Nine Inch Nails' "Pretty Hate Machine" (1989)

My first entry in Discography Rediscovered is the album that inspired me to write this series. To begin with, Pretty Hate Machine was pretty much my favorite album growing up as a teenager. It's electronic beats fueled my teenage "no-one-understands-me" years. This album had all a teenager could ask for, anti-establishment messages, angst-ridden rants, longing-for-love ballads, and plenty of pent-up sexual frustration.

Nine Inch Nails (NIN) is basically the stage name for Trent Reznor. The All Music Guide says that Nine Inch Nails (or the lower case 'nine inch nails' as most fans prefer) was the most successful industrial group of all time. Pretty Hate Machine was Reznor's first album. The story goes that Reznor was working as a janitor at a recording studio and would use the space to record the album in his free time. According to Wikipedia Reznor was inspired by Prince, deciding to play almost all the instruments himself (coincidentally Reznor has a brief cameo as one of the bands in the film Purple Rain). After shopping around his creation he signed with TVT Records and went on to release the album.

And boy oh boy, as a (former) long time fan of NIN I will argue with anyone that Pretty Hate Machine is their best album. For a first album it's an amazing bit of work. All of the songs work, their order is impeccable, and the whole thing is short enough that it's easily listened to all the way through and doesn't bore the listener.

Ok, so listening to it now I realize how much the content of the lyrics don't really resonate with me anymore. Trent Reznor has always played the moody, misunderstood, love-scorned teenager to perfection. It's weird to think he was in his early twenties when he wrote this thing because by the time I was that age I was definitely out of my teenage angst phase, but Reznor continued with this shtick at least through 1999's The Fragile, which is the last album of NIN that I gave a real listen to.

That the songs are little angst-ridden pieces for lonely teenagers does not at all however prevent my continued enjoyment of this album. Like I said, every song is crafted so well. Reznor has a remarkable ear for production, each note, each beat, each industrial blast of noise, even the delivery of the lyrics, are all so pitch perfect. This attention to detail would later catch up with Reznor, holding back the release of The Fragile for several years as Reznor was reportedly a utmost perfectionist who would spend hours working just to get one little sound right.

Let's get into the actual music, shall we? Pretty Hate Machine starts off with one of NIN's most enduringly popular songs, Head Like a Hole. This is the song that pretty much gave NIN a following. I'll just quote AMG's review of the song:

Although the song was a ranting diatribe against corporate and commercial greed, "Head Like a Hole" wasn't really a political critique; the song didn't revolve around carefully considered ideas as much as the force and drama with which Reznor expressed himself. His frothing invective against "god money" was delivered with a barely articulate rage -- growling, wailing, snarling, gnashing his teeth -- that made the song into grand theater. Plus, his backing music was immaculately crafted and produced, driven by a deliberate synthesizer bass riff and overlaid with various sound effects and treated guitars.

Yeah, that's basically it. It's an energetic piece that sets the tone for Reznor's style, showing how he takes the sound of industrial and fits it into the familiar verse-chorus song structure of popular music. Though this song is great, I find that I rarely listen to it, instead opting for some of the other, lesser known tracks on the album.

The second track is Terrible Lie, a mid-tempo accusation against a former lover for her 'terrible lie'. I want to stop here for a moment and mention that one thing I've always enjoyed in an album is when it creates a good flow. I especially love when songs flow from one into the other (one reason I love The Wall so much). Reznor is quite good at this - Head Like a Hole basically bleeds into Terrible Lie. This happens several times on this album, and is present even more in his later works. I'm not sure what about it that makes me enjoy it so much, maybe it's the feeling that the album was meant as a deliberate journey, not just a set of unassociated songs. Anyways, Reznor employs this effect well here and it's one of the reasons I enjoy the album as much as I do.

The third track is Down In It, perhaps the most ambitious song on the album. Looking for a late 80's industrial-pop song that utilizes elements of rap? Look no further! I'm not sure what Reznor was thinking, but it's a great little song that somehow uses a rap/rant structure that references nursery rhymes and children's sayings. And I think it's about drug use.

