The following response is by me-
I'm sorry, but I don't see NIN as a feelingless profit machine. Sure, anyone would love to profit from their hard work. But by no means is Reznor more concerned with cash than with his music. Of course he's making money..he deserves it. I'll quote Tool (Hooker With a Penis)- "All you know about me is what I sold you, dumb fuck. I sold out long before you ever even heard my name. I sold my soul to make a record, dipshit..and you bought one". I doubt the artists care what people think of them, as Tool has expressed many times. Music is art, and the artists owe no explanations. Art evokes feelings within people..as Nine Inch Nails clearly does. Art is to be discussed. As for the personal attack on my site.. This site is concerned with the fans themselves, more than anything else.. the reasons why NIN is important to them. If NIN isn't important to you, click here now, and leave this site..because, why the hell are you even here?
And also.. Pretty Hate Machine was extremely popular. Trent once said he could write 10 more Head Like a Hole's, but there's nothing new or innovative about that. He went on to write Broken, a harsh "wall of noise", that many critics called "unlistenable". Then came The Downward Spiral, with dark, dissonant suicidal themes. How could he know that these albums would've sold millions, when, as the critics said, they should've ended his career?
"Music" is such a broadly defined term - all different types of noise are
regularly lumped together in the large amalgamation termed "music." Some types
of music serve to express an artist's deepest emotional feelings. Other types
of music are intended to be used as a rhythmic thumping background for types
of dances. I do not feel any one type or function of music is really any more
valid than another, contrary to what many classical and punk rock "snobs" alike
would proclaim. Furthermore, much music does not fall cleanly into neat
categories. How music affects an individual is solely an individual choice, and
no choice is better or worse than another's. People enjoy NIN for as many
different reasons as there are people. If a person listens to NIN because of
its aggresive, industrial dance beats, then so be it. It is music. If a person
can glean a poetic meaning from Trent's lyrics underneath the noise, so be it.
It is still music. If a man beats on pots and pans to create a good
dance beat, it's music. Should I dismiss it even if he did not mean to create
an ambient dance beat? No. Dance. If a man beats on pots and pans because he
thinks it sounds good, it's still music. If a man beats on pots and pans to express a
certain emotion, it's still music. Even if he did not intentionally try to
express a certain emotion, and I somehow can extract a meaning from the racket,
should I dismiss them? No. I have found something in this universe which
quantifies and expresses something so very intrinsically nonquantifiable.
Danica wishes to attack those who attempt to place different meanings to music
than she has. I am not criticizing the specific way in which she enjoys music,
only her dismissal of any other meaning which people receive from music that differs
from her own as invalid. In doing so she is only denying, destroying a part of
the very music which she claims to love.
Sorry if that was drawn out but to me, music is one of the most influential, beautiful,
infinitely faceted things man can create and should be treated with an open mind.
-Nicholas
Danica...Does the world where you live have a sun? I honestly hope not... I try everyday to pull myself into the sun but I always seem to be dragged back by the econo-frenzied peasants that inhabit this shabby little planet... You see everything in a -give to me- light and I'll bet you find a way to crawl into the sun every day... Art helps me to see that others are like me. NIN is art, not your corporate machine... maybe one day the sun will shine on me and I will see that you give up something...
-CHARON
I am an artist myself, and I know what it's like to create something. First off, I don't do what I do for money, I do earn I profit though, but hey, I need to live, right? But that's not the only the reason I do it. Sometimes I do it to get an emotion out, e.g., if I'm angry, I'll paint something cruel and evil on a canvas; my deeper emotions, then look at it and say, "did I do that? Was that me? Is this who I am inside?" Sometimes I put down what I have on a mind, e.g. a disturbing dream, I'll spend a while painting it to get a better picture. Or if I see something wonderful, I'll render it in sculpture. People come into my apartment, they see it, they like it. Now, am I a "Sell-out"? Am I a "Guby money hungry merchant"? No, I worked long and hard on them. I'm not telling people how to see them. I don't have what they mean written down on card next to them; some people see them as junk, others like the way they look, and some see a deep inner meaning. This is just like NIN and all music in general. If I sell one, hell, them it becomes someone elses, it's free to be whatever they want it to be.
