No, I don't really need your discipline: Nine Inch Nails, The Slip

Due to the lack of anything else on hand to work with, and the fact that I’m not of the inclination to do another opinion piece, I’m going to run the risk of being filleted alive by my usual readers and throw some good-natured darts at a dartboard named The Slip. Since you are reading this, it is safe to assume you have internet access, and therefore safe to assume that you have heard about the latest excretion from the Nine Inch Nails womb.

I wonder if the title is a reference to the fact that Mr. Reznor has given Interscope the slip, sort of a 43 minute “f#ck you” to his former overseers. “Hey guys! Look at me giving away music! Count your money now, you chimps!” In that respect, I have to give Mr. Reznor credit for simply throwing all ideas about profit to the wind. He probably could have made himself a million for the second time in a year had be dropped it with a similar pay scale as this year’s prior release, Ghosts I-IV; instead, he decided to surprise us with a gift. Unfortunately, I find this gift to be rather bland. There’s nothing to really hate about it, it’s entirely listenable, but I don’t find anything so grabbing as to make me soil my pants in excitement. I usually don’t do a track-by-track review, but here’s some notes jotted down about each song as I was listening.

1. “999,999”: Opening ambiance; nothing to really say.
2. “1,000,000”: Loud, noisy, catchy beat, tight, fun and jumpy. The lyrics are of the depressed, suicidal variety of high-school overemotional dross we’ve come to expect from Nine Inch Nails, but if you’re seriously going to complain about Reznor’s lyrical quality, I’m afraid I’m going to have to beat you upside the head with the studded aluminum baseball bat of knowledge. Trent Reznor has never been known for writing fantastic lyrics, so shut up. His strength is in being blunt about how he’s feeling. But, what does Reznor have to be depressed about? He’s got one boot firmly planted in the back of the bloated corpse of the American music industry, waving both middle fingers in the air and screaming, “I told you nothing could stop me now, but you didn’t believe me! Why didn’t you believe me?!” He may feel like he’s a million miles away, but is that such a bad place to be?
3. “Letting You”: The sort of aggressive quick beat thing that I never cared much for in NIN music. Nothing new, but not as obnoxious as, say, “Getting Smaller.”
4. “Discipline”: The criticism of ‘gay disco’ has been made since this dropped, so I don’t think I need to beat it with that stick. Might be fun to dance to, as Trent intended; might also make good sex music.
5. “Echoplex”: I gave this a rating of ‘meh’ when I first heard it. It has grown slightly on me, but I’m still not crazy about it. Feels like it drags out the end unnecessarily.
6. “Head Down”: Doesn’t do anything for me.
7. “Lights In The Sky”: The sort of slow-building track that always winds up 6-8 tracks in, a.k.a. the quiet song. Feels like the quiet song has been done better on prior albums.
8. “Corona Radiata”: Interesting title. Instrumental that isn’t bad, but not great either. Puts me to sleep, actually.
9. “The Four of Us Are Dying”: … and so am I while listening to this. Not awful, but a bit too meandering.
10: “Demon Seed”: The transition from the prior track is jarring. Really not impressed with this one. Same angry stuff we’ve been hearing since day one.

Maybe I’ve become jaded, but after Ghosts I-IV (and prior masterpieces), I’ve come to expect a bit more out of Mr. Reznor. This whole thing sounds like the same thing we’ve been hearing for the past couple years. While I’m glad he hasn’t gone completely loopy and transitioned to big band lounge music, a change in pace would be nice. I’ve been seriously trying to like this album all damn week, but every time I run through it, it bores me even more. There’s plenty of energy, but no real spark. I have to admit, I feel kind of like I’m picking on the handicapped kid considering this release was handed out to all the fans as a thank you. However, just because it was given freely doesn’t mean we have to accept it for what it is and be jubilant solely because it was free.

I’m genuinely surprised at how fast this came out. Most artists tend to wait a while for the shockwaves of their prior release to die down a bit before running out and dropping another album on the heads of the listening public. Not Trent; oh no, my dears, he lacks that particular strain of patience. A mere month after Ghosts, and he’s at it again. No one can fault the man as lacking motivation.

The speed of this release most likely has something to do with his shaking loose the shackles of label supervision. While his new-found freedom may seem exciting initially, it is not without its issues. Having no-one serving the purpose of an editor above him may actually be detrimental to the process and final result. There’s nobody to stand over his shoulder and say, “Trent, this sucks,” or, “Trent, didn’t we do this already?” Editorial review is an essential part to any artistic expression. When a novel is in the process of publication, there is a whole army of people picking over it with a fine-tooth comb searching for mistakes, errors, and things that just don’t work. Imagine if a book went to press before someone stopped the author with the news, “Pages 137-145 look like a cat snuck into your house and had a seizure on the keyboard, while the entire last chapter is punctuated solely with semi-colons; what gives?” A supervisory entity makes sure the final product is worthwhile, and, lacking any sort of overseer, Trent is pretty much running around like a child hopped up on too many glasses of cream soda. It's a whole load of fun, but is it good?

[Detour] However, this criticism would be more valid had the music industry not decided to take a page out of Hollywood’s playbook and create whole catalogs of sound-alike mediocrity. Frank Herbert, in the introduction to his short story collection Eye, explained the Hollywood technique: Don’t take risks. Find out what succeeds and copy it. The record industry has taken to that methodology with a fervor and now the radiowaves are populated with cookie-cutter pop-punk acts and legions of rock bands chanting, “Let’s be like Nickelback.” Derivation is one thing. We wouldn’t have much of our great contemporary music if the current crop of musicians didn’t nick at least a bite off their predecessors, but this is outright cloning! Around the end of last summer, I kept hearing on the radio a song that if you held a gun to my head and told me to correctly identify the band, you may as well have just painted the walls with my brains since I could have sworn it was Avril Lavigne. It wasn’t; it was someone that had the same insipid lyrics and annoying voice. I ask, has it always been like this and I was just unobservant? Was the music industry really better "way back when?" The point being that the record heads, instead of doing a good job of bringing new and compelling music to the masses and insisting on their signed musicians to stop being like everyone else, celebrate the blatant ripping-off of contemporaries to make a quick buck with radio-friendly repetition. It’s not unexpected to say a company wants to make money, but, Christ, they can at least pretend to care about artistic growth on the occasion. [End Detour]

One could argue that The Slip is a clone of With Teeth, but I don’t support that notion. The Slip strikes me more has being a cousin to With Teeth, dressing and talking the same way but trying to have a modicum of individuality. It’s not a bad album, but doesn’t make any distinctions in the Nine Inch Nails catalogue. Personally, I feel that this vein of music is dried up and at risk of getting infected and requiring amputation of the whole limb should Trent insist on continuing to stick it with needles. Ghosts I-IV spoiled us with a new and exciting direction, taking the high road of artsy instrumentals while The Slip is more like a slide down Been There, Done That Avenue. Some might find that comfortable, like a familiar old blanket. There’s nothing here we haven’t heard before; it’s the same pattern of anger/thrash/something danceable/more anger/instrumental/more thrash/end of album. If you liked With Teeth and Year Zero, then sign onto this one because it’s more of the same. The fact that it’s sticking to the pattern is mitigated by the fact that it’s free, so take five minutes out of your day, download it, and come to your own conclusions.



Nine Inch Nails official website