After this the album begins it's gloomy descent into Reznor's (supposedly) tortured psyche. Sanctified is a slow, moody piece with Reznor basically talking about how he feels that he will be, ahem, sanctified when he, uh, gets inside a woman. It works well in the album. After the energy of the first three songs it brings the energy down, setting up the mood for the album's gloomiest piece (which it deftly flows into without a pause).

Something I Can Never Have was the ballad for my teenage self. A slow piano plays as Reznor sings of some love he can never have. Oh man, it's dripping in full-on teenage "no-one-feels-like-me" depression. His delivery is spot on too. And to top it off it his use of the word "fucking" in the final verse made the song so that we couldn't play it in front of our parents or in public, giving the song a certain mystique that required us to be alone when listening to it, further adding to the drama and the depression (back to his delivery: I love how his voice is nearly cracking as he sings the final chorus, brilliant).

Kinda I Want To is one of the album's only weak points, but it works to bring the energy back, which is quite a feat after the previous song.

This is followed by Sin. It's an interesting enough song, but what I like about it is how it demonstrates Reznor's ear for production. I love the placement of all the sounds, especially with the opening and closing 'whooshes'. Plus the single for this song utilized one of the most interesting fonts I've ever seen (it reads 'sin').

I personally enjoy That's What I Get but it's again not the most necessary song and could be excised from the album without too much change.

After all this angsty depression and scorn can Reznor do something with some humor? Yes, yes he can. The Only Time is the album's only piece with a smidgen of humor. I love the opening lines:

I'm drunk and right now I'm so in love with you

And I don't want to think to much about what we should or shouldn't do

Lay my hands on heaven and the sun and the moon and the stars

while the devil wants to fuck me in the back of his car

Nothing quite like the feel of something new

I love the lyrics, the little bass guitar, and just the whole vibe of this song.

Finally, the album ends with Ringfinger. As a teenage this was my least favorite song, mainly because we all thought it sounded like disco. As an adult now I have a very different feeling, I really enjoy it and don't think at all that it sounds like disco. I also like how it devolves into a bunch of industrial noise which closes out the album.

I also want to stop and mention another album here. I recently got my hands on a digital copy of Purest Feeling. This is an unofficial NIN album that counts as a bootleg more than anything else. It's a demo version of Pretty Hate Machine and for any fan of NIN I highly recommend it. Not only is it a rough cut of PHM but it contains lyrics and even a pair of songs that never made it on to PHM. It's like discovering that there's an alternate version of your favorite album, complete with new songs, plus it's arguably a bit happier in tone. There's a different order to the songs, some of the staples don't make it (Head Like a Hole), and the audio quality of it sounds like Trent is performing live in front of you in the studio. It also relies heavily on sound samples, most notably from American Graffiti. The song Ringfinger here is called 'Twist' and instead of a song about commitment it's now about S&M bondage. Take a listen to Twist here, and the never released song Maybe Just Once here.

So what I have I rediscovered? Obviously I think the album is still fantastic. It doesn't sound dated and is still easily listenable. My only problem with it is that the lyrics don't speak to me anymore, they're just too dramatic and full of some sort of angst I just don't have anymore. It's a great album for a teenager, better than that Linkin Park those kids nowadays listen to (though if I were a teenager now I'd probably be listening to Linkin Park too). That's it for me this time, I'll (hopefully) be back later. After all, there's a whole closet of albums waiting to be rediscovered.

Discography Rediscovered

Now that my final semester of school is wrapping up and I've got some more time I thought I'd inaugurate my return of leave with a new series. In "Discography Rediscovered" I'll be dipping into my music catalog and highlighting select albums that I used to listen to much more. Some of these albums may have stood the test of time, others might be silly or just plain bad. And be forewarned: Most of my teenage years were spent listening to 90's industrial and alternative rock.

