The Clouds Will Part And The Sky Cracks Open
May 18, 2018 3:39 PM Subscribe
God Break Down The Door is a new NIN song. It has a saxomophone and Blackstar drumming and basically sounds like Nine Inch Nails.
I consider myself a NIN fan and this just bounced right off of me. Not digging it. Hoping the rest of their album does something else for me, but we'll see.
posted by Fizz at 4:33 PM on May 18, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 4:33 PM on May 18, 2018 [8 favorites]
I'm liking this, but I have a thing for jazzy noise.
posted by Hutch at 4:34 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Hutch at 4:34 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
"basically sounds like Nine Inch Nails" is one of Nine Inch Nails' core competencies.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:34 PM on May 18, 2018 [21 favorites]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:34 PM on May 18, 2018 [21 favorites]
i dig this track and i keep singing it to myself without realizing i'm doing so. it feels like a piece of a larger whole. the fact that THIS is the first track they put out from this album is pretty telling.
i don't get the "basically sounds like Nine Inch Nails" thing because to me this is one of the most significant sonic left turns they've ever taken.
posted by JimBennett at 6:01 PM on May 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
i don't get the "basically sounds like Nine Inch Nails" thing because to me this is one of the most significant sonic left turns they've ever taken.
posted by JimBennett at 6:01 PM on May 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
I agree with JimBennett in the refutation of "basically sounds like Nine Inch Nails." There's nunathat definitive NIN distorted guitar and it feels like something new and different from the Reznor camp.
I kinda dig it, but then I'm a sucker for Amen breaks that aren't the actual loops of the Amen break.
I was certain Trent would drop that distorted guitar solo thing during the last third. Withholding it seems like an intentional statement: "This is different."
posted by glonous keming at 6:10 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
I kinda dig it, but then I'm a sucker for Amen breaks that aren't the actual loops of the Amen break.
I was certain Trent would drop that distorted guitar solo thing during the last third. Withholding it seems like an intentional statement: "This is different."
posted by glonous keming at 6:10 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
I think it sounds like a Bowie Blackstar homage right up until it starts sounding like NIN. Is this the new yanni/laurel/dress color thing?
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 6:46 PM on May 18, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 6:46 PM on May 18, 2018 [6 favorites]
Jazz + industrial = Meat Beat Manifesto something else??
posted by infinitewindow at 6:57 PM on May 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by infinitewindow at 6:57 PM on May 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
I like how Fizz described it: The first time I heard this, it bounced right off me. What just happened? What did I just listen to?
The third time I visited the track, I started to get it. (Feels alright)
Now I'm all in. I suspect that in the context of the new album, it'll be an interesting burst of flavor between tracks that sound nothing like it or each other. Regardless, I'm stoked at the opportunity to catch them live again this year.
posted by Leviathant at 7:42 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
The third time I visited the track, I started to get it. (Feels alright)
Now I'm all in. I suspect that in the context of the new album, it'll be an interesting burst of flavor between tracks that sound nothing like it or each other. Regardless, I'm stoked at the opportunity to catch them live again this year.
posted by Leviathant at 7:42 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
I think I like it? Definitely one that needs to percolate.
Although I have to say my thoughts on first listen was that Trent is trying his hand as a Lounge Singer.
posted by inparticularity at 8:31 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
Although I have to say my thoughts on first listen was that Trent is trying his hand as a Lounge Singer.
posted by inparticularity at 8:31 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
Reminds me a little of Perfect Drug, I guess. Which isn’t that Trent’s least favorite song?
posted by midmarch snowman at 8:31 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by midmarch snowman at 8:31 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
Purest Feeling (version)
posted by dumbland at 8:38 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by dumbland at 8:38 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
It definitely has the vibe of the Lost Highway soundtrack, so I get the Perfect Drug comparison.
