About a year ago someone posted their top twenty favorite albums and we have all forgotten about it. I decided to compile my own top twenty list. I felt that listing an album title wouldn’t be enough so I ended up writing small essays, quoting lyrics and, yes, rambling. So, a year later: the spelling is bad, the points are hidden and Jesus is it long...here are my top twenty. Oh Jesus, is it long. I will break it up into four entries. In case any of you give half a shit as to why I love music so much...here are some reasons. They are in no particular order.
Nine Inch Nails: The Downward Spiral
My very first CD (along with Greenday Dookie). Got it for Christmas in 1994. Became a huge fan within weeks and missed their first and last performance in Florida (January 26th, 1995) for four years (the next time they came was May of 2001 and I did see them for that). This album details the taking apart of a an from track one “Mr. Self Destruct” to the final track “Hurt”, this character is removing and or corrupting elements of his life and ending up with nothing, not even himself. “Mr. Self Destruct” is about giving in to the voice inside you that tells you to harm yourself. Giving in to your dark side. The song/album starts with this relentless rattling pounding beat and suddenly disappears when voices are heard whispering “You let me do this to you” and then “I am an exit.” The effect is chilling. “Ruiner” is another stand out track. The two verses of lyrics are almost completely lost behind a broken sounding drum machine and bursts of static.
the ruiner's got a lot to prove he's got nothing to lose
and now he made you believe
the ruiner's your only friend well he's the living end
to the cattle he deceives
the raping of the innocent you know the ruiner ruins everything he sees
now the only pure thing left in my fucking world is wearing your disease
the ruiner's a collector he's an infector serving his shit to his flies
maybe there will come a day when those that you keep blind will suddenly realize
maybe it's a part of me you took it to a place i hoped it would never go
and maybe that fucked me up much more than you'll ever know
The first time I heard these lyrics screamed behind the wall of static in the song I was moved almost to tears. The end of this song features the line “Nothing can stop me now” which is a theme on this album referring to the fact that the narrator has lost everything, even his essential humanity and with nothing left, no feelings, no emotions, nothing can stop him from self destructing, from harming others, etc. There’s also the track “Reptile” which is the best “I hate this girl” song I’ve ever heard, featuring the lyric “Oh my beautiful liar, oh my precious whore, my disease, my infection, I am so impure.” Ouch. Then the last track, “Hurt” leaves the man completely disassembled, lying naked on the floor at the very bottom of his downward spiral. I can’t tell you how many people I know cannot listen to Nine Inch Nails anymore simply because of the suicidal implications of this song. Although the album has a lot of violence in it, most of it is directed towards the narrator. This is a very powerful album.
Greenday: Dookie
Also the first CD I got. I love this fucking CD because it’s so simple yet so good. Drums, bass, guitar. Boom. Three elements have never sounded better together. None of their albums before or after Dookie are anywhere near as good in my opinion. To this day one of the only CD’s of mine I just put on and listen to all the way through.
This goes for both Downward Spiral and Dookie: both my first CD’s are two of my favorites, not because they were my first, but because they are excellent albums AND they both had 14 tracks, imparting that CD’s should have 14 tracks. More is better, less is worse. Thank you Trent Reznor and Billy Joe.
Nine Inch Nails: The Fragile
This album came out in 1999, FIVE YEARS after the Downward Spiral. It was the most anticipated album of my life (until now when the NEW Nine Inch Nails album is only 45 years away or so it seems), but that isn’t what makes it one of my favorites nor the fact that it’s an amazing album. It’s because every ounce of expectation was met and exceeded. The Downward Spiral had 14 tracks and ran for 65 minutes and 56 seconds (good length). The Fragile was a double album with 23 tracks clocking in at just over 100 minutes (one hundred and nine to be more exact). Out of the 23 tracks (broken into 12 on the left disc and 11 on the right disc) there is only one track that I am inclined to skip sometimes. Not because it’s a bad song, it just isn’t as amazing by contrast.
The album picks up where Downward Spiral left off and overall is a much more uplifting album, not because it’s about puppies, but because it has a sliver of hope, although by the end that sliver is extinguished making it more painful than Spiral. Spiral had no positivity, it was all a slow downward spiral, literally, but the Fragile has moments of beautiful quiet and peaceful melodies, but they never last. Although Downward Spiral had no hope, the fact of lost hope is even worse.
This album starts with “Somewhat Damaged” in which the character (the same from DS) talks about his fall and how, in the end when he needed people they all abandoned him. The next track is one of my all time favorite Nine Inch Nails songs; the Day the World Went Away in which the comforts of suicide are discussed.
there is a place that still remains
it eats the fear; it eats the pain
the sweetest price he'll have to pay
the day the whole world went away
The narrator doesn’t give in at this point at least since the album goes on. Titles like “The Frail and “The Wretched” express just how hideous of a mind state he is in. The song “We’re In This Together” sounds like it’s positive, and you and me until the world ends kind of thing, but listening to it one gets the sense that it’s one sided, delusional, dangerous. The title track is so moving and expresses the theme of the album “I won’t let you fall apart.” Whereas last time around, the theme was nothing can stop me, I’m already dead, nothing left etc, this seems a lot more positive and therefore becomes even more black when, in the end, everything does fall apart, despite all his meaningless efforts. The last two tracks on the first disc form a seamless bridge to the first song on the second disc by creating a beautiful, terrifyingly cold and sad metaphor involving the sea. The second to last rack on the first disc is called “La Mer” (“the sea” in French). This track is an instrumental that reflects a tranquil, beautiful sea becoming stormy and deadly. There are a few lyrics spoken by a woman in French at the beginning and end of La Mer translating into
and when the day arrives
i'll become the sky
and I'll become the sea
and the sea will come to kiss me
for i am going home”
and at the end a refrain of the DS theme “nothing can stop me now”. La Mer leads into “The Great Below” which is about realization that one’s love is lost or was never there in the first place and giving up; the song begins with the narrator “staring at the sea” and wondering if he can be forgiven for what he’s done. He professes that he would give anything at any price for this love. Once he realizes that she isn’t coming or was never coming, the music begins to swell as his realization becomes clearer. He will die. He will allow the ocean to draw him in an end his life. Why live without his love? The song approaches its climax with the lyrics
ocean pulls me close
and whispers in my ear
the destiny i've chose
all becoming clear
the currents have their say
the time is drawing near
washes me away
makes me disappear”
and then, the music reaches its peak as the narrator declares
and i descend from grace
in arms of undertow
i will take my place
in the great below
Apparently, he is dead, but the song finishes with a distant guitar and the lyric “I can still feel you, even so far away” repeated over and over. Then the next song and disc begin with “The Way Out Is Through”. The first lyrics of the second disc “All I’ve undergone, I will keep on.” The music rises from an aquatic background ambiance to an explosive note after which the narrator screams
underneath it all
we feel so small
the heavens fall
but still we crawl”
This is not as hopeful as it appears since the rest of the album is spent second guessing, begging and searching. The last spoken line of the album is “you remain, I am stained.” Then the final track “Ripe (with decay) begins. At the end of this album, you are left feeling more destroyed that at the end of Downward Spiral. DS was only going in one direction, but with the Fragile, you might have thought the glimmer would become a light but it doesn’t.
Nine Inch Nails: Broken
Their EP that came out in ’92 remains the hardest, most powerful, industrial, serious yet tonal thing I have ever heard. I’ve heard harder, but a lot of that almost becomes self-parody and noise whereas Broken boarders on noise, but there’s always something beneath it making it music. The first track “pinion” (which means “the wing of a bird”, “to remove or bind the wing of a bird” and “to bind or shackle ”) is a rising, approaching guitar that peaks with the intro of the second track “wish”. “last” has one of the most memorable lyrics on the album: “look through these blackened eyes, you’ll see ten thousand lies, my lips may promise but my heart is a whore”. Next is the instrumental “help me I am in hell” which is just an all-around uncomfortable track. Then “happiness in slavery” in which the narrator says “I don’t know what I am, I don’t know where I’ve been, human junk just words and so much skin, stick my hands though the cage of this endless routine just some flesh caught in this big broken machine”. The last track of Broken is “gave up”. “Perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most” is the first line of the last song. The chorus of this pounding, unrelenting song is “smashed up my sanity, smashed up integrity, smashed up what I believe in, smashed up what’s left of me, smashed up my everything, smashed up all that was true, gonna smash myself to pieces, I don’t know what else to do”, the bridge is “I tried, I gave up” said over and over. One gets the sense that all the destruction is simply because the narrator feels trapped. Why destroy yourself? Because he tried and gave up and there’s nothing left to do but destroy himself. The last line of this album, shrieked over and over as the music breaks down is “throw it away”. That’s the heart f “broken”: everything is broken and dead, what is there to do, nothing, why should I remain, I shouldn’t. The lyrics are so private and raw without being too silly or too dramatic etc. Also, it came out over a decade ago while some bands are just starting to tread there now. Punk-ass sharks, biting and shit.
Nine Inch Nails And All That Could Have Been: Still
Alright, after this no more Nine Inch Nails, I promise. This is their most recent release. This album “Still” came as a part of their Live CD package. Reznor said this CD was a counterpoint to the screaming explosive nature of the live album. Still has nine tracks, four new instrumental tracks, one new vocal track and four old songs recreated in a more stripped-down, simple manner. Where the Downward Spiral and the Fragile had an hour or over that to bring the listener from place to place inside the world of the album, this CD had only a fraction of that time. The first song is from the first Nine Inch Nails album and is titled “Something I Can Never Have”. The song is about remembering the end of a relationship and recalling how painful it was, and then living in the present where the pain is still fresh and nothing has been resolved. If the subject matter wasn’t dismal enough, the last few lines of the song being shrieked by Reznor make it that much more real. The spiteful resentment in this song is softened by the simple yet beautiful piano/keyboard instrumental “Adrift and at Peace” which follows. Then into a simple version of “The Fragile” which sounds weaker and less sure than the album version which has numerous voices chanting and assuring “I won’t let you fall apart” whereas in this version, there is only Reznor saying it and hoping it’s true, but not being sure. After this, a version of “The Becoming” from the Downward Spiral. A track about how this numbness inside of him is replacing everything human with machinery. In a way, he is working to bring himself down. The album version is more mechanical and yielding (I want to stop it and I’m fighting but I know I can’t) but the Still version is a lot angrier. Much more of a “fuck you for doing this to me” vibe. This jarring, mechanical track is followed by the next instrumental “Gone, Still” which is another very unsettling track. The piano repetition indicates a mantra and the slight minor key variations indicate that he doesn’t really believe it. Perhaps with the mantra he is trying to convince himself that who or whatever is gone isn’t, but the variations show that he knows they are indeed gone, still, and the ending of the song, in which the piano is engulfed by a dark wave of synthesizers, proves that this fact is consuming him. The synths slide into the wavering organ-like introduction of an incredible version of The Day the World Went Away after which you aren’t really sure if the suicide bug has laid eggs in his brain this time. The next song is introduced by an isolated rain sound effect. This is the new song and it’s the most recent Nine Inch Nails song (at this point and time). It’s called “And All That Could Have Been”, the title itself a depressing sentiment. The song inspires the image of a frozen wasteland where a solitary man is stranded there of his own accord thinking about how things could have been had he let people help him, had he made different choices, but that it won’t matter soon because he’ll be dead, forgotten. He’ll be happy to die since he wasn’t meant for happier things, he was meant to die here, alone. As he makes his decision to let go, he confesses that he is tainted and that he regrets that he was blind to the fact that “in my nothing you meant everything to me.” After this, there are only two instrumental tracks, “the Persistence of Loss” which is made up of a lonely, distant and desolate sound being made then repeated and then another lonely, distant and desolate sound layered on top of that until one just feels washed out listening to it. After that, the final track. A crushing song called “Leaving Hope”. I don’t think lyrics could have made this song more crushingly sad. The background drones come in and out while a solitary piano narrates the most sad and terrible ending to the story told by “Still”. There is a distorted, echoing guitar in the middle that only makes one feel more isolated. The ending is a plucked string instrument followed by the same instrument after a thousand years of rust and decay have affected it. The song dies as slowly as the solitary man in the frozen wasteland. This is where Trent Reznor has left his fans. He has said, in reference to the new album in contrast to the stories told by the Downward Spiral and the Fragile “that person isn't here anymore." So we can only assume that the story which started in 1992 with Broken finally ends there in that metaphorical frozen wasteland ten years later.
No comments:
Post a Comment