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Nine Inch Nails :: "Only"From With Teeth (Nothing; 2005)
Trent Reznor creates music under two identities: Nine Inch Nails and
Dumb Fuck. The Downward Spiral is a Nine Inch Nails album: an acerbic
onslought of red-zone drum machines, cut up sinthesizers, and musique
concrete passages that recalls (please don't laugh) the production
techniques of The Bomb Squad more than any Wax Trax! twelve inch. It
makes the juvenile suicide fantasy of the libretto convincing, even
engaging. It's defensible, and worth defending.
"Only," however, comes via Dumb Fuck, the rogue behind most of Broken, "Down in It" and pretty much every other word that's ever graced an
NIN track. This song's only saving grace is that it trades in the lite
industrial disco of Pretty Hate Machine for lite DFA disco. It creates
the impression that Reznor's been paying attention for the last five
years, which is immediately dashed once he opens his mouth. "Only" is
Dumb Fuck by numbers: rudimentary Korg synthesizers, staccatto
arpeggiators, a wash of guitars that emphasize the major third over a
minor key, and, of course, clumsy emoting that involves lyrics about
scabs, hilariously awful rapping, and a gratuitous f-word in the
chorus. I've no reason to doubt his sincerity, self-absorbed as it may
be, but it's hard to imagine this being released for anything other
than shallow, self-pecuniary reasons. This is music to shop at Hot Topic
to.
Christopher Alexander :: 1 September 2005 |
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