The fact is, Reznor works long and hard on his albums (no NIN fan can deny that.) And his music/sound is always excellent (no NIN fan can deny that, either.) It's not just a load of crap thrown together to make a profit. Sure, Reznor may be well off, but does that mean he has no emotions? Does that mean he is happy? No matter how well off you are, their will always be something that bugs you, something that gnaws at you, something that you hate, and I think he expresses this in his songs. This is the perfect way to get your point across.
And in closing (whew, sorry this is so long...) I would like to ensure that NIN DOES have meaning to it. Sure not all songs have meaning (e.g. Big Man With A Gun is a mock of Gangsta Rap, and Pinion is pointless) But the ones that do far outweigh those that don't. And the magnitude of one may be greater than another. If you can't find a meaning in them, then I'm afraid that you are shamefully blind.
Anyone who says Trent Reznor feels nothing when it comes to his songs, must obviously be living under a rock. Have you seen him in concert, read interviews, even just taken a long hard look at the man? This man is one cluster of emotions, and each song is a release. Everyone of his songs has a meaning deeper than any idiot like Danica could even begin to fathom. To feel nothing, is to know nothing. We feel what he says, because we have lived it as well; we can identify. In concert, Trent Reznor is not putting on a show, this is his time to let go of these emotions, and throw them out to us in tortured screams and languid jerks of his body, reminicent of throws of anguish and pain. Just his voice alone could fill novels of sadness, regret. I'm not saying everything the man says has meaning, but he is the closest thing we have to a modern day philosopher. The words interact with each melody so beautifully, mixing pleasure with pain, and we who believe in him and what he stands for can feel them, as if he were quietly whispering each lyric into our brain, and that is truly the work of a genius.
Alright. I understand all sides of this debate. Yes, I'm sure Trent wrote these songs to make a profit off of the Generation X'ers. He did this because he could, and because he knows we relate to it. Depression is a trend, kids dress in all black and talk about death now because it's what alot of people do. Trent knows this, and writes songs that kids think are, quote, cool. On the other hand he is obviously writing these songs because they have meaning to him. He has said this time and time again. "I write these songs because they help me focus on life, but i really don't give a fuck if people understand them, and truly I don't care." This quote sums up my feelings, people should spend less time focusing on what we'll never know and listen to the music. if the song has special significance to you, good, i'm glad, but unless Trent starts telling us what they actually mean, I don't think we should spend our time trying to figure it out.
Ok, not to beat the bush or anything (there are some good thoughts there) I would have to agree. All music has a personal feeling from the song writer, you can't just flip out a song without thinking about it first. NIN not only has meaning in their (his) songs but you also gather your own personal feelings from it. Like I listen to NIN alot, and if a certain thing happens to me while listening to one of his songs, then everytime I hear that song I think of that situation. I feel sorry for you that you think NIN songs don't have any meaning. The Broken alblum was overflowing with emotions, hatered for corporate america, and the fact that TVT was trying to control his thoughts, control who he was, and in fact trying to control him. Another thing that angered me is that D M C thought that pinion was a useless song, look up the word pinon in the dictionary, that song is not useless, its almost like an opener for the whole broken alblum, an insight on what it is about.
As an artist and amateur poet, I realize that my although I may not have intended a particular meaning in something I've written or painted, it isn't necessarily wrong because someone else sees it before I do. For example, once I wrote a poem that was intended to be a rape fantasy. However, when people read it, they saw alternative meanings. Some thought it was a metaphor for something that actually happened to me, that I felt corrupted and helpless to "fix" myself, or that I was angry at the lies I was told about God. Reflecting back on the time in which I wrote the poem, all of these meanings could easily be "true". Fantasies, like dreams, reflect reality to some extent. Even if someone is totally off the mark, like saying I wrote it while tripping on acid, it doesn't matter. If they experienced some sort of hallucination that resembled my poem while they were tripping, then obviously that's the interpretation that means the most to them. I do not believe that any serious artist writes about things that have no effect on their life, and no NIN fan would deny that Trent Reznor is a serious artist.
-anonymous
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