Thursday, March 20th, 2008
Ive been listening to the new Nine Inch Nails record for the last couple of days and i really think it is an astounding piece of work. However track 13, its listed on the album as Ghosts 13, is the single saddest song i have ever heard. Its just a simple piano piece, with a metronome-esque electronic bass drum beat and some heavy breathing and excruciatingly light synth strings towards the end. Im sitting at my desk with my headphones in my ears to drown out the sounds of the idiots around me, Ive got my Itunes on shuffle and out of no where, the worlds saddest song. I dont have a lot of experience with super sad songs but heres a list of some of my “favorite”:
Decades - Joy Division
Across the Ocean - Azure Ray
I Want to Vanish - Elvis Costello
Grace is Gone - The Dave Matthews Band
Boxing - Ben Folds Five
Julia - The Beatles
How to Fight Loneliness - Wilco
It Makes No Difference - The Band
Salt to the Sea - Tim Finn
Thats all I can think of right now. Maybe Ill make a tape of sad songs. Two hours of misery. For that though Ill need more sad songs.
Anyone care to help?
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Sunday, March 16th, 2008
i tried to download this last week when it first came out but was unsuccessful. Im not sure what happened, the website kept saying that if you are having difficulty downloading the record its because they were unaware and unprepared for the amount of downloads they were getting. I was finally able to get it on Thursday. This is unlike any Nine Inch Nails record that has ever been released. For one its all instrumental, the only vocals are the occasional heavy breathing but thats to be expected on a moody atmospheric record like this one. You gots ta have some heavy breathing. Its also unlike any Nine Inch Nails record because you get the feeling that there is more going on inside Trent Reznor this time instead of just hating himself, whatever chick just dumped him, or recently the government. So finally when it seems like Trent has something to say he decides to say nothing, which makes this record so much more interesting. it isnt 1994 anymore and there are plenty of bands telling me what losers they are and what bitches women are and its nice that Trent and the whole Nine inch Nails project have finally noticed that their tortured muscled posturing is just ridiculous and all we really want from him are great freaking tunes and this record is full of great tunes.As with all instrumental albums there is some filler. There are some distortion exercises i can do without and his experimentation with hip hop beats is a little silly but there are 36 songs here and im pretty sure congress just voted in a bill that says if you have more than 11 songs on a record at least one of them has to directly influenced by hip hop. Mediocre tracks aside, the rest of the record is just so intensely cinematic you’ll find yourself writing scenes, casting the film and watching dailies in your head at night while you sleep. If you like Harold Budd and Brian Eno or any of those ambient masters this record fits right in their with the best of those artist’s material. I went in having no preconceived notions about what this would be. Im on my second run through now and the songs just continue to reveal new and interesting things with each listen.Also, this is a legitimate record, i think its being released in stores in April. It isnt just some artist dumping their hard drive onto their website and asking for money. Dont be scared.
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