This is a thread to dicuss philosophy and lyrics of Nine Inch Nails. Personal meaning of songs can also be very interesting. The link below is to an interpretation of the entire The Downward Spiral album. I thought it could be a good start. http://www.4degreez.com/nailz/ninterpretations/downspiral.html I know there are some dedicated fans on the forum, but even people who have never heard of NIN, please join in. I'll provide you with a link to lyrics, so you know what to talk about. http://www.rexer.com/nin/ Hope it gets interesting.
I think that Trent Reznor is a musical genius, but I can't stand his whining. I think the link that you provided is going way over its head. For the most part NIN's lyrics are about how some girl fucked him over, how he hates himself, or how he hates society. Alright this might be oversimplifying it, but I think people read too much into it.
*Looks at Xenu as if he has gone out of his mind* NIN does not whine anymore than Camus or Sartre whines. Anymore than Freddy N whines. Speaks for itself. Power as destruction, rather than power as a creative force. Freddy would call this the lowest form of power. But this isn't about the use or possession of power - of controlling others - it is about the self destructive force that controls the narrator. The song is basically about being controlled by one's urge to destroy onself. About the force that controls the narrator. And....that will do for now. *Sits quietly and waits for ubermich to post something*
I'm not necessarily saying the words themselves are whining, but how he sings them. His actual words have the constant theme of destruction, nihilism. When I was young, this was "wow, that's how I feel", now I'm past that and am ready to create something with my life rather than tear everything apart. I still consider it good music, but can't listen to a lot of it. He does have one song off of fragile (the one hardly anyone likes) that has positive lyrics, "we're in this together": Unfortunately this is one of Trent's least favorite songs, was always unsatisfied with it.
Xenu: "I'm not necessarily saying the words themselves are whining, but how he sings them" ?Explain? "His actual words have the constant theme of destruction, nihilism. When I was young, this was "wow, that's how I feel", now I'm past that and am ready to create something with my life rather than tear everything apart. I still consider it good music, but can't listen to a lot of it." Jesus fuck, though, look at standard music. It's all so bloody cheerful or, if there is any consciousness of pain, it's a "s/he left me and now I am sad s/he is a bitch/son of a bitch and now I am going to whine" If pop covers sex, it's all a "gee, s/he is cute I want to fuck him/her" Or worse, they over-romanticize sex: "when you kiss me I dieeeee" * Can any of it compare to the honesty and simplicity of "Closer" Come on, tell me that the part I've bolded isn't romantic. Certainly better than "you're a woman, I'm a man together we'll do what we can rock me all night baby rock me all night and day" (artist unknown, hopefully in pain somewhere) I mean, if it is drenched in pain, well, hey, another sign of honesty. Love is actually painfull, contrary to what the Backstreet Boys would have us believe. Not that there aren't decent romance songs. There's Xenia's "Heartbeat": Okay, lovely song, upbeat....yet all of Xenia's songs are like that. And note the ending - ahhhh. Either a the context has been lost when she sings it in English or the ending is deliberate. Actually, this is her only romantic song - the rest are simply about sex. Er, from what I can gather, most are in German though. But most romance songs do not even BEGIN to approach Xenia's calibur. *Note to those who have left - you cannot bring a woman to orgasm by kissing her any more than you can do so by holding her. **Okay, so this line annoys me. It's bloody redundant.
Hi Xev, Trent's voice is very whiney to me, that's all. It grates on my nerves if I listen to a lot of it. I'm not even going to try to compare NIN to mainstream pop. In my opinion, he's on a much higher level. However being a hard core critiquer I feel he only writes about one aspect of love, "the love sucks side". Alright, this is his shindig, nihilism, that's what he likes to write about. I respect that. But it bores me too. I hear no progression, just the same theme over and over. So I move on. To contrast this, I'd like to praise the album "69 love songs" by the Magnetic Fields. Every song on the album is about love, but each song is from a different perspective. Sometimes it's the poppy love like you described, or the nihilistic love, or blissful love, or trucker love, or crazy love, etc. 69 different kinds of love. To me it's an amazing piece of work. The boxed set contains a huge interview that details the thought processes of each song. It grows with me, song by song.
