I saw NIN open for Bowie on the Earthling Tour. During NINs last song, NIN members left the stage one by one to be replaced one by one by a Bowie band member. Trent was the last to leave, David was the last to enter. Pretty Hate Machine and Downward Spiral are epic and legendary.
NIN were support on the US leg of Bowie’s Outside tour which was subtitled Dissonance, as it formed part of the Self Destruct Tour. NIN opened for Bowie from 14th Sept 1995 - 31st Oct 1995. NIN played an 11 song set, ending with an instrumental version of Eraser, before transitioning into Subterraneans. NIN would then perform an additional 5 songs with Bowie, before leaving the stage. The Earthling tour ran from June to November 1997.
I had similar influences from NIN and Tool. I'd throw Fugazi in there as well for myself. Just totally changed my perception of what was possible and what I enjoyed.
Justin, I'm wondering if you've heard NIN's cover of QUEEN'S "Get Down Make Love" ? It was originally released as a b-side on their single for "Sin." But I'm sure you can find it here on YT.
Nine Inch Nails are one of those bands that sound great on their albums, but seeing them live is an unbelievable experience. Even when they are a complete trainwreck like at Woodstock '94 they're still amazing. The energy and passion they put into their live shows is something you rarely see these days.
Regarding scifi / dystopian themes in NiN music; don't forget that the sound clip at the beginning of Mr Self Destruct was sampled from the movie THX 1138.
Getting to see A Perfect Circle open for NIN on their last American date in 2000 was insane. Even with our terrible seats at the Pepsi center in Denver both bands killed their sets.
yes. hoping if all you fellow NIN fans haven't seen it, you'll enjoy this stripped back live Piano and guitar version of Something I can never have:ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UEW8riKU_tE.html
I don't know anything about recording techniques, but what you said about Broken sounding extremely, almost bizarrely loud, has definitely always stood out to me. I remember switching the CD in during road trips and it would almost startle me how the album just went off like a hand grenade in your face. In a good way!
A lot of compression I suspect. A lot of artists and producers used compression in mixing down their albums in the 90's because, to put it simply, it made everything louder. A lot of albums from that era sound HUGE in your car or room. Add to that it was Trent who was doing his own mixing, and you will get an album that doubles as a demolition device.
I didn't discover NIN until much later. I listen to music on spotify mostly and whenever broken came on I found myself always having to turn the volume up! I thought the production was really thin. Now I'm learning that spotify must do some auto-adjusting because the record is so much louder than the average one. Sad that I discovered the album this way.
@@herecomesaregular8418 they called them the loudness wars. My bloody valentine is almost then opposite. No matter how loud you turn it up. Its never loud enough to hear that detail you want!
For those early albums he used a lot of digital effects and used a synth program on his computer for added effect and I think they recorded it faster and then slowed the tape down
I remember in '89 seeing other kids drawing the Nine Inch Nails symbol onto their folders and back packs in grade school. Didn't know who it was at the time but later that week caught 120 Minutes on MTV and saw the HLAH video. Was completely blown away by it (loved the bassline). Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Nitzer Ebb, and Depeche Mode had been my jam and it seemed like Trent took the best of these groups and made a perfect album with Pretty Hate Machine. Seen him many times live since then (inc. with Bowie and Numan) and he never disappoints.
I don't think I have listened to a single NIN album that I didn't enjoy even a little bit. They are all amazing in their own ways and NIN is too diverse to be simply categorized as industrial. They have a little something for everyone.
Saw Nine Inch Nails TWO nights in a row back in May at the Boston Calling Music Festival. They were filling in for The Foo Fighters for the first night, and right before their set that night it was announced the Strokes had covid and NIN would fill in for that next night too. NIN's sets were almost completely different between the nights and while most people weren't attending to even see them, AND were bummed about Foos and Strokes, you could tell many of the non-believers were turned into believers that night! Myself included. An absolute must Live.
I love Flood! Considering what he has done for the Evolution of rock music since the 80s, he belongs in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. I felt the same excitement about the first NIN record too. One of the all time greatest albums. Fugazi often used this kind of harmonies, too. Brilliant analysis as always.
