Okay, let me just say right off the top that I’ve always had a bit of a problem with Trent Reznor. This was purely from an artistic POV. As a huge fan of Ministry’s early industrial output (the landmark records Twitch and The Land of Rape and Honey), I saw Trent’s Pretty Hate Machine as a homogenized version of the Ministry aesthetic. It was as if someone had sawed off all the harsh, jagged edges of a Ministry record. No, let me rephrase that. It was as if someone had taken a basic rock record…you know, verse/chorus/verse stuff…and added a little industrial window dressing.

That the suburbs, malls, and amusement parks were soon littered with suburban kids with NIN logos on their chests and backs was proof positive that Trent Reznor had succeeded in making industrial music palatable for the suburbs. After all, suburban kids wanted to feel “bad-ass” too, but those Ministry records were some scary shit. NIN, on the other hand, was no more frightening than watching The Crow for the hundredth time.

So, yeah, I thought Reznor was a poseur.

That opinion did not change when I saw him have a mini-meltdown at Lollapalooza when his pre-programmed keyboards wouldn’t work. Seriously, Diana Ross, Liza Minnelli, and the rest of their ilk have nothing on this guy.Of course, along the way, the guy actually managed to write “Hurt,” which I heartily believe is a fucking great song, but doing so only made me expect more from the guy. If he was capable of that, then why did we keep getting albums that were, by and large, huge steaming piles of unfulfilled promise?

Because his fans accepted those albums as symbols of musical brilliance, that’s why. (more…)