*towers into the room. glares menacingly.* I CANT BELIEVE YOU CALL YOURSELF NIN FANS. ONLY XEV HAS HER HEAD ON STRAIGHT. CHRIST. how old are you xenu? and did you ever try to explore nine inch nails? or did you just sit back and think of it as a exercise of wallowing in abject self-pity? because if you did the later, i have no reason to believe that you could ever understand nin. let me say, however, that youre situation reminds me of my sister's. my sister and i are fucking twins. (not really, but we think a lot alike). she was into nin, but she never got beyond the 'oh my god, the world is crushing me, what ever shall i do?' so she dropped it like an old pair of sneakers when her husband brainwashed her into listening to something else. perhaps you made that mistake, but i didnt. nin lives and explains several major continental philosophical theories from nietszche onwards. xenu: *laughs* go listen to the fragile in its entirety buddy. that is not about destruction. xev: youre a genius. let me expound on closer: this really is a masterpiece, both musically and lyrically. the song, to me, reflects the roiling internal conflict mr self-destruct is experiencing as it continues to fester up to his "breakthrough" point. "breakthrough" being the negative connotation, he "breaks through" the power of god/society/emotion and slips into the downward spiral. but that is later. in this song, you see only the incipient destructive forces establishing their foundation within his psyche, and the rudimentary internal conflict between his fantasy to control and his reality of being controlled arises. for those of you who havent figured it out, mr self destruct communicates control/power through sex. its such an apposite metaphor: sex is the most intimate act between two lovers--and also the point at which one is most vulnerable. you can destroy or be destroyed. you are at the mercy of your lover and vice versa. and the beauty of good sex is: its always ambiguous, you never realize whos controlling whom, and this eats at mr self destruct because he needs an absolute affirmation of his power. he uses his lover to satiate his thirst for destruction, but it hurts him to know he is simultaneously a slave to her and to his need for power. to communicate this, reznor effectively creates a duality between the position of 'master' and 'slave' in mr self destruct. you see him fluctuating between these two positions constantly, and as the listener you never know if his efforts at establishing dominancy over his lover have really satisfied his obsession with control. its very ambiguous, and it sets up for ruiner.... but lets take a look at some of the lyrics: "you let me violate you. you let me desecrate you. you let me penetrate you. you let me complicate you...." beautiful. the repition of "you let" emphasizes, to be redundant, the power ambiguity. mr self destruct is doing the violating, the desecrating, the penetrating, the complicating, but shes letting him, and that drives our little friend up the wall. i could go on, but if no one is reading this but xev, then ill relegate that to a personal post. if this thread will be about criticizing/supporting nin so be it. ill argue that as well, i just wont waste my time right now interpreting lyrics...
Xenu: Not nihilism, per se. Nihlism is simply the concept that truth does not really exist. NIN goes WAAAAY deeper than that. But love does suck. The fact is, Trent explores a facet of love that most people either do not feel or miss. It is not simply "love sucks" in a whiney, CW way..."love sucks because she left" it is "love is painfull all the time, even if they do not". And it is. Nothing involving such an exchange of emotions can be anything BUT painfull. Love is painfull by its very nature, and Trent explores this fact very well. ubermich: Exactly. Existentialism, a twee bit of Nihlism, and Nietszche is in a class of his own. They do not really explore the Absurd.... Exactly. While he may superficially control her, he knows that he is as much his slave as she is his. Because she can leave him at any time. That in itself is the sheer beauty and the sheer hell of love - the beloved can withdraw their feelings, withdraw their consent - ANY TIME THEY FUCKING PLEASE. This is part of what makes love as much of agony as joy. And yes, I am being a fucking hypocrite and equating sex with love...but that is also a theme of the song. GENIUS! Really, there is no way that mr.self destruct can ever completely control his partner. He can have her handcuffed and gagged, but she is still in control. Not only because she lets him - ahhh, the power of consent - but because he needs her. He needs her very presence to show control over. Without her, he has no-one to desecrate, penetrate or violate. He needs her and is as much her slave as she is his. *Growls* WHAT HAVE YOU PEOPLE BEEN INHALING? BLEACH?! I really don't see how any philosopher could not adore NIN. Oh don't you people see, it's not a typical whiney "life sucks, then you die" group....it is philosophy in music. Just as Zarathrusra was poetry in philosophy, NIN is philosophy in music. Yet they do not get into "being deep and serious for the sake of being deep and serious" - they simply cannot be otherwise.
Hey! I'm reading! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Lets not make this a pro or contra NIN thread, but a thread about them. I was clear in the first post damnit! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I believe that this is directed at me. I never said I am a NIN fan. I once was. I still like Trent's music, but can now only listen to it in small amounts. This statement only reflects your own maturity level. If it matters to you, I'm a number of years older than you, considering you are a high school senior. Yes the world can suck, relationships will end, the world will close in, blah blah blah. There are a number of reasons to be negative about the world, and a lot of them are expressed in NIN. I'm sure I felt much like you did in High School (considering my empathy towards your viewpoint is somewhat correct). I found it unhealthy, and now embrace both the positive and negative - what I find to be a more mature outlook for myself. A4ever, sorry for hi-jacking your thread. If this continues, I'll take this elsewhere.
A4Ever: Then post an interpretation, or contribute to ubermich and mine - ubermich's and my - how does the grammer work there? Anyhow: Post something. Xenu: Actually, age does matter. One is not the same person at 12 that one is at 33. How is recognizing a simple fact immature? All: Fine, don't post. See if I care. Or take a stab at interpreting:
to xenu: *laughs* ill go ahead and share this with you xenu, because perhaps ill be in your shoes twenty years from now...god i hope not. but i really asked you for your age to insult you, to patronize you (being 17 and having decent argumentative skills you can really make adults feel like shit if theyre not thick-skinned...) nice comeback, however, i must acknowledge. keep it cool, in control, dont let it ever appear that what theyve said insulted you, and subtly turn it back on them with something along the lines 'thats your immaturity talking, young child.' im not saying this to critique you anymore, btw. i just think the interplay between two arguers can be quite funny. oh, and dont think i dont embrace the positive too. im trying, and i of course i realize that life is a two-sided coin--theres good and bad to everything. but you must realize that no one ever intelligently discusses the bad--or the painful--all the music in this world idealizes the brainless good. not that im not happy at times (often bouts of happiness are few and far between) and not that i dont cherish happiness, and (if you truly know what it was like to be my age at one point in your life) if you really believe this to be a phase, then you should NOT be trying to belittle us as pathetic or irrational. you should accept it as a phase, contribute what you have to say in conjunction with the conversation and not against it, and get out. i dont mean to be harsh, im sorry, sir. i just dont see how one can go AWOL from nin. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
NIN was part of my depression music. Part of my self realization music. The music I listened to when I was depressed and going through turmoil and I knew logical answers but couldn't attain them. The band held empathy with me, it seemed. However, after outgrowing that I learnt that depression is the single most illogical emotion man has. A lot of people say that about love but love serves a purpose and brings joy. Depression is just a person mulling over why things are so bad. Eventually, we all grow up and learn that being depressed is just plain useless. If something's horrible and you can't fix it - depression is useless because it won't fix anything. If something's horrible and you can fix it - get out there and fix it, don't be depressed. Since I realized and accepted all this I haven't felt worry, fear or depression. When a girl and I broke up that I absolutely adored I hung up the phone said 'well that's a shame' and picked my guitar back up, pressed pause on the cd player and continued with Come Together. Depression gets you no where. It seems in a lot of NIN music that they've yet to realize that. Or, at least accept it.
