Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine

You know, i gotta tell you, i'm just so tired of all of it. I'm tired of BH, and Microsoft, and Amazon. I'm tired of the idiotic bipolar politics. I'm tired of the ridiculous notion that corporations are people. I'm tired of dressing up modern mercantilism as some kind of global ambassadorship. I'm tired of listening to people use "the economy" when they mean "the stock market." I'm tired of people blaming each other for shit happening instead of making that shit less painful for everyone. I'm tired of the wealthiest americans acting like they shouldn't have to pay full price like us poor people do. I'm tired of robo-calls and b2b sales. I'm tired of everyone shirking their responsibilities and trying to sell me marketing tips. I'm tired of insurance companies being an investment front instead of the social safety net they were intended to be. I'm tired of tradesmen fighting with urban planners when they have freakin' face to face meetings about it and could easily just cooperate for the betterment of everyone. There's a reason why none of these systems work when you're honest, go ahead and try to guess what it is.....

So, in honor of that tiredness, we'll just fire up the Pretty Hate Machine and let it mangle our souls into nutrient rich organic mulch.

Trent wasn't functioning well in society, and neither does this debut album. The drums are sampled from his own record collection (he planned on recording them with real drums, but in the end they just equalized his samples and ran with it), he intentionally used an E-mu Emax because it sounded terrible,  and didn't put much effort into the vocals. I totally agree with Tom Breihan that this is an Industrial-aware synthpop album. My memory tells me i hate side b compared to the universally acknowledge masterpiece of side a, so we'll have to rum me up/down enough to compensate for that unfair presupposition. And away we go...

NIN really only has one aesthetic goal: make electronic music more human and aggressive. Now, that invariably involves Trent Reznor's actual personal psychology, and that means it comes from the perspective of actually being miserable and feeling existence as a terribly abrasive surface you have to rub your face against, or like a mental brillo pad. If you've ever listened to p(nmi)t's music and thought "geez, this is just so overwhelmingly depressing," that's kind of the same thing. It's real work for us depressive personalities to be functional humans all day. 

Side a is a bit all over the place, but i think you just need to approach it as internal thoughts. More than anything, these are thoughts and ideas you wouldn't say out loud. They can seem juvenile or disorganized or melodramatic because they are. This isn't a "craft" album, it's a completely instinctually slapped together during studio downtime experiment by the 24 year old assistant engineer/janitor. Bart Koster literally said what the hell, it's only costing me a little wear on the tape heads, and the floors do look all shiny and waxy....

Yeah, side b isn't so bad now. You have to let go of the future NIN, accept that they're just making it up without a map or compass. Depeche Mode on rage-o-hol. Semi-directionless agression with a ladle full of hyperbole. It doesn't really sound small or claustrophobic to me, just uncluttered and atmospherically hostile. Not violent or evil, just caustic and snarly. Quite enjoyable actually. I should really listen to it more often. Enjoy the rest if your evening. Tomorrow might turn out to not be horrible.