Nine Inch Nails' New Album, Streaming Over the official site!
Quaunaut
The longest seven days in history... Join Date: 2003-03-21 Member: 14759Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
The longest seven days in history... Join Date: 2003-03-21 Member: 14759Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">Year Zero</div><a href="http://yearzero.nin.com/" target="_blank">http://yearzero.nin.com/</a>
Effin' ridiculous. The 3 tracks I already had had me on edge, but they've grown on me- but every single other one completely owns my face. This is one of the best albums I've heard in a <i>long</i> time.
Go ahead. Top right. Requires e-mail, just don't accept into being on the mailing list.
<strike>Note: Mod, if you could "Year Zero" in the topic subname, I'd appreciate it. <3</strike>
Effin' ridiculous. The 3 tracks I already had had me on edge, but they've grown on me- but every single other one completely owns my face. This is one of the best albums I've heard in a <i>long</i> time.
Go ahead. Top right. Requires e-mail, just don't accept into being on the mailing list.
<strike>Note: Mod, if you could "Year Zero" in the topic subname, I'd appreciate it. <3</strike>
Comments
I guess they don't expect people to rip the sound off the site?
This is a good album though that's for sure.
I was lucky enough to see them in concert at Lexington during their With_Teeth Tour. Unlike some bands they are actually great live. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
Having listened to every retail-released NIN CD yet, I can honestly say this is my favorite.
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With_Teeth is probably one of my favorites. Tracks 4, 6, 7, and 8 especially <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
Y-0 sounds a lot like a NIN remix album; same kinda dark synth drums style. It's nice to have on whilst concentrating on other things.
It's shocking the amount of work that's gone into this ARG, every single aspect of this disc's release, promotion, live shows, music videos, <i>everything</i> is tied into this game. Seriously. The <a href="http://waffleimages.nwpshost.com/files/60/600cdb36d00eec30ac0affecbf7cf4abd7be2631.jpg" target="_blank">tour tshirts</a> hold clues, so does the Survivalism video linked above, just everything about this is so carefully played and beautifully interlinked.
But for those of you who missed out on the whole ARG for Year Zero (still in progress), here are some links.
<a href="http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/index.php?f=218&sid=fe3dd0089d496b583fcf8de8f171ce39" target="_blank">Unfiction's forum for the ARG</a>
<a href="http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18684" target="_blank">Associated Website List</a>
<a href="http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2381248" target="_blank">SA's thread on the game</a> - i'd strongly suggest reading this one from the start, starting from the <a href="http://boss.streamos.com/download/interscope/nin/yearzero/yearzero_hi.mov" target="_blank">trailer</a>.
In a nutshell, Year Zero has a storyline, a storyline full of puzzles and clues spread across the trailer, tour tshirts, dozens of websites, email addresses, music venue toilet stalls, and <a href="http://img.waffleimages.com/6e5b7691eb1475db57b6a1645d34448b27440e3f/418224074_46d21b8e9f.jpg" target="_blank">a freakin' billboard in london</a>. It's very, very well thought out and stupidly interesting.
Year Zero is the year the bombs fell, America was taken over by a fanatical religious organisation, the general populace was drugged through the water supply using Parepin. Don't drink the water. The websites tell you about the years before the dirty bombs fell, the manufacturers of Parepin, the people in the resistance against the government:
<img src="http://inorpo-a.mirror.waffleimages.com/files/13/132ef55cf9e5a31ac2f6308450796b7ae8076c5f.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
Art is Resistance, you may have seen these flyers if you live near a venue NiN has played at recently, definitely if you went to a Year Zero listening party.
Don't drink the water.
Most interestingly, believed as a side effect of Parepin is The Presence. You'll see it in the trailer, on the cover art for Year Zero, in <i>a spectrograph of one of the leaked tracks in a small piece of white noise</i>, if you start reading through the links i mentioned before, especially the SA one, you'll come to get to know The Presence.. Drink the water, it tastes good.
I generally like NiN music, and Trent's dedication to his fans... but I'm usually annoyed by the singing/lyrics. It's like someone dumped out a box of goth magnetic poetry. blood, tears, pain, The Man, blackness, empty, etc. I guess I'm just not an angry enough person to appreciate it. I must have too much Parepin in my system <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" /> some of the instrumentals, like La Mer, are like my favorite songs ever though...
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I don't really listen to this stuff for the lyrics - It's just nice background noise while at the computer or on my ipod while i'm going to class. It might be cliched but it is what it is, and it sounds fine regardless of what he's singing.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiE1d96oe3w" target="_blank">Survivalism</a>
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Everyone on the YouTube comments is freaking out about the g.ay sex scene in that music video.
EDIT - Dear "Whoever Is In Charge Of Swear Filter," g.ay is not a swearword, even if people use it like it is.
Everyone on the YouTube comments is freaking out about the g.ay sex scene in that music video.
EDIT - Dear "Whoever Is In Charge Of Swear Filter," g.ay is not a swearword, even if people use it like it is.
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Some people take offense - it might not be a swearword but it's context specific and sometimes it's pretty crude.