NIN,Tool,Metallica and Alice In Chains are the 4 top bands for me. All in there different sounds and technical simplicity. As a musician I always resignate to those 4 for Inspection and tones. Love them and will always be my balance for my life in music
I saw NIN at Radio City Music Hall in October of 2018. I hadn't seen them live before. They destroyed everyone there. I was blown away. And the musicianship...3 members of the band, including the drummer, played cello...exceptionally well, at various points in the show. And it was so brutally heavy, in the best way, that I'm pretty sure the only band that could have followed them would have been the actual, original Pantera. Tool or Metallica could have kept the crowd's attention, but pretty much anyone else would have paled in comparison. Such a good show. Back in the 90s I saw Ozzy and Korn opened up. Ozzy was touring Ozzmosis with Joe Holmes on guitar and Korn was new. Korn, with less of the sound system and none of the lights owned the night. Ozzy came out and was louder, but sounded quieter. Korn won that night. That's what seeing NIN reminded me of. When a band so completely decimates the aura of the venue that nobody has a shot at redeeming themselves afterwards. The Miley thing totally embodies Black Mirror. It's a complete "alternate reality" take on it. Great video as usual, Sir.
The fact Justin loves NIN, even if I'm not a huge fan of NIN (I like Trent, but certainly not a simp), makes me a much bigger fan of his. He just likes good music, regardless of genre. That's great.
Lol I just made a similar comment and I swear I never saw yours😂 Just said that of course he likes NINs and quite frankly I’d have some major questions if he didn’t🤔
One of the things that really set NIN apart from the other industrial bands of the time is the fact that it still retains so much of the Blues. There's not much Blues in Skinny Puppy or Front 242. The Blues is the key. Not to mention simply brilliant songwriting. Just look at what Cash did with "Hurt". 🖤 (Edit: lol I made my comment about the Blues in NIN's music at like the first minute of the video and Justin just goes on to confirm my theory. Because he's brilliant. 😉)
the johnny cash hurt version is one of the greatest songs ever if you want to cry just put it on tears start flowing everytime, im tearing up just thinking about it writing this.
Speaking of Gary Numan as an influence - check out him joining NIN onstage in 2009 for “Metal” and “Cars” - absolutely killer performance and amazing to see them together! (PS. Numan has been doing killer industrial music the past several years and is at the top of his game) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6qlUFKFHNIU.html
On the cassette version of the Broken EP, the hidden tracks were stuck at the end of side 2, which I had always just stopped and fast forwarded to the end after the last listed song. Without the visual indicator of a digital CD player readout, and in the pre-Internet era of spoilers, etc it was literally 5 years before I accidentally left the tape running for long enough to discover the songs were there all along!
That's almost exactly what I did! I had a Walkman that had a function where you could flip a switch to change sides of the tape without taking it out. One day I accidentally flicked it near the start of side A, meaning it played the tape near the end of side B, and I suddenly was hearing these songs I had no idea were there!
I was never fooled since I got one of the first editions of the CD that came with the bonus cover tracks on a 3" mini CD. Hard to miss them plus I just got my CD player that same year and never even new mini CDs existed. It was the coolest and still a surprise since the tracks aren't listed on the back of the CD case (which was also a had a unique in card stock with tri-fold opening -> left, right, bottom). I wish (no pun intended) I had kept it when I sold all my CDs back in 2006. I don't know for the life of me why I didn't keep 30 or so of the more unique or rare ones. It was the digital music hey day when 320K bps MP3 and FLAC meant you could have near perfect and perfect copies of your CDs on a hard disk. Storage cost enough back then that I was still ripping most of my CDs to 256K AAC which is functionally equivalent to 320K MP3. I still have all those AAC files (and some in MP3 or FLAC). I should see about getting FLAC versions now that SSD external drives are so god dang cheep these days. I still have the entire library on my 80GB iPod (5G). Amazing that thing still runs great and the battery holds a charge unlike any 2 year old iPhone .
I’m a big fan of Trent Reznor, right from Pretty Hate Machine. It grew and grew on me to the point it just stayed in the CD player for a while. I was guitarist and arranger in a band playing fairly mild music at the time and PHM was my soundtrack to and from rehearsals, a palette cleanser. Trent recorded for a year or 2 in a studio owned by a friend in Miami Beach so when I visited off hours, I was amused to see what a practical joker he is in the studio, leaving ‘surprises’ everywhere, taped to the bottom of a chair for example. Pretty outrageous stuff and it must’ve been a great stress reliever. He’s a phenomenal musician and attracts the same to every iteration of NIN. Their concert performances could literally leave a musician breathless at what they were hearing. Interesting anecdote, the tour manager dispatched a crew member to comb the ads for used Yamaha DX-7 keyboards wherever they played as one was potentially sacrificed every single show. I still have a big chunk of a shattered one on the wall in my control room. Good conversation piece.
