NIN-ish Fashion
February 6, 2021 4:03 PM   Subscribe

Trent, Mariqueen, and Atticus unite with Mike Garson, Carlos Alomar, Gerry Leonard, Mark Plati, and Sterling Campbell (Bowie band alumni) to create a new version of David Bowie's Fashion.
posted by hippybear (30 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
solid
posted by Glomar response at 4:46 PM on February 6, 2021 [1 favorite]


I love it! thanks!
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 4:50 PM on February 6, 2021


Oooooh me likey!
posted by supermedusa at 4:54 PM on February 6, 2021


This I like.
posted by SansPoint at 4:58 PM on February 6, 2021


Fashion is one of my favourite Bowie songs. This one is pretty faithful to the original with some little NIN style quirkiness, which means that it's totally awesome. Thanks for the post!
posted by ashbury at 5:06 PM on February 6, 2021 [1 favorite]


Good cover. Thanks hippybear.
posted by evilDoug at 5:34 PM on February 6, 2021


I love Bowie. Fashion is one of my favorite five songs of his, easily. And generally I am not a threadshitter. But this is one of my favorite Bowie songs, and it affected me pretty heavily when I was 11 and watching MTV for the first time. A nice antidote to all the suburban dullness I had grown up used to.

I can just tolerate Rezz, and am kinda unhappy in my grumpy golden years that he's become an elder statesman of cutting-edge rock. He was cutting-edge maaaaaybe in 1989.

It's OK to want to pay tribute to your heroes. But if you're already in the rock and roll hall of fame (Trent is), you can put your own spin on things is what I am saying. This is so faithful to the original that it sounds like a very ept but uninspired cover band—but it brings nothing new.

I wouldn't have even cared if Rezz did some of his NIN tricks—put some Ministry-type distortion back into his vocals, jacked the tempo up or down, or anything—it would have been better. Rezz is more creative than this. I know the musicians in it are talented. I know Carlos Alomar was in the original lineup. This song just doesn't do anything for me—except make me want to watch the original*.

*"The video features Carlos Alomar, G.E. Smith (Hall & Oates [as well as SNL, and subbing visually for Robert Fripp]), Khandi Alexander, Obba Babatundé, the guitarist Steve Love who plays drums in the video, John Kay, May Pang (later married to the song's producer Tony Visconti) and Alan Hunter, who became one of the first MTV VJs and also the first VJ to appear in a music video."

BUT! thanks for posting anyway, I do love this song.
posted by not_on_display at 5:49 PM on February 6, 2021 [6 favorites]


Yeah- the cocaine is missing.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 5:52 PM on February 6, 2021 [2 favorites]


Also worth viewing, Bowie and NIN doing Hurt. Watch out for 2:45 where Trent gets a stupid "I'm singing with fuckin' Bowie, man!" grin.
posted by bfranklin at 6:14 PM on February 6, 2021 [7 favorites]


It's OK to want to pay tribute to your heroes.

Trent and Bowie have a personal history. They toured together, performed in each others acts, and wrote music together. They were vibing.

This isn't paying tribute so much as maybe he's just a guy who misses his friend.
posted by adept256 at 6:33 PM on February 6, 2021 [8 favorites]


I'll just add - he's really diversified from early NIN. Listen to his work on the Soul soundtrack. Yeah, he's doing score for Pixar movies now.
posted by adept256 at 6:41 PM on February 6, 2021 [2 favorites]


I know people I respect who adore NiN, but for me they're one of those parts of American culture I'll never get - like Saved by the Bell or the novels of John Updike. Impenetrable to the outsider.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 7:55 PM on February 6, 2021


I can't explain my own love for NIN; they're very far outside my main wheelhouse which tends more toward Indigo Girls. But Trent manages to express things in a sort of simple, pop-based yet industrial-toned way that I find channels feelings I have really well.

And yes, his more recent work with various scores and soundtracks is really quite interesting. You could see that interest back when he put out Ghosts I-IV.

If he can come up with a really successful Broadway show, he'll have an EGOT. We'll see how the future unfolds. (Will there ever even be a Broadway again? #COVID)
posted by hippybear at 8:39 PM on February 6, 2021


Watching the original...

Does anyone not want to slap G. E. Smith everytime you see his mugging face?
posted by Windopaene at 10:19 PM on February 6, 2021 [3 favorites]


Early NIN fan. Multi-era Bowie fan. This seemed to lack some of the 70s New York edge of the original. Kinda felt like some friends got together to have a bit of fun, and that's fine. Not to be contrary; was hoping to dig into this, as something a bit fresher.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:19 PM on February 6, 2021 [2 favorites]


This isn't paying tribute so much as maybe he's just a guy who misses his friend.

I respectfully retract that aspect of my rant. I did not know of their history.

That said, no matter how much Trent Reznor has diversified or matured, he's just not speaking to me. He did for a moment, but the moment is gone. Sorry folks.

[I have the same feels about Jack White—I get him, but ... sigh, nope. I'm glad I haven't heard any of him covering Zeppelin. Please do not link me to that!]

Anyway, yeah, my apologies for coming at this with little knowledge of the Reznor history esp wrt Bowie. Musicians deserve better than to be written off for anything they did after ... 30odd years ago? But they deserve better than to be written off, period. I am not the final arbiter of all or any artistic endeavors. That is for sure.

Also I was hungry.
posted by not_on_display at 10:47 PM on February 6, 2021 [2 favorites]


Bowie sort of had a conversation with Reznor during the Outside tour about Trent's drug use, and it sort of woke Trent up and got him to get off his bad path and onto a good one. And Trent's always credited Bowie with sort of saving him because of that.