I was taking a listen lately to some albums I used to listen to in high school and was contemplating my teenage-self's musical tastes. One thing I've noticed is that I find most of these albums are still damn good. I'm not sure if that's due to me having liked them previously or if these albums are actually good. Regardless, I'll point out some of my old favorites and see how they fly. First post in the series coming soon!

The Social Network (Fincher)

I am not on Facebook. I still have yet to be convinced I ought to join Facebook. But I really liked watching a movie about Facebook. And if anything, The Social Network reaffirmed my opinion of Facebook. Just because David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin decided to make a movie about Facebook doesn't mean that they think Facebook is some amazing internet invention either. In fact, I would wager that they share the same opinion of Facebook as I do. They've made a movie about Facebook that's more interesting than Facebook itself.

I mean what's the big deal? So some guy created a website, and everybody started using it, and he made a ton of money, but what did he do really? Did he really make a difference in this world? Did he make people happier? Did he make himself happier?

Good question. I think he was trying. A lot of people might watch this movie and think, "Wow, that Mark Zuckerberg guy's an asshole; I'm glad I'm not as much of an asshole as he is." Does it make me an asshole if I say I kind of related to him? I mean, I could understand why he thought it was OK to be such an asshole. He wasn't an asshole because he enjoyed it. He was an asshole because he was a talented guy trying to do big things, and he didn't really have the patience to deal with all these not-as-talented people getting in his way. Of course, you can do big things and deal with not-as-talented people and still not be an asshole. But that sort of takes all the fun out of it.

Indeed, I'm not sure who came off well and who came off poorly here. Sure, Zuckerberg was an asshole, but at least he wasn't an elitist, snobby asshole like the Winklevoss twins, or a fast-talking sleazeball asshole like Sean Parker. The character who came off least like an asshole was probably Eduardo Saverin, but aside from putting up some early cash, I'm not exactly sure what he did. In fact, I'm not exactly sure what Mark Zuckerberg did. How was Facebook any more impressive than MySpace, or Hot Or Not? Now Napster I can understand: that was impressive. But maybe a movie about Napster wouldn't have been as interesting. Maybe it would have only starred one guy.

Anyways. What a relief to watch a movie where the characters are all incredibly intelligent and ambitious and the filmmakers aren't expecting John Q. Public to understand every single word they say. As Dana Stevens wrote in her Slate review, "Please stop throwing flaming robot cars at me, then asking for an Oscar. Just give some money to some smart people with something to say and let them make a movie." The Social Network was a box office hit. See, Hollywood? It can be done.

Film critic rating: ****
Little Earl rating: ****

Take That, Olivia Newton-John!

ELO + Olivia Newton-John + Roller Skates = The Most 70s Thing Ever?

Some Of My Favorite Creations From McCovey Chronicles

The Giants Win The Pennant! The Giants Win The Pennant!

Yes, a baseball post. Although I would like to point out that for the last couple years or so, I've successfully refrained from writing long and involved posts about baseball - and lord knows I've been tempted. But allow me this one indulgence. Actually, this post isn't really going to be very long. Mainly I just wanted to say:

THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!

If you honestly care to read more, I would recommend a terrific Giants blog called McCovey Chronicles. Their main writer, a fellow named Grant, has produced some of the sharpest, funniest writing I've seen anywhere on the internet, sports or otherwise. The fans who post comments all share the same goofy, sarcastic attitude, and I must have spent at least several eons of my life simply reading those long, crazy threads and smiling (their skill with Photoshop alone never ceases to amaze me). It also helps when your local baseball team features players with nicknames such as The Freak, B-Wheezy, Kung-Fu Panda, Huff Daddy, Jazz Hands, and Dirty Sanchez. And no Barry Bonds. I didn't think I could like a team more than I liked the 2008 Milwaukee Brewers. I was wrong.

Rangers in 4.

