In Praise of.....the <i>BROKEN</i> e.p. by Nine Inch Nails

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000001Y5J.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

The "in praise of..." madness continues.

I was never a particularly huge fan of Nine Inch Nails. Pretty Hate Machine was a savvy, perfectly listenable rendition of "industrial" ala Ministry and Skinny Puppy, boasting stubbornly striking pop melodies dressed up in spikey rubber finery and smeared pancake make-up. Inspiring a boatload of backlash in the wake of its success from the Wax Trax purists on how Trent was merely co-opting "industrial" music, cleaning it up and selling it to mainstream America like some demonic fast food francise, Trent trotted back to his studio (then housed in the infamous Sharon Tate/Roman Polanski house wherein the Manson Family had a knife-weilding hoedown) and pulled out all the stops to make a faster, angrier, noisier, dirtier FUCK YOU of a record.

Clocking in with only six tracks (not including the two bonus cuts, either appended way back at the end of the CD or in the form of a bonus 3" in it's own stylish n sleeve), Broken is a tirelessly splenetic blast of very metal noise pollution, augmented with the clank'n'boom sturm und drang "industrial" trappings of the day.

Okay, so maybe he is guilty of ripping off Wax Trax and changing his hairstyle more times than you've had hot dinners.....but DANG if this ain't ever a satisfying record. Short, sharp, shocking and decidedly NOT sweet, Broken serves as a deliciously vengeful cocktail to drown if you've just been jilted by a significant other. Wallowing in a maelstrom of self-pity and unfettered ire, "Wish," "Last" and "Gave Up" are prime catharsis for the newly-dumped, and I especially applaud "Last"'s shameless pilfering of the riff from Queen's "Fight From the Inside" (Trent's a huge Queen fan, it's been noted). And once again, even though Trent succeeded in releasing a decidedly less accessible/user-friendly record, those hook-laden melodies are still there. You can take the man out of pop music, but ya can't take the pop music out of the man.

Sure, it's kinda juvenile and monochromatic, but who cares? Then there's the bonus cuts.....a beefed up rendition of "Suck" (the song which he'd written and foolishly donated to Pigface) and a cover of Adam & the Ants' "Physical," arguably recalling the funereal dirge of Killing Joke's "Requiem."

The Downward Spiral was fine too, yeah, but in a big pretentious wedding cake, Pink Floyd's The Wall kinda way, and, really, who needed that?

So anyway, who's with me on Broken? Weigh in!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 21:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm not with you at all.

― Millar (Millar), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 21:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I think we're on completely different subway lines, Alex. Sorry.

― Xii (Xii), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 21:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Ack. Have you two ever listened to it? I'm not saying it re-invented the wheel or anything, but I'm giving credit where I think it's due.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 21:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Nine Inch Nails is generally piss poor but Broken is their shining moment, and it's really pretty damn good.

― ham on rye (ham on rye), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 22:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Broken is the only NIN record I really dig (except for the instrumentals on The Fragile). Everything else I've heard by the guy doesn't strike me as being all that memorable.

― Evan (Evan), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 22:59 (twenty-two years ago)

I remember kinda liking "Happiness In Slavery". I think.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 23:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm feeling you Alex! In fact, I'm probably more all about this ep than you even. I think it's like the best pop music of the 90's.
I have to dig it out and listen to it again to say why, but damn it's good!

― Dan I., Wednesday, 6 August 2003 23:26 (twenty-two years ago)

i completely agree.. each song just gets better and better.

― chaki (chaki), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 23:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Pro: at least it's not Marilyn Manson.

Con: the cardinal sin of those who employ industrial "trappings" to embellish their material as opposed to as an integral element in its creation. The difference between a lot of the Wax Trax cadre and (IMO superior) folks like Neubauten, Killing Joke, Cabaret Voltaire, Swans, and This Heat is not merely one of chronology, but also the way that these earlier practitioners used these sounds to generate their musical structures. This includes using space as well as noise, and always maintaining a sense that the noise they were making was because they HAD to sound like that, not just that they'd chosen to do so. Reznor/NIN are just a mite too stylized to make it work, as pop or as industry.

I'm probably not expressing this well; it's just a sense that I get from hearing them in comparison. And I really did give NIN more than the benefit of the doubt back when this came out and afterwards, and kept finding them wanting.

― Nom De Plume (Nom De Plume), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 23:47 (twenty-two years ago)

b-b-but the pigface version of suck is so much better!

what are alex's thoughts on fixed?

i think my favorite nin moment is their cover of get down make love. it was quite the party hit in my household at the time

― disco stu (disco stu), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 23:49 (twenty-two years ago)

i like broken because trenty turned up the guitars to 11 + the production was pretty amazing for the time. his lyrics make me cringe though.

