Nine Inch Nails

Well, well...what is there to say about Nine Inch Nails that hasn't already been said? Only one thing I suppose...NIN midis work GREAT when used as Doom2 music!

"Pretty Hate Machine"

  1. "Head Like a Hole" (4:59)
  2. "Terrible Lie" (4:38)
  3. "Down in It" (3:46)
  4. "Sanctified" (5:48)
  5. "Something I Can Never Have" (5:54)
  6. "Kinda I Want To" (4:33)
  7. "Sin" (4:06)
  8. "That's What I Get" (4:30)
  9. "The Only Time" (4:47)
  10. "Ringfinger" (5:40)

I don't suppose any of you out there remember the now-defunct Personics system, which allowed you to make your own customized tape of songs at about $1.25 a pop (per song, that is.) They went out of business after a year, but not any thanks to me -- I spent over $500 on that worthless system in the first month alone, by selecting songs at random that I never heard of. One of those happened to be "Sin" by Nine Inch Nails, a band I'd never even heard of at the time (this was in 1990, btw.) Well, I completely forgot about it until years later, after I had become the consummate NIN fan, when I was browsing through my Personics tapes and came across that song! Funny how you sometimes find real gems in a mountain of otherwise worthless shit.

Oh yeah, "Something I Can Never Have" was featured in the movie Natural Born Killers, it worked quite well I think. And speaking of movie songs, NIN has also done "Perfect Drug" for Lost Highway, and "Dead Souls" for The Crow.

"Sin" (CD single)

  1. "Sin"--Long (5:50)
  2. "Sin"--Dub (4:56)
  3. "Get Down, Make Love" (4:17)
  4. "Sin"--Short (4:19)

I could care less about industrial remixes, the only reason I bought this was for the Queen song "Get Down, Make Love". Wasn't as exciting as I expected.

"Broken" (EP)

  1. "Pinion"--instrumental (1:02)
  2. "Wish" (3:46)
  3. "Last" (4:44)
  4. "Help Me I Am in Hell" (1:56)
  5. "Happiness in Slavery" (5:21)
  6. "Gave Up" (4:08)
  7. "Physical (You're So)" (5:29)--track #98, unlisted
  8. "Suck" (5:07)--track #99, unlisted

A fairly good EP released as a "teaser" prior to The Downward Spiral. Maybe it's just me, but I really get PISSED off when CDs contain "hidden" tracks at the end of a CD with some 92 empty tracks in between! Why? Try playing this CD on shuffle play and you'll see why! Oh yeah, "Physical" is an Adam Ant song.

"Fixed" (EP)

  1. "Gave Up"--remix (5:15)
  2. "Wish"--remix (9:10)
  3. "Happiness in Slavery"--remix (6:08)
  4. "Throw This Away" (4:14)
  5. "Fist Fuck" (7:20)
  6. "Screaming Slave" (8:02)

I didn't realize this was merely a collection of remixes from Broken, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bought it. However, the "Wish" remix actually sounds pretty cool, with a thunderous drum overture at the beginning.

"The Downward Spiral"

  1. "Mr. Self Destruct" (4:30)
  2. "Piggy" (4:24)
  3. "Heresy" (3:54)
  4. "March of the Pigs" (2:58)
  5. "Closer" (6:13)
  6. "Ruiner" (4:58)
  7. "The Becoming" (5:31)
  8. "I Do Not Want This" (5:41)
  9. "Big Man with a Gun" (1:36)
  10. "A Warm Place"--instrumental (3:22)
  11. "Eraser" (4:53)
  12. "Reptile" (6:52)
  13. "The Downward Spiral" (3:56)
  14. "Hurt" (6:13)

Ah, now this is classic material. If any industrial CD ever reached true perfection, this is it! Fantastic music, raw and brutal, a real speaker-punisher! How could you not love the lyrics to "Closer": "I want to FUCK you like an animal"...or, even better, "Heresy": "GOD IS DEAD and NO ONE CARES!!!" The final songs get really trippy, especially on "Downward Spiral", which is full of weird, distorted guitar sounds (in fact, if you were listening to it on cassette, you would think for sure that the stereo was mangling the tape...)

"Closer to God" (single)

  1. "Closer to God" (5:05)
  2. "Closer (precursor)" (7:16)
  3. "Closer (deviation)" (6:15)
  4. "Heresy (Blind)" (5:32)
  5. "Memorabilia" (7:21)
  6. "Closer (internal)" (4:15)
  7. "March of the Fuckheads" (4:43)
  8. "Closer (further away)" (5:45)
  9. "Closer" (6:26)

Oh God, FIVE worthless remixes of "Closer" on this CD single...well, the first track ("Closer to God") does a cool fast-rock take on the song, although it ends with a hideous crackling noise guaranteed to blow out your eardrums! (To say nothing of your speakers--I HIGHLY recommend skipping the last 15 seconds of that track, or at least turning the volume WAY down...) Sole reason I bought it was for "Memorabilia", a Soft Cell song.

"The Fragile"

    disc one:
  1. "Somewhat Damaged" (4:31)
  2. "The Day the World Went Away" (4:33)
  3. "The Frail"--instrumental (1:54)
  4. "The Wretched" (5:25)
  5. "We're in this Together" (7:16)
  6. "The Fragile" (4:35)
  7. "Just Like You Imagined" --instrumental (3:49)
  8. "Even Deeper" (5:47)
  9. "Pilgrimage"--instrumental (3:31)
  10. "No, You Don't" (3:35)
  11. "La Mer" (4:37)
  12. "The Great Below" (5:19)
    disc two:
  1. "The Way Out is Through" (4:17)
  2. "Into the Void" (4:49)
  3. "Where is Everybody?" (5:40)
  4. "The Mark Has Been Made"--instrumental (5:15)
  5. "Please" (3:30)
  6. "Starfuckers, Inc." (5:00)
  7. "Complication"--instrumental (2:30)
  8. "I'm Looking Forward to Joining You, Finally" (4:13)
  9. "The Big Come Down" (4:12)
  10. "Underneath it All" (2:46)
  11. "Ripe (with Decay)"--instrumental (6:36)

AT LAST, after five long years, the new NIN CD is here! And it's a double CD, too!! But wait...something is wrong here. Sure, it's noisy and industrious, with heavily distorted guitars and screaming vocals which are all the NIN trademark. It took a few listens before I realized what was missing...the hooks! Nothing here is NEARLY as catchy & listenable as such previous songs like "Head Like a Hole", "Sin", "Last", "Heresy", "Closer", "Ruiner", etc. etc. In fact, not a single song stands out from the rest amidst the noise. It's not a BAD album, I suppose, but it's definitely a TEDIOUS one, and almost impossible to listen to all the way through, and probably the biggest disappointment of 1999. Sigh. :(

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