for the record, i do not dislike any of these albums! trent is a genius and i love all of his work. if you disagree with me send me an angry email and tell me how wrong i am. excluding the ones i haven't listened to enough to form an opinion on, live albums, seeds, nulls, sigils, and remix albums. you can find the unlistened ones at the bottom of the page. anyway, here's the list.
p.s. any tracks i skip out on in reviews are just because i don't have enough to say about them. the EPs are also naturally shorter in their reviews, so be prepared to read a lot for the albums.
it hurts to put any nin album at last, since all are so great, but unfortunately i had to choose add violence. why? i just come back to it the least. less than is a really good song - reminiscent of 80s new wave and such, the lovers is very atmospheric and great live, but doesn't stand out much, this isn't the place is one of my favorite ballads of theirs and it can be absolutely soul-crushing when not prepared, not anymore is... somewhat forgettable in my opinion, and the background world, while i appreciate the disintegration segment, drones on too long for me to listen to it frequently. great record, still - just short enough and with songs that don't pop out enough for me to feel like i can't warrant putting it higher on the list.
coming in just ahead of add violence, much of what i said about add violence can also be applied to this album. it's obviously amazing - and a great stylistic evolution from the lighter sound of hesitation marks to more of a callback to a darker sound that sounds more in line with their first 3 or 4 albums, but with a modern element that differentiates it from those earlier projects still. branches/bones is one of my favorite openers of theirs, and has one of their best choruses of all time in my opinion, dear world has a great hypnotizing atmosphere, she's gone away is reminiscent of eraser atmospherically with touches of the fragile, the idea of you sounds like a with teeth era demo (helped especially with the fact dave grohl plays drums on it,) and burning bright (field on fire) is almost industrial doom metal - sounding triumphant with a lingering dread behind it. it feels like walking through a city that's been bombed after a war - being able to pick out memories you may have had of it, but it's still never going to be the same as it was before.
this album has a great side A, and some great songs on side B too, but the ambient stuff feels like it kind of kills the energy that the beginning had. it goes from sounding like a youthful group of musicians having fun practicing in a garage to the owner of said garage sitting in it 30 years later reminiscing on the good old days. standout tracks are discipline, head down and lights in the sky. one thing i love about this album is how damn catchy it is - every song on side A is infectiously easy to sing along to, and i think is one of the best displays of trent's talent to write pop songs with substance. the entirety of discipline - with that simple groove, amazing guitar tone and verse-chorus-verse song structure with a great breakdown in the middle, the chorus and outro of echoplex, the chorus of head down's beauty amongst the distorted verses, and lights in the sky being one of the most amazing, simple, wholesome ballads i have ever heard. unfortunately, after lights in the sky, the album starts to slow down, which is fine, i understand pacing is important, but it's still a bit of a bummer going from such a wonderful, energy-filled record to a slow, ambient record. not that the ambient tracks are bad, they're still great as always, and it does pick back up with demon seed as the last track, it just feels like a sudden stopping point that always leaves me feeling a little bit disappointed.
the last one in the trilogy, and in my opinion, the best. this one feels the most fleshed out, and i love the atmosphere displayed in each song. shit mirror is an anthemic opener, i love the jungle-influenced beats on ahead of ourselves, god break down the door has an amazing sax part that really hasn't been part of nin much since purest feeling, and over and out is such a satisfying, holy-shit-is-this-just-a-david-bowie-song outro. this album sounds the most like controlled chaos - it's all over the place, and it's bursting at the seams with energy but with enough of a dark atmosphere that it still feels vaguely unsettling. essentially, as i saw cosmiagramma say on rateyourmusic, "trent reznor nails the late-period david bowie vibe by making some objectively ominous eerie music but still ends up sounding sexy." it sounds like the world built in these 3 EPs is melting down on here, the amount of dissonant cries and frantic drum beats, repetition of certain lines sounding like the subliminal messages people would say were in reversed metal records - it's all coming down, and you're in the center of it when you listen to this. you're fucked.
there's not nearly as much i can say about this one - it's long, it's all instrumental, and it's got way too many tracks for me to break each of them down like i do with the others. all i can say is, if it's a rainy day outside, listen to this, because it is perfect for that.