Nice share TU. I lived thru this 😁was never into the angsty / angry / dark electro musick, I dug PFunk, psychedelia & heavy jazz blues 🙃only with time and wisdumb I have embraced all that I once ignored. Tbs, Didn't Trent engage his fans with treasure hunts and geo-cache during tours ? Your comment is spot on.
I don't know much about NIN or this 'genre' in general, but I believe another band which was a big influence on Trent Reznor was Skinny Puppy, from Vancouver.
Finally Justin, finally. After about 1/3 of my comments were “can you do something about NIИ?», certainly annoying you, my wish came true. And yes, Young Gods are Swiss and you can see them live at Salzhaus in Winterthur on 8.December 22! Nice little venue btw, not a polished Moet Chandon Champagne- place. And the NIИ concert on the 21st June (beginning of Summer) at Brixton Academy was superb! Broken is one of the best things he created! When ever me and my friend do sth for the last time (e.g. before the last slope at Winter season end we alter the original “gotta listen to your big time hard line bad luck fist fuck” into sth like “gotta enjoy our last ride, fast ride, best ride - FISTFUCK” and then we bump our fists. Always a blast, this little ritual the two of us have.) Anyway, great you made that big clip, about NIИ, thank you - FISTFUCK 🤜🏼🤛🏼!!!! Sincerely yours, B. 😉
I discovered NIN when I was going through a deep depression. The moment when I heard their lyrics was the first moment I felt understood and that I was not alone with that kind of issues. That my feelings and my thoughts were not strange. I saw them live on 2018 and OH MY, that was and still is the best night of my life.
Strange things is most folk could never understand why or how listening to Trent Reznors desperate cries of depression could possibly help yourself but I think I get it🤔 and so long as you got it then nothing else matters I guess. That said I remember thinking that one of his obvious songs about depression is on a whole other level to anything I’ve heard in terms of sheer desperation between hanging on and making a very bad final decision😩 Hang in there pal always as I know from experience and only two days ago that just one day can change everything
Skinny puppy, ministry, and Nine inch Nails blew my mind @ 13 years old… it was so unlike anything I’d ever heard. That was such a great time for music if you knew where to look…
Ugh, saw Ministry May 3, 1987 in Dallas, TX at Club Clearview (I was 17)and I nearly lost my hearing because their music was so painfully loud (and I had already been to a couple dozen stadium shows by that time. My ears felt like someone was STABBING them with an ice pick. Most miserable live music experience I've had out of hundreds I've attended over my lifetime. Never seen them since. My friend that took me was a HUGE Skinny Puppy fan. Now, NIN, on the other hand, I dearly love. Just saw them again recently at The Greek Theatre in Berkeley on Sep 11, 2022. Good show. Best performances I've seen, though, were 3 nights in a row at Madison Square Garden in New York City Dec 8 & 9, 1994. Extraordinary shows both nights. You're SO LUCKY to have seen NIN so young! I didn't get to see them until I was 24. Bah!
NIN (Trent) is on record in the early days saying they weren't trying to define industrial...but that's exactly what they did. The Fragile totally blew my mind.
Thanks! Justin loving the channel. I'm VERY VERY late to the JH party....sorry. How late you ask? I'll answer with a quote while sitting with my kids at the Taylor Hawkins show (we flew from NZ to have our minds blown): "who's this guy?"!! 😳 New to muso talk and instrument playing at the ripe old age of 52. This is the first "super thanks" ever. The humour, your knowledge, the insight and talent you have fully justifies a small gift and you inspire me to practice more and study more music theory. Thanks and sorry again for being so slow on the uptake...a physics PhD and still so stupid!! Love it all and if you fancy a wine down here in the bottom of NZ when you're here, I'll shout!
@@datapusher- was it though? I revisit Hate Machine more than Too Dark Park. Rabies, VIVIsectVI and Cleanse Fold Manipulate seem to be the Puppy albums I go back to... Too Dark Park tour was the greatest concert I have ever witnessed though.
Hey Justin I don't know how you really come up with these ideas for videos but if you actually take suggestions I'd love to see a video on LCD Soundsystem, who are similar to NIN in that the music is all done by one person and typically falls into the same realm of electronic rock, albeit LCD reaches from a deeper dance and pop influence than NIN does. Just throwing it out there!
NIN rules! Saw them in June didn't miss a second of it was mesmerised and still can't believe I was in the same space as trent and co, still following their tour on RU-vid! My last gig was Marylin 22 years ago so this was very special and has inspired me to go and see my favourite artists while I can 🥰
@@playingwithcars6169 indeed Trent is a master genius, on the brink of death for years now married with 5 kids! Anything can change in life, I'm happy for him despite preferring his earlier stuff but glad they're still creating and evolving
Well Nine Inch Nails certainly were game changers for Industrial rock (much like Nirvana were for U.S. indie or 'Grunge' rock). The last thing I saw from Trent Reznor was his cool monologue inducting The Cure into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame in 2019; describing his move from Pennsylvania to Cleveland and his musical awakening. I was a bit too young to see NIN in their heyday but I love Pretty Hate Machine & Broken & The Downward Spira & The Fragile (however I didn't find TF was quite as good as the others, and this video has reminded me to re- aquatint myself with the albums following these), it was always a blessed relief when NIN came on in the goth clubs after a few Rosetta Stone and The Mission tracks - I saw them in 2008 with Jane's Addiction (what a bill!) And Trent got Gary Numann on to sing Cars with the band - brilliant!
Hi Justin, My name is Ollie and I’m 13. I am a massive fan of you and The Darkness, but the show in Auckland NZ is r18. I was just wondering what kind of guitar pick you use? Thanks, Your biggest fan Ollie
When my son was a toddler we had a lullaby CD of NIN songs which had been reinterpreted and it sounded surprisingly good. He called it the piggy songs due to the cover image.
The best band I've seen live. Or, the best sounding band I've ever seen live. No one comes close! Everything sounds so clear, everything is audible. It helps that they use synths I guess, but still.. Also, imagine a band that's dressing like that today. Regardless of how brilliant they are, they'd never be popular in today's day and age. There's just not as much dirt and danger in rock music today, at least not among the biggest bands. Except perhaps for Rammstein and Slipknot.
There’s an amazing love show of Gary numan singing cars with Trent reznor! Also unpopular opinion I LOVE nin so much but I have always hated downward spiral. I. Prefer hate machine and The Fragile is my alltime fav along with with teeth and year zero and bad witch
Lots to talk about when it comes to NiN that would do good on this channel. Hurt by Cash and how Trent was like 🤷🏼♂️. And ofcourse the story of Old Town Road.
I didn't know you are a NIN fan! Excellent taste again chap! \m/ Also - anyone noticed the new KIA motor company logo is VERY close to the Nine Inch Nails one?
Loved Trent Reznor's collaboration with Al Jourgensen of Ministry in his side band: 1000 Homo DJs, they do a cover of Black Sabbath's Supernaut with Reznor on vocals, I dare say : I prefer their version over the original.
To any NIN fans reading this.... If you've never heard it, check out the Genesis track "The Brazillian." First time I heard it I _immediately_ noted the NIN vibe of it. I have no doubt it must have inspired Trent. Excellent song from an excellent band. Patrick Bateman's monologue about that album is solid. It just is.
I too was 15 when it was released and coincidentally, I just introduced my two kids to the album last night! Much love from the Central Coast of California.
After your Nirvana video the other day I commented that Nirvana and Guns & Roses we’re the two bands that changed music in the early 90’s for the better, but I would have included NIN except for the fact that they (Trent?) couldn’t really be replicated. They didn’t really change the music scene but rather expanded it. I guess expanded would be inclusive of the meaning of “change.” Hopefully you know what I mean. I am just a little older than you and first heard Head Like a Hole in 1989. It was my freshman year of college and it was the first opportunity to listen to a real college radio station. They played this, and it changed my life…
I first saw NIN opening for Peter Murphy in 1990. I was there to see Peter and had never heard of NIN before but, by the end of the set, I was a fan and have been ever since. Trent is an incredible talent, both with NIN and his fantastic composing work with Atticus Ross. Pretty Hate Machine is still one of my favorite records. Thanks for another fun video.
We need a picture of you with dreadlocks to prove you actually had them 😂 I love that you hear Gary Numan's influence on NIN. What blows me away though, is that Gary Numan has said NIN totally influenced him in his later work! I think Gary even said the chorus to "Head Like A Hole" is the best ever.
Justin, You've nailed it, as always! A major 3rd and a flat 6th is a very "Numan" thing ("Are Friends Electric?"). The major 3rd implies major, while the flat 6 makes you think it's minor, at the same time. Trent has often said he's a big fan of Gary's. "Something I Can Never Have" and many other NIN songs use this harmonic idea. It's very unsettling and full of tension.
i make techno (mostly) and NIN had a much bigger impact on me than Kraftwerk. PHM was so new, then Broken/Fixed jus shredded everything i thought it knew about music. it sounded like broken machines fighting a rock band in a lift plummeting to certain death.. and then we have Ghosts.. and The Social Network soundtrack.. AND he got Aphex Twin to remix NIN. not many can do that.
Brilliant choice and subject! 🖤🖤🖤 Dear Trent! I tried to write lyrics and music like he does. Problem was I had too much happiness in my life to get down to the soul-crushing darkness that he evokes. But yes, the man is a musical titan and one of my house-gods since ”pretty hate machine”. When I gave up my Ph.D. studies after realizing I wasn’t fit for research, ”the wretched” and ”we’re in this together” were my musical crutches to get me through the days before I found a different direction in my life. Loved to hear your thoughts on NIN. But then, how can one not love NIN?
YESSSSS!!!!!! Trent Reznor is an absolute Lord! It was the first CD I ever bought....amzaing! After coming from listening to bands like The Cure, Sisters and so on...Reznor pushed the envelope. I've seen them a couple of times, but would love very much for them to come back to Australia...PS: your top is BEAUTIFUL!! Just popping on "Pretty Hate Machine" now..don't mind me...Thank you LEGEND for posting this today. It's brought me so much joy!!
Saw them headline Alternative Nation at Olympic Park in Melbourne in 1995 after an enormous late morning torrential downpour. The amount of steam emanating from the seething crowd, illuminated by NIN's red lights...made for an unforgettably apocalyptic spectacle.
@@ComaDave That is so good! I saw them for Alternative Nation on the gold near Brisbane here. Purely luminescent! I've had them blasting all morning since this post. It's brought me so much joy!
Basically everything Pretty Hate Machine to The Fragile, touched by Trent, was incredibly impressive. His mastery of musical layers / wall of sound, Consonant dissonance (for lack of a better description), timing and lyrical expression is ... just impressive. Great Timbre to his voice. One of the best composers and producers birthed from Gen X. Probably among the A-tier greats of all-time too. His biggest weakness is that he doesn't branch out of his comfort zone very well - like, you instantly know when Trent was part of the production process on pretty much anything he's touched. Like Saul Williams RaFoNT album had a lot of songs that were just NiN music with Saul's poetry as lyrics. He is to music what Tim Burton is to movies. But The Fragile is one of the best whole album composition experiences out there. It has a theme and tells a story... only one or two songs on the double disc stick out as "This is to get the label to shut up so they can have a single", the rest is seamless blending. PHM and TDS have some of the best single songs of the 90s though. And Industrial should be classified as a sub-genre of Metal, which is a sub-genre of Hard rock that borrows even more from Blues, which is a genre of Rock (and Roll) which is a fusion of R&B and Country.
Great record. I also hope the irony of making tea for Flood, the most famous studio tea boy there ever was, wasn’t lost on you (or hopefully some of those watching this video).
Reznor alternates between mixolydian and the blues scale for harmonic colour over a static chord here. The 'gary numan' flavour is in the emphasis of the half fifth interval between the flattened 7th and the major 3rd in mixolydian ('here IN MY car')
First heard Head Like a Hole in ‘91 and fell in love with NIN which has continued to this day. Had Pretty Hate Machine paired with Nevermind on a C90 cassette was played to death in my car. HLAH is still my favourite track to hear live
11:18 I love how in the video to this song you can see Richard Patrick on guitar and providing backing vocals, NIN is where he really got started. I am a MASSIVE fan of Filter, another great industrial rock band. As for NIN, I can't decide between this, Closer, and Wish, as to what my favourite song of theirs actually is. All are awesome.
For sure Jason. I have been a fan of Richard and Filter since first hearing "Hey Man,Nice Shot"all those years ago. I didn't find out til later that he was on NIN. So cool.
The verse riff is using mostly the Phrygian dominant scale, which has the b2nd, maj3rd and b7th. Used a lot by Gary Numan nowadays also. The chorus starts with an emaj triad. So although his vocal line in the verses sounds more pentatonic, but not really singing the b3rd or not committing to it at least, it’s in Emaj for the most part.
I'm convinced there is not a bad NIN album. Even their last, Hesitation Marks, was wonderful. And live? There's not another act like 'em... Trent's always got the best of the best up there with him and the stage show is always amazing.
There's a second, "grungier" Ashley O version that's played at the end of the episode which showcases the point you made in this video of the versatility the song has
