Heresy and Usurpation

cubicle17:

Greg Kot:

A week after releasing his four-volume instrumental work “Ghosts I-IV” through his Web site, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor is reporting that he amassed more than $1.6 million in orders and downloads.

Radiohead may get credit for doing this first, but Reznor’s model is better, smarter, and more likely to gain wide adoption.

Jeez im wary of trying out any new music from NIN. The last two albums were a FAIL of great epic proportion. I used to be a huge NIN fan, and still am a huge fan of all experimental, industrial, and otherwise avant garde electronica. The Fragile is and has been one of my top 20 albums in my several-thousand-deep collection, but after that, I just cant get into anything Reznor has put out. The 6 year time span between it and With Teeth left me thinking he was done for, and his comeback certainly confirmed that. Year Zero had a few nice moments, but did not make up for having not produced anything worth an honorable mention in the upper reaches of a decade.

Alas, as I crave for something that feels like his work of the prior decade, im sure Ill break down and get this. Its hard, its almost like going back to your ex after a bad breakup, thinking things can be different this time. If this is just another collection of paltry mediocre rock songs passed through electronic filters, im going to need the entire Front Line Assembly, Combichrist, and Godflesh discographies, simultaneously, to recover.