this album has a great atmosphere. i know i've said it about pretty much all of these, but it really does. it feels the most personal, and i think part of that is because of both the songs that were created for this album, and the ones that were chosen to be redone. something i can never have is especially incredible on this, especially - i think it's the definitive version. his voice in the fragile era gives these lyrics an extra boost, and the stripped down production clears it up a lot more and i think it sounds incredible. adrift and at peace is part 3 in the la mer trilogy, and it's a great bridge between the first 2 covers. the fragile is next here, and while it's one of my favorites on the original album already, this is great too, sounding even sweeter than on the original. and the drums at the end are euphoric, too. the becoming is probably the most digital sounding of these reworks, using a drum machine where everything else had been swapped out for acoustic drums (if there were any drums at all.) however, it still maintains a really great balance between the stripped down atmosphere of this album and the stressful, mechanical atmosphere of the downward spiral, and the organic reverb of the room he was recording this in on his voice versus the mic directly at his mouth has a great balance. gone, still is probably my least favorite of the instrumental tracks, it doesn't really go as many places as the others, but it's still pretty nice. the day the world went away is the last song reworked for this album, and it's essentially what i wish the quiet version on the single were more like. and it also probably has the best outro of anything on this album - it's the most motivating piece of music i've heard, and it is the perfect lead-in to the next 3 tracks on here. and all that could have been is a beautiful ballad, one of their best in my opinion, and it is absolutely soul-crushing at the wrong time. the lyrics are beautiful, the music is beautiful, all of it is just... one of the most beautiful compositions i have ever heard in my life. the persistence of loss probably would have fit better at a different point on the album, but i can also make a case that the low, rumbling piano notes could be a great representation of dread in contrast to the beautiful representations of these last 3 songs. and leaving hope... god, what a song. i have a longer review on the main nin page, so you can read that, but this is absolutely incredible. possibly the prettiest piece of music in the world.
i don't know how i'm going to write a follow-up after how long the still one was, but we'll see. a lot of people seem to really dislike this one. i've never understood that. this is a great look at trent's ability to produce with cleaner production really well, this whole album is super smooth and i love it. it's his love for depeche mode shining through. it's his kiss me kiss me kiss me if the downward spiral was disintegration. it's very easy to dance to, in fact sometimes i'm tempted to just call it their dance record, because how the hell can you put on a song like satellite and not groove the fuck out? also, everything rules both on the record and live. also also, all time low is such a fucking bowie inspired song. like come on, he's not even trying to hide it at this point. p.s. i cannot unhear "i am just a neko of a neko of a neko" on copy of a, and it is slowly ruining the song for me. help.
the first sober album! i don't know where to start with this, so i'll just go with the opening track. all the love in the world is a great, moody opener... for the first 3 minutes. then it's fuckin' GROOVIN' time! his falsetto in this part is great and that last "why do you get all the love?" chant is impossible to not sing along to. one of my favorite openers from them. you know what you are? is next and this is closer to the sound displayed on broken/the downward spiral. the chorus is incredible on this one, those screams of "DON'T YOU FUCKING KNOW WHAT YOU ARE?" are soooo satisfying to listen to. so much rage. also, the remix used in the 2005 doom movie was the best part of the movie, even if i still liked it. the hand that feeds is up, and now we're really talking. the first single for the album, and man is it good. trent has always been good at writing catchy songs about protest, but this is one of my personal favorites. the synths on this one are great, the chorus is catchy, it's got a great beat... everything you love from a nin single. really great stuff. every day is exactly the same is a great song about the cycle of depression and how much days can blend together. since it's close to winter as i'm writing this, i've been experiencing this a bit lately, and... man. this song really hits the spot. it's slow, it's dreary, relatively repetitive but with that one bit that breaks the cycle - and then it's back to the same over and over. so accurate. i'll mention with teeth since i have it listed as my least favorite, and it's just... i don't know. it's grand, has that great, bombastic drum beat by dave grohl (as with most of the drums on this album) and the guitars and everything are cool, but i just like the other tracks more. nothing is bad about it, in fact the "i cannot go through this again" part is one of my favorites on the album. it just doesn't have enough else going for it for me to warrant putting it higher in my opinion. running out of space here, so i'll just say sunspots is one of their best, and right where it belongs is a 10/10 closer. sorry i can't fit more, maybe i'll do a full review on rateyourmusic some day.
probably their angriest release. however short this is, and however much you like or dislike it, you have to admit that this is fucking brutal.
