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darknation

nin

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drunk right now, so forgive me.

let's talk about the fragile, my personal favourate album. the reason i love it is because of the metaphor within. The easiest way to talk about these images the album casts up is to talk about it in visual terms; when I close my eyes, what do I see? what imagery does the music cast up? Rather like directing a video within your skull, what scenes corispond to the music?

ok, we'll take the music in sequence. First up is somewhat damaged, the opening album. We have the statement of purpose; what is going to happen. Perceiving the path we take, knowing the outcome wiull be disaster and yet treading that path anyway. Icarus features, the metaphors of water and fire. Icarus swoops across the sea, reaches for the sun and fails. His wings melt and he plunges back towards the sea and drowns. I've covered this in a previous essay, s I'll not go into it in depth.

The second song, the Day the World went Away, is really the begining. picture the protagonist in a castle of ice, looking in at himself. The first part of the song is about constructing the lies that he will tell and building the lies into the world around him. The song moves into it's second motion and the lies, the ice world, comes crumbling down as his lies are discovered and torn apart. His personality splits and ruptures as shown by the multiple Trents' singing the nah nah nah's as even himself falls apart with his world. At the end he stands alone and naked, exposed to the world without his protection and sheild of lies. He is utterly alone.

Move onto the Frail. Picture a man on a pier at night, watching the waves ebb beneath him. he throws the reminants of his life into the sea, photos of days gone by. The Frail is upbeat tobegin with: polariods of the protagonist and his love very much together, married perhaps, smiling at the camera. The polariods blur as they are submerged and more photos follow, each dissapearing into the sea.

The frail turns sour, ominous. photos of arguements fall, photos of hate, cheating and finally the great collapse: a man, on his own, alone.

In comes The Wretched and the storm breaks, the protagonist realises the extent of what he has done. The sky cracks and the rain pours as the protagonist reflects on All That Could Have Been, the mistakes he has made and the realisation that all those he has fucked over in his conquest in the name of love... well, now he joins them. in the pit of misery. The protagonist realises that he is nothing, no better than anyone else and no more deserving of his love than the next man.

It is night, and streetlights make the wet shine orange. His love stand on a bridge, watching the photographs sail by. The protagonist chases her, pleading her, tllling her that he needs her more than anything and only as a team will they survive in this harsh world.You and me, We're In This Together Now.

The Fragile follows as the protagonist#s purely selfish instincts give way to the realisation that yas, he really does love this woman. But the same, no one is perfect. Time changes people and ultimately kills them. If only the protagonist could stop the decay, freeze time and progress, then he could stop his love from Falling Apart and falling away from him. This will prove to be his undoing as he controls and suffocates the very forces that made him fall in love in the first place.

Just like you Imagined, the protagonist walks up the gree stairwell of a block of flats where his love lives. He maybe carries flower, poppies. It is raining aoutside and his coat drips. He climbs the stairs to suprise his love with gifts.

The hard music cuts in, and there is his love fucking, fucking, fucking another man. Cut back to the protagonist climbing the stairs, full of hope and unaware, cut back to fucking, cut back to unaware yet closer, fucking, closer, fucking... the discovery as he opens the door, the flowers drop to the floor, the protaaonist runs, runs, the music spikes and his love, naked, chases him back down the stairs but can't catch him and we see him last hunkered down in a doorway, tears mingling with the rain from the sky.

Morning, no rain. He runs from her, runs from his problems. He can't face what she has done, what he has forced her to do. The Nah Nah Nah's return as everything turns from gold back to shit. he runs Even Deeper into dispair, as far as he can run.

His flight turns into a Pilgramage to every place where he was happy, and love turns to hate. The Guitars turn distant and his screaming pain becomes a distant, unfelt "ah". It is a march of hatred as he faces his demons in a collodeum of his own maching: an ice contruct cold forged in his love turned to hate.

He screams No You Don't. The flaws he loved are brutally mauled, he ignores his own faults and lies, lies to himself that everything is her fault, that she sucks his strength and has made him weak.

he writes her farewell, staring at the sea.

And when that day comes
I'll become the sky
And I'll become the sea
And the sea will come to kill me
For I am going
Home

Nothing can stop me now


Julian once told me about someone he knew, a french woman, who filled her pockets with rocks are waded out into the water and drowned. into La mer. The lies are the rocks, he turns his back on the sun and submerges himself utterly in his dispair. And in dispair we find courage, in dispair humans do unimagable things both good and bad. They lift trucks to save their crushed child, they murder their fathers and they sit their wrists. With the power of this dispair, the protagonist runs.

he sails out, running as far as he can get. And yet, as he flees into the Great Below, he wonders; does she care that he is dying inside? Will she save him? Does she care enough to chase him to the ends of the earth?

And yet, he still loves her. Ultimately he is human, unlimatly he needs her. Dispite the crushing weight of the world and his own psyche he makes the choice to return. The Way out of this nightmare is Through, to see it until the very end.

he turns around and lies still. he constucts his fantasy, of a perfect woman who does not exist and yet is contained within his love. He pictures the final destination of heaven, death, his love in glory. That is Into the Void, he turns and faces his ultimate fate.

I can't be fucked typing more, but i will say this about Ripe With Decay. picture a man and a woman in a room of blue pebbles. They sit in two wooden chairs and they are pale, dressed in rags, tied to the chairs and unmoving. A window shows the glory of the day behind them. The floor moves, and it is not pebbles but beatles, and they consume the bonded people from the inside always in view of the mocking free day. That is their doom. They do not struggle.

God I need another drink.

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run it through a fucking spell checker then

and it's not so much an interpretation as "this is why my life sucks", I've probably revealed a lot about myself that I don't like and I'll regret posting it in the morning; but at the fucking momment I don't give a shit.

vodka++

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I think "All you could have been" would have made a much better ending to The Fragile. Ripe (with decay) was a great song, but I felt left hanging, that there was no resolusion. Trent even said (afterwords) that the albumn just kept growing arms and reaching in all sorts of different directions, and for that reason, wasn't entirely pleased with it. The Downward Spiral is my favorite, and not because I'm some fanboy, the sound is so much more memorable and has a greater array of textures. It would be a close tie with Broken.

DS>B>PHM>TF

The Fragile is way to polished and I think Trent may have been reflecting on this in his recent AP interview when he said something to the effect of: "Computers are ruining music, everything sounds so polished." Noting that Bleedthrough will not be recorded with Pro-tools. The link is simply my speculation mixed with his noted feelings toward The Fragile. Just my $0.02.

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I personally feel that the album (or The Downward Sprial) would make good rock operas. This one would be more like The Wall. It was a very vivid and graphic description of the inner workings on the
lyrics.

Darknation: You said you had a more in depth description of the lyics in another thread? I wanna search for them, what would I look for (thread title/topic and such)?

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Stinkfinger said:

On an off topic note: Python_Junkie seems like an asshole.


what the...?

well, he's long since banned.

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[off topic]

Liam the Bard said:

what the...?

i noticed the reference to 'crend,' was slightly curious, looked at his post history, and looked at the thread about him being about five million people. I'm having fun reading it and the links to the other forums. :)
[/off topic]

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Trent is an enigma. At first glance, his lyrics are simple, and seemingly un-inspired at times. To top it off, he presents them in a warped Dr.Suss book fashion. It could be fans overanalyzing what he writes, giving them more depth than they deserve. Is a picture of a box just a box? Is there a cowering child under there, hiding from an abusive aunt he was left with when his parents died four years previous? It's in how the reader takes them.

Personally, I see just the box with One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish under it.

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I used to think NIN was the greatest band in the world. But then I started listening to stuff they DON'T play on the radio, and was completely blown away. Nowadays, NIN is like #30 on my list of good bands.

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Forgive me as well. I just started drinking. Oh well.

The downward spiral. Trent's best work, matched only by The fragile. Listen to it. The typical general lifestyle of a person in a downward spiral. Could be anyone. There is something on that album that everyone can relate to.

01. Starts off with the familiar sounds from Quake. Being hit, taking it, staying calm. Distortion noise in the background. Living in a confusing, distorted life and taking shit but having to stay calm. It builds up, happening more often, until suddenly, you blow up. You don't completely blow up at first, but you snap at anyone, anything, screaming about what you are. They don't listen, scream louder (chorus). Calm down for a minute, let the anger subside, but then start screaming again, they don't listen, scream louder. BRIDGE: You go off to be by yourself, a quiet time. All the things are coming back to yourself. You begin blaming yourself for their pain "you let me do this to you." they come in and try to talk. You benig to feel like your on drugs, you body controlled by some unknown substance. you try to hold it in and explain, but then you explode and scream. still they don't listen, so you scream louder and louder and repeat yourself (final chorus). for some reason or another they go away, leaving you in your confusion and chaos (outro guitar noise).

02. A reflection on Mr. self destruct. a look on the people who cause your anger and outbursts, what they do to you. you've lost everything. you can't find your way. somehow though. somehow, you see something good from this. you realize that there is hope, a path that only you alone can travel. a path of apathy, where you'll be truely happy "nothing can stop me now 'cause i don't care anymore."

03. Typical of all and most with intelligence (stupid people believe what the churches say). Looking at religion. Corupt. A way of hiding lies, wars, sins. The chorus isn't actually against God it seems. Instead, it's against the false 'idols' the corupt churches have created, that God is not the way they tell him to be, and therefore the true knowledge of God is dead to us. therefore we dont know what hell really is, so if it's really what the corupt churches say, then he'll see us there.

04. March. This song is similar to Pink floyd's 'Another brick in teh wall part2'. the marching of us to our deaths and the people we are raised by are brain washing us into soldiers who do exaclyt as they tell us.. The iano part is an irony. people acting like it's wonderful that this is happening, the people who don't actually see things in reality.

05. The mixed inner emotions of love and lust.

06. i'm too drunk to continue.

scratch that, strunk.

But if you think about it, tds would make an excellent rock opera similar to 'teh wall' and 'tommy.' It paitns a picture and a story of a life of a fictional character that everybody can relate to in some part. from the beginning of the anger to the mushroom blue of suicide, it's got it right there. it's dr. seuss for fucked up people. :P

I AM STINKFINGER> I GOT BANNED FOR PISTING DRUJK ANDEEE I CREATEEDDE HIMI TO EDADE BAN!!!! I"M SORRY!!!J BUT I WASN"T THISS DRUNN" EARLIER TONEGHT WHHHHHHEEEN IK" WR""""""""RTE THIS, COPPY NED PASTTTEE SEEEEEEEEE?

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All this reading made me launch Winamp and listen to NIN - Dead Souls

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-Jk- said:

All this reading made me launch Winamp and listen to NIN - Dead Souls

Eew...

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-Jk- said:

All this reading made me launch Winamp and listen to NIN - Dead Souls

Ever heard the original 'Dead Souls' by Joy Divison? Good song.

Scabbed Angel: True dat. I thought it was okay, but below par.

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scarecrow said:
Ever heard the original 'Dead Souls' by Joy Divison? Good song.



Hmm... I haven'y heard that one... *starts P2P client*

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