Year Zero

Having all of his previous studio releases, and having seen him live in concert twice, this one feels like the leftover stuff that didn't make it on With Teeth, its just not worthy of his previous work. It not intriguing or moving, its just annoying.

I like the fact that he has a big concept. I like the cover. I like the intro. Track 2 is ok. Me, I'm Not is good enough. Overall: Disappointment. I think his idea would make a decent movie. This is kinda like I'm watching a movie with no picture and a repetitive soundtrack. It sounds like he created all the music (minus lyrics and concept) on a laptop in about three days.

My real beef, if I can find a way to express it correctly, is I guess the philosophy of reznor's headspace between With Teeth and year zero. I was never into NIN until With Teeth - the track Only was written very well and the last track is awesome. The whole album is quite introspective, and the music varied and fitting. I expected an expansion on the ideological/skeptic/perhaps nihilistic themes with his new album; kinda a continuation from Right Where it Belongs left off. With Teeth felt so honest, it was refreshing. This just feels like Trend Renzor is out being a reactionary to bush, and jumping on this new wave of bush hatred. I hated bush since after our address to to the UN in 01 - something about that address and everything done after seemed illogical and phony. But feeling like that was oh-so-strange back then. Whatever finally ticked the nation off, be it Katrina or the slow realization that hey, bush has no clue what he's doing and his powerful posse is running the show behind the curtain with their own agendas, i guess now it's bandwagon time to hate all things republican; and you can see many an artist stimulated to create based on this new stirring of anti-bush/anti-hegelian-meets-Rumsfeld&Rove's-Machievellian-politics feelings instead of just doing what they do for the sake of their art. Now, instead of digging deeper into his own psyche, and writing super-introspective lyrics, which would've been a cool follow-up to With Teeth, we got reznor projecting all his energies "outwards". It's all through other people's eyes as they see all the plagues of society bearing down upon us. No more time for "Who am I?" and "What does my life mean/what is this life for?" wonderings. Not in today's choatic times, which have suddenly become so real after Katrina and the new focus of the mass public. Don't look inside and question why we're in the mess we are now; focus on the mess and what it could mean for the future!

My problem is this disc just reminds me of the new wave that seems to have crashed down on the collective conscious of mass culture nowadays, which is trying to spur us to hate bush and use our hate to go and separate ourselves from all things political and fight to regain our individual freedoms on the home front. First it was fight for freedom oversees, now it's a fight for freedom at home. Freedom freedom freedom, and change, change, change; that's what it's all about. Big ideas, and no focus on the self, and the real world, and the question to why we're so driven to embrace these sellable notions of freedom and change and all that in the first place. Why doesn't reznor focus on himself, and the music, and quit fretting over the new bandwagon wave that's hit the music scene? Doesn't he realize that perhaps that was one of the main points of the administration&the war that he's complaining about, to get us to focus our energies on perceived external enemies and the problems outside and struggle with the issues that come with globalization instead of focusing on the world inside and simply doing what you feel is right to you? If we all did that tho, we wouldn't have caused such problems to begin with, because we woulda realized the war and bush seemed fishy and illogical, but whatever, I guess that could just be looked at as a negative aspect of Christian dogma again - take all your internal issues, project them on some random, perceived enemy, and focus all your drive on battling that enemy; then, when you finally realize how bad you f-ed up, repent and whine and [...] and moan until you feel so bad you have to project your demons out again, and the cycle continues.

Oh well, whatever gives you the drive to push onward, right? Reznor's certainly got that, with his whole crazy marketing scheme. I just wish he quieted his raging mind down a bit, and wrote some more complete and well-rounded introspective music again, and stopped pushing his focus outward. But oh well, whatever appeals to the bandwagon, and business, can't forget business, right? Him and Serj ("elect the dead") can go on tour now and [...] together while ignoring the fact that their actual music isn't that good.

[...]

This is one of my favorite NIN CD's to date. The storyline is engrossing and kept me looking long after the music stopped.

I don't remember how I found the hype-- all the hidden web pages providing the background for "year zero". (check wikipedia if you haven't read them). It all fit in with my nihilistic side-- drugging the masses, giving military forces antidotes for the pacifying drugs (and more...)
The album itself is a bit of a letdown from the world that was built around it, but I still enjoyed it.
"Hyperpower" hearkens back to the last part of "waiting for the worms" by Pink Floyd.
"Good solider" reminds me of "Downward spiral" and "even deeper"-- the innocent "bonging" tones at the end just add to the creepiness. All we need is a chorus of children...
"vessel" reminds me for no apparent reason of "big man with a gun", except this is consensual... or at least was at first. "I let you put it in my mouth..." indeed.
"me, I'm not" reminds me of "where is everybody"-- but more trippy. Sort of a bookend for it. Certainly a disconcerting portrait of not knowing our own motives... Anyone who has had experience with dealing with things bigger than themselves and having their minds play tricks on them afterward will identify.
The rest... eh. I can listen to "fragile" again.
The songs I mentioned are reason enough to buy the album. If you don't have fragile or downward spiral, I'd get them first.

All hail Trent Reznor. "Year Zero" starts off with the instrumental "Hyperpower!", and from the first couple of seconds I could tell what kind of album this was going to be. I feel that social commentary works best when it is sarcastic, sincere, and not too preachy, which is why this album works. It is a grandiose statement about where our country and world could be heading in the future, but the feel of it is most cetainly rooted in our everyday lives RIGHT NOW. "Survivalism" and "Capital G" are specifically aimed at the Establishment (Bush Administration?). "The Good Soldier" tells the story of a war-weary soldier who questions his actions and duties (Iraq and Afghanistan?). "God Given" is a ditty about religious belief and class superiority (American/Middle Eastern differences and the American Public itself?) "The Great Destroyer" is the frightening turning point of the album where a military leader foresees his/her personal regret in dropping "The Big One", yet does it anyway. The final three songs on the album bring the story to a bitter but appropriate end. "In This Twilight" and especially "Zero Sum" are amazingly heartfelt songs where the narrator looks back on the destruction of the world and wonders just where it all went wrong, and wishes that they can do it again and make different choices. They realize how it all came to this, and come to the conclusion that it was "brought on by our own hand". A wonderful end to a wonderful album. I feel that pessimistic outlooks on the future come to be because of our flawed civilization. Some have accused the album of sounding too "computerized". The justification for this is very simple: the story takes place in the future. I hope that our world is not heading in this direction, but I sure do hope our music is.