Yeah, they have a history. And Yeah, this could have been more adventurous. But also it's been Five Years, and this was originally part of a Bowie tribute concert and the footage has been re-edited to be more video-like, and so maybe he was just missing his friend.

It's a great video, a great example of COVID music production, and Trent's journey isn't for everyone along the way. The nearly free-jazz of THIS ISN'T THE PLACE off the ADD VIOLENCE EP is pretty interesting, but not everyone has made it that far along the years with the whole adventure.
posted by hippybear at 11:14 PM on February 6, 2021 [2 favorites]


I can't find the video online now, but Trent also did a cover of fantastic voyage during this concert that was just stunning. I really wish they'd make the show available for post purchase.
posted by nakedmolerats at 12:22 AM on February 7, 2021 [2 favorites]


This falls short. But it falls short in style. It's great. It's fun. It's a great song. Of course you're going to fall short of fucking David Bowie.
posted by chavenet at 4:06 AM on February 7, 2021 [5 favorites]


This is so faithful to the original that it sounds like a very ept but uninspired cover band—but it brings nothing new.

Maybe some additional context is helpful: This is one of two songs Reznor & Ross appeared on during a larger tribute concert, "A Bowie Celebration: Just For One Day!", driven mostly by Mike Garson, also a close friend of Trent's. This particular performance is more "The Alumni Band + Trent & co" than "Nine Inch Nails interprets a David Bowie song." During the concert, Trent also sung on a stripped down take of Fantastic Voyage with Mike Garson, where as far as I can tell Atticus Ross hit play on the drum machine. Musically not terribly divergent either, but one of the best vocal performances of Trent's. As hippybear said, it was friends paying tribute to a friend.

For something a little more "Nine Inch Nails doing a take on David Bowie," here's a performance of their take on "I Can't Give Everything Away." They recorded this version with Bowie's vocals not long after he passed away, and quietly put it 'out in the wild' as the (farewell mix), but the linked performance is from the live debut at the Panorama Festival in New York in 2017, and I tell you - the festival came close to a hush while they were playing. It still gives me goosebumps to think about it.

This isn't me trying to convert anyone to Nine Inch Nails - we all have varied taste in music - but I will say that calling Trent 'cutting edge' in 1989 and ignoring the influence of The Downward Spiral is overlooking how things really went down. But I think that may be a conversation for another thread!
posted by Leviathant at 8:09 AM on February 7, 2021 [4 favorites]


As another perspective, I'm also an old and I never liked Bowie's "Fashion"-- too poppy, too lightweight. I successfully swiped my older sister's LP of Ziggy, and then bought another later when I'd worn that one out. Also swiped Station to Station, etc. I still dislike 80's Bowie, it sounds so deliberate and contrived, so made for teen radio; no tigers on vaseline anywhere. So I really do like this version of it, even though it's not a favorite song of mine by miles; and thanks to all the comments on Bowie & Reznor relationship. I learn and listen. Thanks for posting.
posted by winesong at 9:31 AM on February 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


I hadn't seen the band lineup before clicking, and I start hearing this angular piano playing, a scurry of outside chords, a slap of atonal tango whorehouse melody, and my ears perk up, "Mike Garson?"

One of my favorite players and elements on David Live, so, thanks for this.
posted by the sobsister at 10:34 AM on February 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


Thanks for all the additional context. I knew a bit about Reznor and Bowie's influence on each other, but didn't realize the depth of their relationship.
Coming at it from the framing of these individuals getting together to "create a new version of" Fashion set the expectation for me that it was going to be a stylistic re-imagining of the song. And it was not that. I think that's where some of us judged it as lacking... it didn't really add anything that justified the effort, it's just a really good cover. But as a tribute, well, that's just what it should be! There's just enough difference to highlight what was great about the song, without making it about the performers. I like it a lot more now, with that context. Thanks!
posted by team lowkey at 11:10 AM on February 7, 2021


Framing of posts is always the most treacherous part of posting to MetaFilter.
posted by hippybear at 11:15 AM on February 7, 2021 [2 favorites]


really diversified from early NIN

Agreed - although, he has been working on movie scores for a very very long time, musical choices and mixing - but, since Ghosts I-IV, his composition work has been top-notch, so I see Soul as an evolution of that...
posted by rozcakj at 11:16 AM on February 7, 2021


Trent's vocals on this are pretty damn good.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 12:54 PM on February 7, 2021


Does anyone not want to slap G. E. Smith everytime you see his mugging face?

Maybe the director told him to ham it up: "[Bowie] needed some weird-looking people for his video."
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:29 PM on February 7, 2021


Hot damn! Thanks for posting this. I was not expecting to enjoy this as much as I did. It was a lot of fun.
posted by rednikki at 2:46 PM on February 7, 2021


Mod note: Folks, no this is not the place to repeat edgy statements about harming women, so if you'd like to repost without that part, drop us a note at the contact form.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:28 PM on February 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


It's an ... okay ... cover of a pretty good song. Honestly, I was expecting something a little more NIN-ish. If you take that expectation off the table though, the production is nicely crisp and professional, making Trent's vocals the weakest part -- he's ... bland. Cover-band bland. It's the kind of song where, if you're going to cover it, you need to own it, and he barely rents it. I can't even tell what part of him this song speaks to.

It reminds me in that regard of the cover of "Like a Virgin" I heard in Trader Joe's yesterday. And that is a very sad comparison to make for a Bowie song.
posted by Quasirandom at 8:35 AM on February 8, 2021 [1 favorite]


« Older Economics For People (w/ Ha-Joon CHANG)   |   Democracy in Action Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments