by hope raudive

It seems there are a lot of ignorant Nine Inch Nails critics nowadays. Now granted, there are some people who have trouble relating to Trent's music and lyrics, and that is perfectly understood. Nine Inch Nails deals with some seriously disturbing subject matter. But many people have been critical of NIN for reasons that are absurd and demonstrate that the general public needs to be better educated in music, or else we're going to live in a world where R.E.M. poseur bands (hmmm..."If it weren't for R.E.M., we wouldn't be a band" -- Hootie and the Blowfish) are treated with more respect than the musicians who actually develop original ideas or combine existing ones in new, exciting ways.

Before I completely stray from the topic at hand, there are many people who criticize Trent Reznor for the following two reasons. I hope at least a few of these people take the time to read this article. But if you already are a NIN fan, perhaps this article will offer at least a general notion of what it is that people like Mr. Reznor think about, besides bizarre sex acts. Enjoy.

Throughout the past few years, many "real" musicians and fans of "real" music have expressed their dislike for Nine Inch Nails by claiming Trent Reznor doesn't have "real" musical talent. These people say it is easy create music by using modern technology (i.e. synthesizers, samplers, computers, etc.), but anyone who's ever tried to write even the simplest of songs on a computer realizes that it is not only challenging, but is quite possibly the most difficult method of songwriting yet to be created. Many electronic musicians could spend an entire day programming a simple four-measure drum beat pattern, and if you listen to some of the better electronic albums (especially the Recoil album Bloodline by Alan Wilder), the music is completely unrepetitive, meaning that the days of programming can easily stretch out into weeks -- for one song, mind you. Most people probably don't even notice the little details that musicians like Reznor, Wilder, and Cevin Key insert into their songs. Several friends of mine who are NIN fans didn't even notice that the music in the second chorus of "closer" differs greatly from the first, and that's one of the more obvious variations that Trent has inserted into a song. Trent himself has said in interviews that he drives himself crazy adding little details that aren't even audible on the final mix.

Using computers and samplers to manipulate digital audio is another time-consuming obsession of Mr. Reznor. As amazing as it seems, it probably took days of hard work to sample, process, and mix the screams that create the backing atmosphere to "the becoming" (which seem to be non-repetitive). Add to this the time it takes to sit down and actually write a song (after all, playing a melody on a keyboard isn't much different than playing a "real" instrument such as the piano), and it becomes obvious that perhaps creating "synthfag" music isn't as easy as it seems. The end result though, is well worth the effort.

Whenever I hear someone say this, I realize that they don't really understand what a melody is. Everything Trent has recorded up to this point has had melody. While the quality of those melodies depends on personal taste, it is untrue to say that Trent doesn't use them. A melody is nothing more than a serious of tones that are sequenced in such a way that they have continuity and express some sort of emotion (although these last two points aren't always emphasized as much as they should be). Harsh-sounding songs, such as "wish" or "march of the pigs", may be very noisy, very dissonant (although neither is, strictly speaking), and -- well, very noisy, but they still contain melodies and harmonies. If you want proof of this, it's quite possible (if you know the notes) to sit down at a keyboard or piano (or even with a bass guitar) and play the bass line from either song, either of which is a melody. Likewise, the guitar parts in both songs consist of a sequence of barre chords, with one string of the guitar playing the melody and two others playing harmony. True, Trent likes to use a lot of distortion on his guitars. But, nonetheless, his guitar parts consist of tones which are joined by a tonal relationship (continuity). Tones which are also very expressive of his emotion. Therefore, they are a melody.

Okay, so the left channel of "hurt" was run through some digital effects to make it sound a bit noisy or skewed -- wow, an artist who's finally taking advantage of the technological breakthroughs of the 1980's. As even the electro-pop pioneers of the '80s were misunderstood and eventually rejected by the press (ahem...Gary Numan), one can only hope that the critics of modern electronic music and Nine Inch Nails have an easier time trying to understand the simple chord progressions and song structure that 99.9 percent of popular artists have been using for the last 50 years. The de-evolution continues....

Hope Raudive (jwm155@psu.edu) studies music at Pennsylvania State University. If you have a specific question regarding something in this article, or would like to hear a more in-depth discussion of a point that was only briefly touched upon here, feel free to contact him.

hope and vaseline -- hnv@nin.net