Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 4:56 pm Posts: 19957 Location: Jenny Lewis' funbags
superklye wrote:
MF wrote:
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?
Excluding remix albums of course. I just have no real love for PHM. It has some fantastic songs on it, but as was said earlier, it hasn't aged very well and most of the good songs on it sound better live anyways.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 4:28 am Posts: 6085 Location: At home among the gum trees. Gender: Male
MF wrote:
superklye wrote:
MF wrote:
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?
Excluding remix albums of course. I just have no real love for PHM. It has some fantastic songs on it, but as was said earlier, it hasn't aged very well and most of the good songs on it sound better live anyways.
it has something i can never have on it and that is pretty much the only nin song that stands out imo the rest are just ok
_________________ Trouble, Oh trouble can't you see, You have made me a wreck, Now won't you leave me in my misery
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:02 pm Posts: 10690 Location: Lost in Twilight's Blue
I love Pretty Hate Machine, dated production and all. It certainly could benefit from some updating, but any of those songs live are solid gold.
_________________ Scared to say what is your passion, So slag it all, Bitter's in fashion, Fear of failure's all you've started, The jury is in, verdict: Retarded
Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:31 pm Posts: 10340 Location: Norway Gender: Male
The rights to the 1989 Nine Inch Nails debut, Pretty Hate Machine, were recently bought by indie label Rykodisc after TVT Records defaulted in a loan. Rykodisc plans to re-release the album on November 22nd and NIN front-man Trent Reznor isn't exactly happy about it. In an interview with the Toronto Sun he said, "I like Rykodisc, I think they are a good label, and I respect them. But the way that it happened is mind-blowing. TVT's been a thorn in my side from the beginning. TVT defaulted on a huge loan and one of their assets is my first album. There's an auction and the next thing I know it's on Rykodisc. Now I've got Ryko asking me if I'd like to do a deluxe version. Yeah, I would. I would like to have a 5.1 version. I'll redo the packaging. Everything. But I'm not doing it for free. They're not willing to pay, so they put out whatever they put out. That's it."
Check out the full interview at TorontoSun.com
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Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 5:25 pm Posts: 35180 Location: Brasil Gender: Male
Nine Inch Nails
Pretty Hate Machine
[TVT; 1989; r: Rykodisc; 2005]
Rating: 5.6
2005 was supposed to mark the phoenix-like rebirth of Trent Reznor's career, a return from his self-imposed exile to seize back his empire of angst from the acolytes who'd carried his banner during the interim. The Dolby-tricked-out re-release of his 1994 peak, The Downward Spiral, sounded the fanfare, its finely textured bursts of despair and strangely soothing hushed introspections losing little of its alternative-era wallop. But new album With Teeth vampired off this momentum, sounding disappointingly paint-by-numbers despite its success on mostly toothless modern-rock radio.
Now comes a reissue of Nine Inch Nails' introduction to the world, a move which could be perceived as another grasp at legacy rehabilitation through past-mining if not for Reznor's non-compliance with the release. Recently, Pretty Hate Machine has been a neglected child in divorce proceedings, languishing out of print while TVT attempted to settle its affairs with assorted Mr. Potters, who eventually tried to hock it along with other parts of the label's back catalog. As such, PHM returns to your store shelves courtesy of Rykodisc, who licensed the record from that industrial figurehead, Prudential Securities-- after all, nobody says rock like The Rock.
Due to these auspicious origins, the new incarnation of Pretty Hate Machine is indistinguishable from the original: no 5.1 surround-sound, no B-side/remix sweetening, no fishnet slipcase/bonus snuff DVD deluxe packaging. And with no garish extras, there's nothing to distract from what turns out to be a horribly dated album, just as awkwardly out of step with the mid-aughts as The Downward Spiral was unexpectedly relevant.
Remastering might've spruced it up, but it's unlikely a digital touchup could keep Pretty Hate Machine from sounding tinny and underproduced. Drumbeats are often industrial in the most literal sense, machinery-simulating presets as stiff as prosthetics. The rest of the mix doesn't offer any escape routes, filled out as it is with paper-thin synthesizers and Reznor's echo plug-in front-and-center vocals spouting alt.suicide.holiday posts, and the razor-guitars and stampeding drums he'd perfect just three years later on "Wish" nowhere to be heard. These failings didn't sink in back when I had "Head Like a Hole" cranked up on my Discman on the school bus, but today that and others sound almost quaint, the furthest thing from young and rebellious.
As a result, Pretty Hate Machine sounds less like NIN's astonishing breakthrough and more like developmental bumbling, leaving one to wonder why it was ever considered otherwise. Perhaps the album was swept up in the hypewaves generated by Reznor's famous afternoon sets at the first Lollapalooza, perhaps PHM reaped the rewards of people being late to the Wax Trax! game. And to tell the truth, it's still possible to see the early vestiges of Reznor's skillful reconfiguration of all those nasty Chicago and German sounds for pop palatability, placing the emphasis on the melody rather than the machinery. Hints at Reznor's considerable studio craft pop up more often in the album's second half, the breakbeats of "Kinda I Want To" momentarily enlivening the limp rhythms, "Sin" (probably NIN's most underrated and best early song) seeding the creepy brooding sensations that didn't fully bloom until the Broken EP.
But there are just too many embarrassingly distinct time-stamps of 1989-ness to ignore: the hilarious talk-rap vocals of "Down In It", that Chili Peppers slapbass on "Sanctified", the "Goodbye Blue Sky" rip of "Something I Can Never Have". Like most self-serious music, time hasn't gone easy on the depressive couplets (fill in the rhyme!: "bow down before the one you serve...") and haunted-house keyboards of Reznor's debut, eroding much of what must've been shocking and novel about it 17 years ago. Unlike The Downward Spiral or Broken, Pretty Hate Machine's re-release reveals the album to be an artifact, perhaps historically valuable, but as anachronistic as Napolean in a water park.
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 5:51 am Posts: 17078 Location: TX
It pisses me off when labels release shit like that totally against the wishes of the author. I know the whole thing is complicated, but I really wish I knew how it works that an artist writes something, then it is not thier property anymore but the record labels. It's total horseshit.
It pisses me off when labels release shit like that totally against the wishes of the author. I know the whole thing is complicated, but I really wish I knew how it works that an artist writes something, then it is not thier property anymore but the record labels. It's total horseshit.
Depends on the contract. If the artist doesn't own the masters, the label can do whatever it wants with them.
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 5:51 am Posts: 17078 Location: TX
bart d. wrote:
Buffalohed wrote:
It pisses me off when labels release shit like that totally against the wishes of the author. I know the whole thing is complicated, but I really wish I knew how it works that an artist writes something, then it is not thier property anymore but the record labels. It's total horseshit.
Depends on the contract. If the artist doesn't own the masters, the label can do whatever it wants with them.
I can't imagine ever signing away the rights to something I wrote, but then again I know it is a cutthroat business and there must be a lot of financial pressure when you are trying to release a debut.
It pisses me off when labels release shit like that totally against the wishes of the author. I know the whole thing is complicated, but I really wish I knew how it works that an artist writes something, then it is not thier property anymore but the record labels. It's total horseshit.
Depends on the contract. If the artist doesn't own the masters, the label can do whatever it wants with them.
I can't imagine ever signing away the rights to something I wrote, but then again I know it is a cutthroat business and there must be a lot of financial pressure when you are trying to release a debut.
Well, the rights to the songs themselves are a different matter, although I think bands mostly don't end up owning them either. "Masters" just refers to the master tape of any recording of the band. 99% of the time, the band has to sign them away if it wants a deal.
It's all very confusing, and it's deals like this that allow people like the Stones ex-manager to sue the Verve and argue that they own the rights to a particular recording.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:02 pm Posts: 10690 Location: Lost in Twilight's Blue
Buffalohed wrote:
It pisses me off when labels release shit like that totally against the wishes of the author. I know the whole thing is complicated, but I really wish I knew how it works that an artist writes something, then it is not thier property anymore but the record labels. It's total horseshit.
I agree with what your saying, but in this case at least the cd is out there and no longer out of print. I wasn't even aware of this until this business news surfaced last year, and regardless of what some of you might think of the album, it just doesn't seem right for it to be out of print.
Oh, and I'll say it again, I love this album. These same fuckers that put it down for sounding dated and "an artifact" will praise something else that sounds retro when it's from an era they like. And regardless of production, good songwriting doesn't change and those same songs will tear you a new one live. Personally, I can't wait to hear "Terrible Lie" next month.
_________________ Scared to say what is your passion, So slag it all, Bitter's in fashion, Fear of failure's all you've started, The jury is in, verdict: Retarded
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 5:51 am Posts: 17078 Location: TX
Hey, I didn't know it was out of print. That sucks. I think I hate it when stuff is out of print that I want more than I hate evil record labels. Well, maybe its a tie.
Pretty Hate Machine is pretty much my image of NIN. I'm not a big fan of them or anything, but one of my best friends was huge into them and PHM always represented the band in my mind. And I hate to think we are getting so old that something from 1989 is considered an artifact.
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