I wasn’t into it on first listen, but surprisingly my two year old said “I love this song” and started dancing to it. After my third listen, I think I love it too.
posted by voltairemodern at 9:50 PM on May 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
I wasn’t into it on first listen, but surprisingly my two year old said “I love this song” and started dancing to it. After my third listen, I think I love it too.
posted by voltairemodern at 9:50 PM on May 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
It has a saxomophone and Blackstar drumming and basically sounds like Nine Inch Nails.
I disagree. With everything.
posted by bongo_x at 11:13 PM on May 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
I disagree. With everything.
posted by bongo_x at 11:13 PM on May 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
It's got to be a definite Bowie tribute from the beginning. Not a pastiche, not a rip-off... This is Trent honoring one of his heroes, one of the people who helped him Figure It Out and Straighten Out and get out of his addiction. He was a close collaborator with Bowie for a time and I'm sure his death was even more shocking for him than it was for all the rest of us who only knew Bowie from a distance.
I think it has a definite NIN edge but it cannot be denied that it references ★ very deliberately.
I wonder what the other five songs are going to be like. I have the previous two EPs and they are pretty outstanding. Together they are a bleak fantasy of Trent imagining what he'd be like if he were still addicted and were commiting emotional and physical damage to his partner. I assume this third installment will continue that story, but with NIN you literally NEVER KNOW.
posted by hippybear at 11:23 PM on May 18, 2018 [7 favorites]
I think it has a definite NIN edge but it cannot be denied that it references ★ very deliberately.
I wonder what the other five songs are going to be like. I have the previous two EPs and they are pretty outstanding. Together they are a bleak fantasy of Trent imagining what he'd be like if he were still addicted and were commiting emotional and physical damage to his partner. I assume this third installment will continue that story, but with NIN you literally NEVER KNOW.
posted by hippybear at 11:23 PM on May 18, 2018 [7 favorites]
How nice of Trent to finally get around to doing an homage to Tuxedomoon, though to be properly within the NIN canon, there needs to be more of an extremely wealthy white man caterwauling about how sad and frustrating life is.
posted by sonascope at 6:13 AM on May 19, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by sonascope at 6:13 AM on May 19, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm amazed at how much like Nine Inch Nails this new Nine Inch Nails song sounds.
posted by killdevil at 6:57 AM on May 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by killdevil at 6:57 AM on May 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
That Rolling Stone article hippybear linked is great. It's the first time I've understood Reznor as anything but the pretentious angsty kid writing Hurt in his bedroom. Even this new track sounds pretentious and silly to me, hitting all the cliches. But reading him talk about his life story with humility, and his admiration for Bowie, that was really nice.
posted by Nelson at 7:18 AM on May 19, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 7:18 AM on May 19, 2018 [3 favorites]
Bowie and Reznor collaborated.
I'm afraid of Americans.
posted by adept256 at 2:08 PM on May 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'm afraid of Americans.
posted by adept256 at 2:08 PM on May 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
Bowie and Reznor collaborated.
Oh, you have no idea.
On that tour, NIN opened and then it gradually became a Bowie show with NIN as the band playing behind him. I don't have the energy to do the research, but it's on YouTube if you want to see it. Watching Bowie sing harmony on Hurt is both a cut and a balm on my soul.
posted by hippybear at 4:00 PM on May 19, 2018 [4 favorites]
Oh, you have no idea.
On that tour, NIN opened and then it gradually became a Bowie show with NIN as the band playing behind him. I don't have the energy to do the research, but it's on YouTube if you want to see it. Watching Bowie sing harmony on Hurt is both a cut and a balm on my soul.
posted by hippybear at 4:00 PM on May 19, 2018 [4 favorites]
(I feel like this is the second time in less than a month I've mentioned this here.
Oh here's the video from my comment on April 22).
posted by hippybear at 4:03 PM on May 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
Oh here's the video from my comment on April 22).
posted by hippybear at 4:03 PM on May 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
Reminds me a lot of the mix of saxophone and synth that Matt Johnson fused together for The The's Infected. Sounds like a song that would drop right in between those tracks.
posted by smallerdemon at 5:26 PM on May 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by smallerdemon at 5:26 PM on May 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oh here's the video from my comment on April 22
Such a good clip. Here's a little backstory on how that surfaced. I'm not sure that Mr Williams understood the kind of reach that was going to get when I suggested he upload it to his Vimeo account, but I sure am glad he did :)
Maybe one day I'll finally unearth that Self Destruct era concert film that Simon Maxwell put together. A VHS copy surfaced in the UK years back, but the owner disappeared after visiting a shop to get it digitized.
posted by Leviathant at 5:42 PM on May 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
Such a good clip. Here's a little backstory on how that surfaced. I'm not sure that Mr Williams understood the kind of reach that was going to get when I suggested he upload it to his Vimeo account, but I sure am glad he did :)
Maybe one day I'll finally unearth that Self Destruct era concert film that Simon Maxwell put together. A VHS copy surfaced in the UK years back, but the owner disappeared after visiting a shop to get it digitized.
posted by Leviathant at 5:42 PM on May 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
That video's amazing hippybear. A lot of talent on that stage. I bet there were people who went to see Bowie because they're familiar with the radio hits, expecting to hear Dancing in the Streets or something. Then THAT happens.
posted by adept256 at 8:18 PM on May 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by adept256 at 8:18 PM on May 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
The video is fantastic, but it doesn't really do justice to just how LOUD that rendition of Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) was. Coming from the quiet arrangement of Subterraneans, with Trent playing the sax, into this massive noise, with two drummers, at least 3 guitars, Trent molesting that poor keyboard. It just seemed deafening, and chaotic, and awesome in a really classical, "inspires awe" kind of way.
posted by curiousgene at 9:28 PM on May 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by curiousgene at 9:28 PM on May 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
I bet there were people who went to see Bowie because they're familiar with the radio hits, expecting to hear Dancing in the Streets or something.
Statistically I'm sure there were, but it feels like at that point in time Bowie would have had trouble filling even big clubs by himself in America. The 80s had done a weird thing to Bowie (for my b.1972 self, he was one of the Old Farts who were only significant as influences to our influences, and while Modern Love had a good beat and you could dance to it we did NOT understand MTV's enormous hype of Blue Jean; we were probably more into him as an actor/puberty catharsis) and except for a tiny devoted Tin Machine contingent, the 90s was a backlash time. Like Trent said in that RS interview, people weren't buying those tickets for Bowie, they were buying them for NIN and indulging Trent in this opportunity to bring along someone who was too important to be an "opening act". There *were* Bowie hardcores buying some tickets, and for the most part they haaaated NIN and also did not love Bowie's "Outside" album but probably also had no interest in "Dancing In The Streets."
It was an experiment of mixed success. I'm pretty sure I got exactly what Trent was hoping for: I walked away with mad respect for Bowie's talent, and an interest in his work that increased over the next 20 years.
(Tangent: It was also maybe the weirdest night of my concertgoing life. Thanks to a friend who had made friends with the band and crew, we got in to the afterparty in Deep Ellum and met Trent for a couple of seconds and I understood that he was very much not okay, and also extremely tiny, which is jarring for someone so noisy. But out on the street we ran into Robin Finck (guitar) and Danny Lohner (bass) and they recognized my friend and were SO nice to us and also 100% cognizant of the opportunity they were in the middle of, playing with Bowie and his band. We sent them off in the direction of Sol's Taco Lounge and I hope they had really great tacos.)
I still hang out on FB with my old USENET NIN friends (including who I went to that show with), and we appear to be split about 90/10 between "that's some eerie Blackstar homage and also completely recognizably NIN 2018" and "I hate this."
posted by Lyn Never at 9:32 PM on May 19, 2018 [5 favorites]
Statistically I'm sure there were, but it feels like at that point in time Bowie would have had trouble filling even big clubs by himself in America. The 80s had done a weird thing to Bowie (for my b.1972 self, he was one of the Old Farts who were only significant as influences to our influences, and while Modern Love had a good beat and you could dance to it we did NOT understand MTV's enormous hype of Blue Jean; we were probably more into him as an actor/puberty catharsis) and except for a tiny devoted Tin Machine contingent, the 90s was a backlash time. Like Trent said in that RS interview, people weren't buying those tickets for Bowie, they were buying them for NIN and indulging Trent in this opportunity to bring along someone who was too important to be an "opening act". There *were* Bowie hardcores buying some tickets, and for the most part they haaaated NIN and also did not love Bowie's "Outside" album but probably also had no interest in "Dancing In The Streets."
It was an experiment of mixed success. I'm pretty sure I got exactly what Trent was hoping for: I walked away with mad respect for Bowie's talent, and an interest in his work that increased over the next 20 years.
(Tangent: It was also maybe the weirdest night of my concertgoing life. Thanks to a friend who had made friends with the band and crew, we got in to the afterparty in Deep Ellum and met Trent for a couple of seconds and I understood that he was very much not okay, and also extremely tiny, which is jarring for someone so noisy. But out on the street we ran into Robin Finck (guitar) and Danny Lohner (bass) and they recognized my friend and were SO nice to us and also 100% cognizant of the opportunity they were in the middle of, playing with Bowie and his band. We sent them off in the direction of Sol's Taco Lounge and I hope they had really great tacos.)
I still hang out on FB with my old USENET NIN friends (including who I went to that show with), and we appear to be split about 90/10 between "that's some eerie Blackstar homage and also completely recognizably NIN 2018" and "I hate this."
posted by Lyn Never at 9:32 PM on May 19, 2018 [5 favorites]
I still can't believe I didn't see the NIN Bowie tour, have no idea why I wouldn't have, and still get irritated every time hippybear brings it up. I was one of those weird people that would have gone for both, I even saw Tin Machine.
posted by bongo_x at 11:17 PM on May 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by bongo_x at 11:17 PM on May 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
and still get irritated every time hippybear brings it up
Wait, what? This is all entirely apocryphal to me -- I didn't see the tour, I only know about it.
I get irritated every time I bring it up, too.
posted by hippybear at 7:53 AM on May 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
Wait, what? This is all entirely apocryphal to me -- I didn't see the tour, I only know about it.
I get irritated every time I bring it up, too.
posted by hippybear at 7:53 AM on May 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oh hey it's "Spybreak!" but sped up.
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:56 PM on May 20, 2018
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:56 PM on May 20, 2018
I didn't see the tour, I only know about it.
I could swear that you've mentioned it several times.
And I know why.
Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about.
(I don't know what I'm talking about).
posted by bongo_x at 10:56 PM on May 20, 2018
I could swear that you've mentioned it several times.
And I know why.
Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about.
(I don't know what I'm talking about).
posted by bongo_x at 10:56 PM on May 20, 2018
Beats 1 interview with Nine Inch Nails [May 2018 Bad Witch] [10m27s]
posted by hippybear at 8:19 PM on May 21, 2018
posted by hippybear at 8:19 PM on May 21, 2018
I could swear that you've mentioned it several times.
I have mentioned it several times. The concert, and that hand-off.
And I know why.
Yes, because it's sort of the stuff of legends amongst my various interests.
Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about.
I don't know what you're talking about, but I wish I did!
posted by hippybear at 5:48 PM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
I have mentioned it several times. The concert, and that hand-off.
And I know why.
Yes, because it's sort of the stuff of legends amongst my various interests.
Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about.
I don't know what you're talking about, but I wish I did!
posted by hippybear at 5:48 PM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
« Older "He wrote like he was avenging a death" | Disrupting ritual Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 4:30 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]