Nine Inch Nails
 

Nine Inch Nails has been my favorite musician since 2002. I first heard of Nine Inch Nails through Closer and also actually found out about him through Marilyn Manson and Limp Bizkit. When I was still in high school, a friend of mine at the time let me listen to The Downward Spiral, The Fragile and Broken. I was already hooked, but by the time he let me listen to Pretty Hate Machine, that really sealed the deal for me. I also saw Nine Inch Nails live three times. As for the albums after With Teeth came out, I suppose that Year Zero and Hesitation Marks are my favorite albums. I still appreciate Ghosts I-IV and The Slip for what they are though, and I also ended up listening to Ghosts I-IV a lot more than I thought I would.

Anyway, for any Nine Inch Nails fans out there, what are your favorite songs, albums or videos for that matter?

http://www.nin.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ninofficial

https://twitter.com/nineinchnails

https://twitter.com/trent_reznor

https://www.youtube.com/user/ninofficial

They're pretty hit and miss for me. They have some good songs, but also have plenty I don't give a damn about. So no, I would not say that I'm a fan of them.

Songs I like... Closer, Every Day Is the Same, Heresy, You Know What You Are.

Never in a million years did I ever think:

Academy Award Winning Trent Reznor!

would be a true statement.

I'm a big fan, I've got to admit that I haven't listened to them as much after graduating HS but I still think they're brilliant even if I haven't heard their newer albums all that much. I've seen them live twice, the most recent was about a year ago and I enjoyed it a lot more than my first time I saw them, maybe their set was better or I just had way too high expectations the first time. My favorite album is definitely Pretty Hate Machine, none of their albums now matter how good has matched it and I doubt it'll ever be. I'm actually wearing a Pretty Hate Machine t-shirt as I'm typing this.


So you only like the most poppy mainstream songs?

Yep. Like I've said, I'm not a big fan of them.

Prefer Johnny Cash:

I'm a fan of Trent Reznor, and even he admitted in a commentary that Cash's cover is better than the original.

Cash's version of Hurt is pretty good, it only annoys me that he changed the lyrics to avoid profanity. Cash censoring himself of all people. I think he might've done it because of pressure from his record label since this was a sure hit.


I still think the NIN original is better though, they're both very different songs even if the lyrics and music are the same.

I've always been really taken by how different "Hurt" is, depending on the version. Cash's is a man at the end of his time, where as Reznor's is a young man self-destruction.

Big fan of NIN, especially his later stuff.

I'm gonna come out and say that I can't stand Cash's cover of "Hurt" - that's just me personally.

As far as NIN in general, everything was brilliant up until Ghosts, The Slip and Hesitation Marks. I've seen them live twice and think Trent is brilliant - definitely consider myself a fan - but I do think he's changed as a person and as such, that's reflecting in his art.

I'm happy he's in a better place in his life, has kicked his addiction and all but I do feel kinda "meh" about the fact that he's doing all these movie scores but y'know, people change and at the end of the day, he's given us some great albums - he doesn't owe the fans sh*t and should do what makes him happy, even if it means scoring the movie about Facebook or whatever.

As far as Limp Bizkit - ugh. Reznor's taken more talented craps than Fred Durst's entire career.

Terrible Lie. That is my fave NiN song so far.

Yeah that's definitely a bonkers thing to say. :lol:

What ever happened to Fred Durst?

Is he on a milk carton somewhere?

Limp Bizkit is still around, they released a new record Gold cobra not too long ago. I actually finally saw them about a year ago and they were awesome. They realize they were a product of its time and actually embrace it so it was definitely a throwback to the late 90s and they stole the show from Korn, Rob Zombie, and Kiss who were also at the concert.

Fred Durst outperforming Rob Zombie is about as likely as me waking up naked next to Ruby Rose tomorrow morning. :lol:

I take it that would be a desirable thing? Then again, she IS kinda hot....

I often find myself recommending Pretty Hate Machine, Broken, The Downward Spiral, The Fragile and then maybe With Teeth when it comes to full Nine Inch Nails albums. I hardly or rarely recommend anything from Year Zero and beyond at first. If those albums as a whole don't do anything for you then chances are that the rest of the discography probably wouldn't do anything for you either. I can totally understand Nine Inch Nails being a hit or miss though, and understand that it's not for you as you've admitted that you weren't a fan either, as I know that I should also take that into consideration.

However, it seems like everything from Pretty Hate Machine to With Teeth seems to be like a greatest hits collection as far as songs, albums and music videos go.

As for the songs you've mentioned, there's a chance that you probably might enjoy The Only Time, The Fragile, Terrible Lie, The Wretched, All The Love In The World and Letting You. :)

I don't mean to impose, as I also could be wrong, but I sometimes like giving recommendations a shot.

As a huge fan of Pretty Hate Machine, you probably might love With Teeth and Hesitation Marks, but I still understand what you mean, as Pretty Hate Machine is like another animal or world of its own. It's hard to describe, but I hope I got the gist of what you said. In that case, I have a feeling that you might love Purest Feeling too.



You certainly beat me to it, and as far as general and comprehensive information of Limp Bizkit, these are probably the best sites to visit.

http://www.thearmpit.net/

http://www.limpbizkit.org/

https://www.facebook.com/theARMPITnet

https://twitter.com/TheArmpit

I also forgot to specifically mention that I got to know about Nine Inch Nails through Limp Bizkit due to the songs Hot Dog and Livin' It Up from Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. I was also actually a fan of Limp Bizkit long before becoming a fan of Nine Inch Nails. And yes, there's definitely no question that the peak of Limp Bizkit's rise to fame, popularity and success was back in 1997-2001 with Three Dollar Bill, Y'all$, Significant Other and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. They were at their largest back then whether or not you liked them. Things just weren't the same once Results May Vary was released. I can still certainly admit and see as to how finding out about Trent Reznor through Fred Durst would seem to be highly unlikely though.

I also heard of Nine Inch Nails through Limp Bizkit from Trent Reznor expressing his overall disdain and criticism against Limp Bizkit and even more specifically against Fred Durst back as early as 1999-2000. Later on after becoming a fan of Nine Inch Nails, I ended up realizing that the chorus to Hot Dog made a mockery out of Closer, Burn and The Perfect Drug, and that Livin' It Up had a little response to Star****ers, Inc., which just made things a lot worse between Trent Reznor and Fred Durst back then.

I somehow forgot to mention all of that. As for Marilyn Manson, which is a far more likely way to discover Nine Inch Nails, it was because I noticed that Trent Reznor helped produce Portrait of an American Family, Smells Like Children and Antichrist Superstar. And realizing just how much I loved those releases at the time, along with Mechanical Animals and Holy Wood, it just helped pique my curiosity and further intrigued me to check out Trent Reznor's work as Nine Inch Nails.

It's also been 21 years since Nine Inch Nails performed at Woodstock 1994. The 21st anniversary of that performance was 10 days ago.

http://diffuser.fm/nine-inch-nails-play-woodstock-94/

This also seems to be the latest official release of that performance on YouTube from so far. It's from Music Vault.



As for general and comprehensive information on Nine Inch Nails, these are also the best sites to visit from my experience and overall opinion as well.

http://www.theninhotline.net/

http://www.echoingthesound.org/

http://www.nin.wiki/

Not a huge fan, although there's songs I do like. I'm not a huge fan of electronic type music to begin with (although I love KMFDM, go figure). I probably wouldn't shut off NiN if it came on but I probably wouldn't pick it.

I really love "Head Like A Hole", though... but I prefer the AFI cover. I completely confess an overwhelming pro-AFI bias in all things, however. :tgrin:

I was like thisclose to using it as my theme music once upon a time, but the boss had his own ideas. EH.

Talking about PHM, I recently listened to the re-mastered version which was released a few years ago and it's alright. The original's rawer sound is far better but it was interesting listening to a slightly different "cleaner" version.

At least in my opinion, I've already seen Zombie once nearly a decade ago and he offered nothing new and now with less energy, he was really just going through the motions.


I bought With Teeth the day it was released, it's pretty good and has some great tracks but it's definitely weaker to previous albums and couldn't be more different than Pretty Hate Machine, not sure why you're even recommending it. I've heard "copy of a copy" from Hesitation Marks, and it's alright but definitely "new" NIN from the little i've heard of that album, definitely don't think it'll be anything like PHM. I had never heard of Purest Feeling, I just listened to some fragments of it and I don't like it but I'll give it a full listen one of these days, I like listening to demo versions of songs and they can be better sometimes.





That was just a bad and yet generic cover of a great song, they failed in both regards.

You have a lot of bad opinions, I'll just add that one to the pile. :trazz:

I like how the cover to Queen's Get Down Make Love was included in it, but I also prefer the original version as well. I ended up feeling the same way about regular version of The Downward Spiral too, but the deluxe edition of it on SACD was also a real treat.

It was hard for me to explain as I've admitted, as they are different, but I suppose I was referring to it in terms of perhaps having an upbeat and catchy sound with more of the pop side of Nine Inch Nails songs, for the lack of a better term. Then again, just about every album has catchy songs in them. I guess it depends on who you speak to and where you speak, as a lot of fans on Echoing the Sound that loved Pretty Hate Machine also seemed to have been drawn to With Teeth and Hesitation Marks a lot. I definitely didn't mean to say that they'd sound exactly the same though.

Oh yes, Copy Of A is actually one of my most favorite songs from Hesitation Marks. However, there was a song named Everything that seemed to surprise most of the fan-base. Came Back Haunted was also the only music video there was for that album at the time.



As do I, as I certainly enjoy hearing just how different songs sounded before their final versions. It is without a doubt also different from Pretty Hate Machine in a way, even though some of the songs recorded eventually made the cut for Pretty Hate Machine, yet were still changed for the sound of that time.

And speaking of Came Back Haunted, there were actually two versions of that video, and they still seem to be the latest Nine Inch Nails music videos to date.

I do like NiN but they're the kind of band that I tend not to know the names of tracks apart from the really popular ones, probably because I only started listening to them later on in their career when they already had a decent back catalog so a lot of their albums kind of blur into one big playlist for me!

They also put on a really good live show (have seen them several times) - great use of stage effects and lighting.

If you like NiN can I also recommend some of the more recent Gary Numan (his latest album is Splinter) - it's very much in the same industrial rock vein as NiN.

I definitely enjoyed how the live songs added more panache to certain songs, as well as adding more aggression and heaviness to songs that were already aggressive and heavy such as Terrible Lie, Down In It, Happiness In Slavery, Suck, Love Is Not Enough, Copy Of A, While I'm Still Here and Black Noise.

And now that you've mentioned Gary Numan, that also reminds me of Nine Inch Nails covering Metal. They even performed together, and a video of that life performance was also uploaded on NIN's official YouTube channel.



Oh, and upon searching for Metal, here's NIN performing Cars with Gary Numan as well. :tsmile:



And not to be nudge, but perhaps there can be an order for a Limp Bizkit thread and/or a Gary Numan thread? However, I can obviously see the latter doing so much better though. :trazz:

But yes, I'm definitely aware of, and as well as respect Gary Numan's overall influence and inspiration on NIN. It also seems to be right up there with David Bowie's overall influence and inspiration on NIN. (I also love I'm Afraid of Americans.) :tsmile: