I had tickets to see NIN and Marilyn Manson when I was 12, but I got in trouble for some reason and my parents gave them away. Probably for the best since I can’t imagine what sitting through MM’s show with my dad would have been like.

Downward Spiral and Broken hold up pretty well I think, I play them from time to time. HLAH and Sin are both great songs too.

The broken ep was the one that really struck a chord with me, but I was in high school when the downward spiral was huge, and popular girls kind of ruined it for me. That and Dookie.

Popular girls can have a dark side, or have you never seen twin peaks

Happiness In Slavery is an embarrassing song, but otherwise Broken still rules.

Shit, I never got to tell you guys about seeing the Nine Inch Nails concert where the OG Broken/The Downward Spiral crew rejoined onstage last month.

You can read that here, it's long and rambling but tl;dr - it was fucking amazing

https://vsmusick.wordpress.com/2022/10/ ... w-9-24-22/

Late to the party on The Background World, but holy cow what a song. Late career highlight.

The rest of Add Violence is pretty solid too. Post-The Fragile, I’d say this and Hesitation Marks are the only two I care about.

Awith Ateetha has too many bangers to be tossed aside like that, Trag.

I struggle with this one more than any of the others. As a pivot towards a more straight-forward rock sound, and with some new lyrical themes — around sobriety! Right up my alley! — it works. I think it’s more than successful at everything he set out to do.

But you put this next to any of the earlier albums on a shelf, I’m reaching for the older album nine times out of ten.

Maybe if I’d seen him live on this tour I’d feel differently. A song like The Collector is serviceable on record. I bet it f’n slays live.

As a full album experience, absolutely. But there are such massive highs on this thing I would never dismiss it completely. I think it holds its own just fine in the age of the playlist.

You know what? I've played With Teeth 3.5 times this week and it keeps getting better. You've convinced me I was wrong, and now I'm looking forward to the definite edition that's coming.

Meanwhile, Year Zero keeps getting worse. For a NIN record that was largely recorded while on the road, boy does it sound like it.

yeah Year Zero wasn't good, but Hesitation Marks was

Yeah I like this one a lot too. I've also digging Add Violence, despite the stupid album cover. Need to give NTAE and Bad Witch another shake I think.

I've also been listening to a bunch of post-Fragile NIN this week. I think Hesitation Marks is the best of the bunch. And I agree that Year Zero basically sucks. Trent gets a little too cute with his vocals throughout, and there's no layering or atmosphere to most of these tracks. I don't mind "Survivalism", though.

100% agreed. The lack of atmosphere is really problematic. But there are several songs I like (none of these are classics though):

Survivalism
The Good Soldier
Me, I'm Not
The Greater God
Zero Sum

I'll reiterate that the real post-Fragile highlight is this track. Can't get enough of it:

Man, I’m just not into a NIN phase at all. The EPs were a let down back in the day and that kinda threw me off, but I know I’ll come back.

I do love With Teeth and The Slip. HM is one i enjoyed when it came out and kinda never went back to.

Year Zero, I think I listened to that one once, and I fucking own the Cd!

Hesitation Marks gets a lot of spins. I really enjoyed all the Ghosts releases as well but would really love a proper album this year.

I really need to go back and listen to the NIN stuff of the past 15 years. I recall being into Year Zero at the time but i haven't revisited it since. I've listened to most of the newer stuff that came out after that but I just never go back to it after one or two listens.

Year Zero was the last CD I ever bought.

It'd make me quit too