I'm a hypocrit though - I say it casually, although I'd rather I didn't
Everyone on the YouTube comments is freaking out about the g.ay sex scene in that music video.
EDIT - Dear "Whoever Is In Charge Of Swear Filter," g.ay is not a swearword, even if people use it like it is.
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From what I've heard the whoever who is in charge of the swear filter is a homosexual person, so I think they have the ability to decide what they feel is offensive them selfs.
I guess they don't expect people to rip the sound off the site?
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I think its more a case of they expect people to rip it from another site anyway, so they may as well rip it from the official one. I quite like the idea; if I like it enough, I'll buy the CD.
There are some spoilers about the ending of the Alan Moore comic 'Promethea' coming up - you have been warned!
I followed some links and ended up reading about <a href="http://www.iamtryingtobelieve.com/" target="_blank">Parepin</a>, a drug that will be put into the US's water supply at some stage to protect its citizens against biochemical weapons but with hallucinegenic side-effects, or something like that; and the year that this happens will be 'year zero'. OK so this is most likely the product of some imaginative conjouring by Reznor or Other, but what I find interesting about this is that the end of Alan Moore's Promethea comic series, which basically follows through the 'apocalypse' and after, a mass psychosis affects the united states (and the world) with extreme levels of vivid hallucination where people are seeing everything as what they represent, like solid bold symbols without any 'filters' in the way...the 'heavens come down to earth', where heaven is basically the unrestricted and sky-like imagination of the human mind (and is also what the comic is all about - imagination).
It's not easy for me to explain, but basically, the apocalypse is a giant trip, in the drug sense of the word, that the whole of humanity undertakes together and comes out on the other side with a completely different way of looking at the world. It sounds pretty similar to what might be suggested in Year Zero's ARG.
Also, as I'm sure everybody has been preached to at some point by some sci-fi geek at some point (possibly me), the Mayans predicted the 'apocalypse', or end of an era, in the year 2012. Maybe this will have something to do with China landing on the moon ^_^ But apparently, some experts believe that Earth is due for a magnetic pole shift (http://www.gvnr.com/74/3.htm - sun pole shift due in 2012, last one was in 2001) - being the somewhat dreamy person that I am, I can't help but be hopeful that this pole shift occurs in 2012 and that it changes humanity for the better, somehow.
Our brains run on electricity, right? And electric current is influenced by magnetism, so if the magnetic pole of the earth was to <i>flip around 180 degrees overnight</i>...well, I suppose nothing might happen but also lots might happen also.
Or, yknow, it could all be a load of trollop and the most interesting thing to happen in 2012 is the Olympics in London (which could also be the cause of the apocalypse, actually).
This whole 'ARG' thing is a totally new concept to me, and its not easily to digest quickly...
There are some spoilers about the ending of the Alan Moore comic 'Promethea' coming up - you have been warned!
I followed some links and ended up reading about <a href="http://www.iamtryingtobelieve.com/" target="_blank">Parepin</a>, a drug that will be put into the US's water supply at some stage to protect its citizens against biochemical weapons but with hallucinegenic side-effects, or something like that; and the year that this happens will be 'year zero'. OK so this is most likely the product of some imaginative conjouring by Reznor or Other, but what I find interesting about this is that the end of Alan Moore's Promethea comic series, which basically follows through the 'apocalypse' and after, a mass psychosis affects the united states (and the world) with extreme levels of vivid hallucination where people are seeing everything as what they represent, like solid bold symbols without any 'filters' in the way...the 'heavens come down to earth', where heaven is basically the unrestricted and sky-like imagination of the human mind (and is also what the comic is all about - imagination).
It's not easy for me to explain, but basically, the apocalypse is a giant trip, in the drug sense of the word, that the whole of humanity undertakes together and comes out on the other side with a completely different way of looking at the world. It sounds pretty similar to what might be suggested in Year Zero's ARG.
Also, as I'm sure everybody has been preached to at some point by some sci-fi geek at some point (possibly me), the Mayans predicted the 'apocalypse', or end of an era, in the year 2012. Maybe this will have something to do with China landing on the moon ^_^ But apparently, some experts believe that Earth is due for a magnetic pole shift (http://www.gvnr.com/74/3.htm - sun pole shift due in 2012, last one was in 2001) - being the somewhat dreamy person that I am, I can't help but be hopeful that this pole shift occurs in 2012 and that it changes humanity for the better, somehow.
Our brains run on electricity, right? And electric current is influenced by magnetism, so if the magnetic pole of the earth was to <i>flip around 180 degrees overnight</i>...well, I suppose nothing might happen but also lots might happen also.
Or, yknow, it could all be a load of trollop and the most interesting thing to happen in 2012 is the Olympics in London (which could also be the cause of the apocalypse, actually).
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Ever get the feeling you were chasing your own brain in circles?
Amazing what can be done with todays media.
Wow...just wow. I had no idea about this whole plot going around the Year Zero album. Thanks for pointing it out esuna, i just read the SA thread and it's amazing how broad and deep that thing is. It's pure genious.
Amazing what can be done with todays media.
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It's the exact thing that's turned me around about it too. I was pretty bored with NIN for some time, i've never really liked much since The Downward Spiral but i got sucked into the whole ARG pretty swiftly, and i must say i'm definitely loving the new album. It's got an older NIN sound to it, and the fact it's one massive concept album (and a second to follow it too) with everything tied together in a dystopian sci-fi storyline, it's really brought me back to like them. I'll definitely be picking this album up as soon as i can, i've been listening to it streaming for ages now and it's really grown on me.
And for anyone else missing out on the ARG or hasn't really read anything of it, do it now, seriously, sure, it's marketing, but it's a great read and amazing when you think about the sheer lengths they've gone to tie everything together.
My only gripe, however, is that the puppetmaster has had a bit too much of a dominant role in this game. A lot of ARG's you get sucked into and everything's planned out ahead of time and the only bottleneck to the discovery of the next clue is the people working on it, this one, however, started out like that, but has been slowly spoon-fed to the masses by the puppetmaster through clues that didn't exist until a certain point. Like the USB thumb drives found in toilet cubicles at EU NIN gigs that had mostly mp3 files of new tracks and certain pictures (<a href="http://www.hollywoodinmemoriam.org/" target="_blank">hollywoodinmemoriam.com</a> was one of them) which contained the new clues weren't available to progress the game until a certain date. Sure, it means that the game won't finish prematurely, but it does leave you twiddling your thumbs waiting for the next clue to be leaked.
Downward Spiral ftw.
Extra points go to <i>The Good Soldier</i> and <i>In This Twilight</i>. Also that choral overdub on <i>The Great Destroyer</i> reduced me to complete speechlessness. Brilliant.
They already said they want this campaign to go on for another six months, and I'm finding things just in the album that are either creepy, or just really cool.
Everyone knows about the CD changing because of heat(specifically, the heat of being run in a CD player).
Before and after- also note the sides of the CD cover. Those pictures are more than just criticizing religion, it explains exactly how the government in the game used religion.
<img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/174/463078490_9fe9c03756.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
And finally I'm going over <a href="http://www.anotherversionofthetruth.com/" target="_blank">http://www.anotherversionofthetruth.com/</a> . I'll tell ya, going through the soundbites on the forums and trying to write down the morse code is harder than hell. I don't know Morse, and while the spectrograph makes it a bit easier, its still hell.
Oh, and I saw the Presence in the white noise, in the spectrograph. Thats a hell of an effect.
I like that Trent Reznor is getting back into the concept album groove. The Downward Spiral, while a concept album, was never very strong in making that clear (although it is an amazing album).
Year Zero is a brilliant mix of attitudes emotions and stories of this future dystopia Reznor has concocted.
I think my favourite song is God Given...I just can't get this image of grooving cardinals out of my mind during the chorus of "now we see the light, and it burns so bright, now we know we're right, when his kingdom come and thy will be done".
<img src="http://photos8.flickr.com/10233245_72c8ef11af.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
Like them.
Other than that bizarre image, the song just rocks. I love the story-telling aspect of it..it's like some weird dreamlike script. I enjoy it so much that I shall write it up here!
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Hey man, take a look around. Please don't make a sound, can't you see what's right in front of you?
Ahhh. Have a little taste.
No more time to waste! You don't want to be left behind, because it's all coming down right now.
Now, how hard is it to see? Put your faith in me; I sure wouldn't want to be praying to the wrong piece of wood.
You should get where you belong, everything you know is wrong.
Come on, sing along, everybody now!
<bishop groove>
Wait.....
Step into the light.
How can this be right?
I'm afraid we're going to ask you to leave.
I guess you can not win, with the colour of your skin! You won't be getting in to the promised land.
Besides, this is just another case, you people still don't know your place.
Step aside, out the way! Wipe that look off your face!
Because we are the divine, seperated from the swine.
Come on, sing along, everybody now!
<extended bishop groove><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
Okay, I've had my fun now.
Me, I'm Not taught me how to grind. I never quite understood sexual dancing til that song. So...awesome.
Oi. I'm sad that they have the ARG on hiatus <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
This is certainly my album of the year thus far.
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Hey man, take a look around. Please don't make a sound, can't you see what's right in front of you?
Ahhh. Have a little taste.
No more time to waste! You don't want to be left behind, because it's all coming down right now.
Now, how hard is it to see? Put your faith in me; I sure wouldn't want to be praying to the wrong piece of wood.
You should get where you belong, everything you know is wrong.
Come on, sing along, everybody now!
<bishop groove>
Wait.....
Step into the light.
How can this be right?
I'm afraid we're going to ask you to leave.
I guess you can not win, with the colour of your skin! You won't be getting in to the promised land.
Besides, this is just another case, you people still don't know your place.
Step aside, out the way! Wipe that look off your face!
Because we are the divine, seperated from the swine.
Come on, sing along, everybody now!
<extended bishop groove><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
Okay, I've had my fun now.
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<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->I would never tell you anything that wasn't absolutely true that hadn't come right from his mouth and he wants me to tell you.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->