I don't think one should overemphasize the depressed part of NIN, cause Trent is not dwelling on that. It's often about rebellion against society and about love. Yes peeps, love, and not the part where the girl ditches you, but a whole lot of other aspects. The fragile: fragile, she doesn't see her beauty,..., I won't let you fall apart. Didn't the hairs just rise on the back of your neck when watching MTV on 9/9/99? Oh yes! Furthermore, the music is about the blending of man and machine, like in the becoming. It is about blind consumerism and the power of the media in Happiness in slavery and march of the pigs. Even the most depressing album (TDS) ends with a clear tone which is the sound of new hope, and not the sound of depression. So it is not fair to look at them as a teenage depression band, when there's so much more in there.
"It is about blind consumerism and the power of the media in Happiness in slavery and march of the pigs." That gets very, very tired after a while. It's one of those trying-to-be-smart topics, consumerism. A topic that's very well known by neo-intellects and everyone reaches pretty much the same conclusion. Remember what Xev said about eminem? About hwo he found a couple things to talk about and then just dwelled on them? Same deal. I think every single musician should be required to take a good hard look at The Beatles, The Who, CSNY, Simon And Garfunkel, The Guess Who, The Rolling Stones and such before they even think about a career in music. Bands seem to spend whatever time they are together now adays dwelling on a small amount of topics. One of the reasons The Beatles are the greatest band ever is that they did such a huge range of music on such a huge range of subjects. From education to war, from love to sexuality, from inner peace to religion, from waking up to taxes, from drugs to leaving drugs.....and everything in between. All of our greatest musicians have spent their life exploring themselves and growing along with their music. I have no to little respect for any band that spends it's career barely changing it's musical style or lyrical message. One of the reasons I respect Green Day's move in music lately is because it is a maturing of their lyrics and sound. I may not like it as much as their old brain-dead stuff, but it shows them finally growing up. And taht I respect.
Tyler: Thread's about interpretation, not critique, buuuuuuut...... Depression gets you through. It's simply an emotion, like any other. They realize this fact. A4Ever: "It is about blind consumerism and the power of the media in Happiness in slavery and march of the pigs." Nooooot exactly: Not so much consumerism or the power of the media - the power of society and its expectations. I just love the way they make the comparison to S and M - top and bottom. The force of society is the master. You and I, of course, are the slaves. One could always submit and give into pure hedonism, one could conform - certainly less painfull than trying to fight it. Worthless protest. The slave knows how utterly fucking useless it is to fight the herd instinct, and is glad that he really can't win. He wants to submit, but some innate human nobility prevents him. His protest is vocal, merely, and he is secretly glad of this. Again, he repeats how fucking wonderfull it would be to give up. Surrender would be much preferable to carrying on a useless fight. We do see a hint of the Absurd here, don't we? The consciousness that the war has been lost, but that the battle must still be fought. For the Absurd man, or warrior, it is not that one loses a battle but wins the war - it is that one can lose the war, but winning the battle is the most important thing. Despair. And again, we consider giving up, submitting to it and letting it control us. If we do, we can find, as the narrator did: The other point of the song, a bit understated, is the way we are controlled by pleasure. For instance, we all know how people lie to themselves, little and big lies that give them pleasure - my wife is beautiful, my children are intelligent, I believe in my God and He will reward me in a life to come.... They often become slaves to these lies - losing control over knowledge is a sure route to slavery - yet they find happiness this way.... Happiness in slavery. Tyler: Actually, NIN is just as versitile as the Beatles. But just as the Beatles are dominated by Pop, NIN is dominated by a sort of - what you might call "darkness". The Beatles have an atmosphere of preppiness and cheeriness - NIN has an atmosphere of sadness and pain.
