all the way through. The tracks are in perfect order and flow very well together.

I can see what you mean by Phil Collins, though. The drums do have that air about them.

[Nominus Experse]

Listened to it three times today.

In comparison to how I enjoyed other albums, it's better than With Teeth, but still very far behind that of The Downward Spiral.

It had its wondrous moments, and I felt like NIN might come back and pull me in, but such a feeling was sadly short lived and far and few between the tracks.

I want bands to evolve, to search and scope out new sounds, but not at the expense of quality or signature tonal patterns / subjects / raw feeling. There are a few instances in Year Zero that pull from works that I absolutely adore, but they didn't last long.

Realize that what I say isn't due to an elitist outlook. Rather, it's simply due to me remembering what Trent once produced - something raw, gritty, and oddly searingly cold. It's just that in his recent work, he hasn't produced work of the same calibur. It fails to pull me in - to captivate me, to essentially force me see and hear what it is the song is about.

This is not to say that I thought the whole album was :skull::skull::skull::skull:. But then again, I don't feel like one ought to sift through an album for the few moments to where it truly shines. Even with The Fragile, there was more substantial songs than filler, but anything past that has failed to produce much more than what I would consider "filler".


Am I heartbroken? Irked? Frustrated? No, not really. A little annoyed in some ways, but artists ought to make what drives them, not what their fan-base demands. And Trent has said exactly that.

If he is appealing to a different fan-base than those of whom he began with, than why ought I care? I'll simply listen to his older tracks with a somewhat nostalgic, slightly saddened attitude when speaking of Trent's newer works.

And then I'll take a hit and spin once again into Pretty Hate Machine.