Rock Formations That Resemble Human Beings

I was reading about New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountain (an anthropomorphic rock formation that crumbled several years ago and no longer exists) on Wikipedia when my eye wandered toward a link titled "List of rock formations that resemble human beings." "Well," I said to myself, "clearly I must click on this." It was thus how I discovered Hong Kong's Amah Rock, Scotland's Old Man of Hoy, and Israel's Lot's Wife. The article lists a number of mountains in the United States which are said to "resemble a reclining man." Resemble a reclining man? Can you say "Lame"? At least Massachusetts' Mother Ann is said to "resemble a reclining woman." Much better is Thailand's Ko Samui, "a rock pillar and a nearby cleft that resemble male and female human genitalia." Along those same lines, Oregon's Rooster Rock "resembles erect human male genitalia." Sadly it has not retained its original name of Cock Rock, a term now more commonly used to refer to musical artists such as AC/DC or Guns 'N' Roses. And finally, who can forget The Grand Tetons?

Dear God, Not China-Norway Relations!

From Slate:

The Nobel committee has awarded the Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese writer and dissident who's currently serving an 11-year jail term for "inciting the subversion of state power." Liu has spent the past two decades in and out of jail for his opposition to China's authoritarian government, negotiating the peaceful withdrawal of students during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, and helping pen a reformist manifesto that most recently landed him behind bars in 2008 ... As of Friday, the prize earned only a brief mention on the English version of Xinhua, China's state news agency: "Awarding Liu Xiaobo Nobel peace prize may harm China-Norway relations, says FM spokesman."

My God! Not China-Norway relations! How will we be able to solve the most pressing issues of our time without a harmonious Chinese-Norwegian alliance? Where is Norway going to get its toys? Where is China going to get its ... Norwegian wood?

I Know Who "Anonymous" Was!

So remember how I was talking about reading that article in Rolling Stone (about Roger Waters' upcoming tour of The Wall) in a store for free? And apparently that makes me a useless prick? Well guess what. I did read that article for free, but not in a store. Oh no. I read it in a library. You ever heard of a library? That's right, I read an article in a library for free, and I'm destroying culture as we know it.

Anyway. In that very same issue of Rolling Stone, there was an article by U2's manager, Paul McGuinness, called "How To Save The Music Industry" (Here's the slightly expanded version from GQ magazine). Ladies and gentlemen, I think I know who "Anonymous" was: U2's manager! He was searching the web, looking for comments about his article, and BOOM!, he stumbled upon Cosmic American Blog and thought he'd give me a piece of his mind.

Well, I don't know what to tell you Mr. McGuinness. You're frustrated. I understand. But I think you're barking up the wrong tree. I'm just a random insignificant blogger.

At any rate, your comments got me thinking. You ask me, "Do you expect to get paid for whatever it is you do for a living?" The irony of this statement may not have been intended. In order to make a living, I need to get paid. It's not actually possible to do something 'for a living' and not receive monetary compensation for it, essentially by definition. But I'm just being a smart-ass here. The question is: do people deserve to 'make a living' as artists?

I'm not sure. In our society we essentially pay people to do the things they would not otherwise want to do. People don't want to ride around in a garbage truck and collect everybody's garbage for fun. So we pay people to do that. People don't want to prepare dead corpses for burial. So we pay people to do that. Creating art is a very fun thing to do. Should we be paying people to do that?

Let's use this blog as an example. Would I like to get paid for writing a blog? Sure. Do I deserve to get paid for writing a blog? Probably not. It depends on what kind of blog. If it was a really good and really popular blog, maybe so. But for me, writing is not a question of money so much as it is a question of time. If I were able to make a living doing something other than writing, and I still had time to do all the writing I wanted to do, and I was able to find a large audience for that writing, then I'm not sure I would have a problem with that. But if society as a whole deemed my writing interesting, but because I had to make my living in another fashion I was not able to find the time to write, then that might be a problem. The question is: how badly would people want to read my writing? If society would suffer as a result of me not being able to write, then somebody with money would have to come along and say, "Hey, Little Earl, here's some money so you can write." Otherwise, who cares?

The title of your article "How To Save The Music Industry" raises an interesting question in itself: does the music industry need "saving"? To ask "how to save the music industry" might be a bit like someone in 1900 asking "how to save the telegraph industry."

Once upon a time, there was no music industry. Then there developed a need for a music industry, because there was a certain amount of technology that was needed in order to make a record, and ordinary people could not afford such equipment on their own. You needed money for a studio, for a recording console, for microphones, and ultimately for the physical pressing of the records themselves. All this is cheap now. Any college kid in his dorm room can record a song onto his computer and turn it into a music file. Should he make money doing it?

See, you've got me all wrong Mr McGuinness. Not that I really care what you think of me, but I definitely take the moral quandaries of downloading seriously. For example, see here, here, and here. Allow me to describe some further examples to you.

I wanted to download a copy of The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs, but I realized that if I did so, Stephen Merritt would not receive any of my money and would not receive any of my support, which I felt he deserved. I went to Amoeba and, although there were actually several used copies of 69 Love Songs in the store, I purchased a brand new copy, because I knew that even if I bought a used copy, Merritt would not receive any of the proceeds. The Magnetic Fields were a currently active band that wasn't about to hit platinum status - exactly the kind of band that stands to suffer from free downloading. I paid more than I had to pay in order to make sure they received some monetary compensation. But apparently, I'm a prick.

When the White Stripes released Icky Thump in 2007, I wanted to hear it, but I didn't feel right about simply downloading it for free. Instead, I didn't listen to it at all, and now it's three years later and I still haven't listened to it. Do you see a problem here? Either I listen to the album for free, or I feel so awkward about it that I don't even listen to the album at all. Sure, if you're the White Stripes, you'd rather I listen to the album and pay for it. But if the choice was between your audience listening to the album for free, or your audience not listening to it at all, which would you prefer?

You tell me I'm "stealing." I'll tell you what stealing is. Stealing is walking into a store which sells merchandise and has a cash register. You grab a CD from the store, you stuff it into your jacket and you run past the cash register and out the door. That's stealing. When I download music files from the internet, what am I stealing? Not an actual "thing" like a CD. I'm downloading a low-quality copy of a file from someone else's computer. I'm not saying it's ideal. I would agree that it's similar enough to an actual commercial CD to prevent me from buying the CD copy. But it's not stealing. It's something in between. I don't think I'm "cool" because I do it. My intention is not to "brag." But I do it. I do it because it's over.

It's over people. If you want to make a living by releasing recorded music, it's over. Am I "destroying culture as we know it"? Maybe culture just ebbs and flows and no one is really to blame. Maybe the period of creation is over, but the period of appreciation has begun.

I was chatting with Yoggoth on this topic. We were talking about the original purpose of copyright law. Copyright law was designed to give artists the incentive to create, so that their work would benefit society. Copyright law was not designed for 60-year-old rock stars so that they could continue making money off their 40-year-old recordings. Ultimately copyright law was meant to serve society. He said, "I really don't see how it serves society and encourages creativity to have Bob Dylan making money off recordings that are 40 years old."

Besides, is downloading genuinely preventing musicians from making a living? Yoggoth was skeptical. "If you want to make a living as a musician, you can still tour and you'll be fine. You won't be able to afford a limo and a mansion, but you'll be able to pay the bills." The day a talented musician writes a post on his blog that says, "I'm glad you guys like my music, but I can't afford my instruments, so I'm going to be a substitute teacher now and I'm not going to be able to make music anymore," is the day I might actually be concerned.

Maybe rich rock stars are not something we really need anymore - or even semi-rich rock stars. My point is that we shouldn't try to create a system where a certain group of people make lots of money just because they "used to." It's got to make sense in the here and now. Sure, the internet has destroyed the music industry. It's also destroyed newspapers, the postal service, and a million other industries I can't even name. But it's also created a million other brand new industries. If you're smart and entrepreneurial, you'll figure out a way to make money by providing something that people can't otherwise find for free. The world changes.

Sorry.