― disco stu (disco stu), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 23:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I think the biggest misconception about NIN is that they were ever industrial in any way at all. Maybe he tried to be industrial, but he was about as industrial as Avril is punk. NIN was really good hard rock pop music (so was KMFDM), and I never heard the resemblance to the early 80's industrial it was supposed to be genre-buddies with.

― Dan I., Thursday, 7 August 2003 00:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Argh, that was bad; I think I was trying to say pretty much the same thing Nom de Plume did, but that I see it as a positive thing (that nin adopted the trappings (meaning he tossed the odd clank and hiss in there) and not the, in my opinion bland and stupid-claustrophobic, actual structure of "real" industrial).

― Dan I., Thursday, 7 August 2003 00:21 (twenty-two years ago)

I always got the feeling that RDJ was mocking/supporting this aspect of NIN in those "remixes" of his off of Further Down The Spiral by giving us the actual structure of a real industrial song but making them sound exactly like elevator music, which is all they really were all along. I very much like those two particular songs, too.

― Dan I., Thursday, 7 August 2003 00:26 (twenty-two years ago)

It made fall 1992 a lot easier to deal with in retrospect and for that I thank him.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 7 August 2003 01:15 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, I have really mixed feelings about nin (almost the same complaints I have with radiohead) but this is definitely my 'favorite' thing by 'them'.

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Thursday, 7 August 2003 02:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I like it.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 7 August 2003 03:18 (twenty-two years ago)

and to this day i never thought anything off wax trax et al was industrial.

i have a susbstantial pile of wax trax vinyl but never considered the industrial word. I remember popel at college saying, 'oh, i like industrial music' so i'd ask, oh, did yuou prefer spk's leichenschrei to their information overload unit to much blankness of face.

thing is, they wouldn't know 'industrial' if it hit them in the eyeliner.
i mean 'industrial rock' - who the hell thought that one up?

rant over

― frenchbloke (frenchbloke), Thursday, 7 August 2003 15:55 (twenty-two years ago)

You'll notice, pedants, that when I refer to the music made by Wax Trax and the like, I put the word industrial in quotation marks, so as not to get the Throbbing Gristle/Neubauten purism contingent all riled up. The term itself, like Punk Rock before it, became bastardized, of course, by lessers, getting folks like the Frenchman above all ranty.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 7 August 2003 15:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Purism is fascism. "Broken" was great but "Fixed" was even greater.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 7 August 2003 16:06 (twenty-two years ago)

i think broken is great. one of the best "pissed-off" albums ever.
i likes it so much, i think, because trent – when he wrote it was actually really angry, not the faux-anger that runs through most crummy "industial" stuff (& nins' other stuff) – i mean, he had to write and record the album in secret. it's an honest album i guess, which is hard to find in any genre of music.

― dyson (dyson), Thursday, 7 August 2003 16:14 (twenty-two years ago)

and fixed is nothing with mr. thirwell

― dyson (dyson), Thursday, 7 August 2003 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I think this album sounds more like really really really pissed off Prince than any of the "industrial" acts sited so far. Like, the core of this shit is SEX-drugs-rocknroll, rather than sex-drugs-rocknroll; possibly thus explaining why so many ladies I know like to fuck to this album.

Oh, and it may have saved my life at 14 years old. Totally classic.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 7 August 2003 16:19 (twenty-two years ago)

i didn't like it at the time but Alex NYC's love of it makes me want to hear it again - as i find often happens with specific works mentioned on ILM...

Dan's 1st comment is quite something...

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Thursday, 7 August 2003 16:35 (twenty-two years ago)

On Broken Trenty was just following the metal-guitar trend started by Ministry and adding his own popiness. "Wish" and "Happiness in Slavery" are the only really good songs on it, the rest is so-so. It was a good thing it was an EP. Spiral is when he started to lose his songwriting skillz; it had a few good songs but was overall very tedious.

― fletrejet, Thursday, 7 August 2003 16:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Lose his skills? I beg to differ, but we'd be here all day. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 7 August 2003 16:54 (twenty-two years ago)

trent wrote much better songs than ministry. and his voice was made to scream, dense and classic.

― Felcher (Felcher), Thursday, 7 August 2003 16:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Some of Trent's best songwriting is on _The Fragile_ ("We're In This Together Now", "The Wretched", "Into The Void", "The Fragile", the instrumental in alternating 4/4 and 6/4, "The Day The Whole World Went Away").

Snowy, I can't tell if you agree or disagree!

(Trent certainly wrote better songs than post-1986 Ministry, but "Over The Shoulder", "Everyday Is Halloween", "Isle Of Man", "The Angel", "All Day", "Cold Life", "Effigy (I'm Not A)", "Revenge", "Here We Go" and "Say You're Sorry" are all stone classics.)

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't even consider the "I" word when i listen to nin these days. It doesn't even enter my head.

I don't like Broken anywhere near as much as I love the Downward Spiral, but it's still absolutely gripping. "Wish" especially. When I was 13, that song just grabbed my stomache and ripped it all around. There's something vaguely cinematic about the record; you can listen to it with your eyes closed, and the images that come up in your (or at least my) head are nothing like the ones in the videos.

Also, one of the best live music moments I've seen recently is the Dillinger Escape Plan doing "Wish." It's the absolute climax of their set; all the scattered, unfocused fire and scrape of their own songs suddenly channeled into this focused, efficient rock delivery machine.

― Tom Breihan (Tom Breihan), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:20 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm sorry, but gave up is by far the best track on the album.

― dyson (dyson), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:38 (twenty-two years ago)

poor trent reznor. i think he actually had some skills... but in the game of competing for the shock rock crown, stupid old marilyn manson and his fake boobies couldn't help but wash reznor out of public view and pretty much off a career.

where is he these days?

flashback to high school days when we'd be listening to broken on our way down to daytona beach after class. marilyn manson was a regular "wacky" bar/cover band in daytona. 100% cheese.

tables sure have turned and keep on turning. where's manson these days? guesting on tom green's talk show? has been on the has been's talk show circuit?

― msp, Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I like PHM and TDS better, but when you need a really-fucking-angry-driving-in-the-car-catharsis record, sometimes only Broken will do. It was also the "hey, Trent plays guitar!" moment, right?

Also, it's shocking how many girls I know have homemade NIN tattoos on various body parts acquired during their adolescence (the tattoos, not the body parts).

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Marilyn Manson has a (good) new album out, btw.

― Sean (Sean), Thursday, 7 August 2003 18:01 (twenty-two years ago)

it was number one

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Thursday, 7 August 2003 18:16 (twenty-two years ago)

god,
i'm stuck in cardboard box obviously. oh well. not on my radar.
m.

― msp, Thursday, 7 August 2003 18:44 (twenty-two years ago)

My girlfriend got it. It has a dvd with his 'short film' on it. It was the most laughably pretentious and awful wannabe-goth-film-student thing I've ever seen (and therefore great in a way).

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 7 August 2003 18:44 (twenty-two years ago)

i used to have this on vinyl - bought it at age 12 or 13 - think the pigface/physical stuff was a 7". oddly i was just talking about it with someone last night. i'd love to hear it again.

somewhere on the end of a cassette tape among the hundreds in my closet is a recording of me and a friend in high school covering "wish" on nothing but a piano. it was intentionally funny.

― j fail (cenotaph), Thursday, 7 August 2003 18:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Its no tds but 'gave up' and 'suck' are awfully nice. And I like the Adam Ant cover because of Trent's doggy, Maise, growls throughout it. The video performance of 'gave up' on Closure (not the uh, snuff film version of broken) pretty much sums up everything I love(d) about nin.

Much of broken's hate is directed at TVT records. See the "eat your heart out, Steve (Gottlieb)" in the opening of Too Physical.

― bnw (bnw), Thursday, 7 August 2003 19:07 (twenty-two years ago)

i actuall found the happiness in slavery video far more disturbing than the live torture video for gave up.

― dyson (dyson), Thursday, 7 August 2003 19:16 (twenty-two years ago)

i bought head like a hole when it came out - well albeit as an import 12" in the uk after reading an interview with mr reznor in b-side magazine. it was far poppier than i expected. sin is a very good pop record also.

tho things went downhill after seing him play in king tuts in glasgow during the pretty hate machine tour. musically brilliant. drama queen seen it all before, done better stage antics however let it all down.

the pigface album - the one that had steal this record stickers over it looked interesting - a wax trax / chicago hall of fame line-up. i bought it. regretted it. sold it.

broken and fixed are equally good, though hasn't dated well to my ears.

i always thought marilyn manson was a poor nine inch nails tribute act.

― frenchbloke (frenchbloke), Thursday, 7 August 2003 19:50 (twenty-two years ago)

MARILYN MANSON WAS COOL TOO U R ALL HERMS.

― Dan I., Thursday, 7 August 2003 20:02 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

THIS EP KILLS. NOSTALGIA.

― cutty (mcutt), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 02:52 (twenty years ago)

NIN would rock great big bells if Trent Reznor wasn't such a cock.

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 03:01 (twenty years ago)

Oooh, and here I was feeling like a dork for mentioning NIN on the "how to revive metal thread." This EP was definitely the highlight.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 03:14 (twenty years ago)

definitely trent's best moment.

― cutty (mcutt), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 03:21 (twenty years ago)

I had this on cassette, now I don't even own a tape player. I listened to it on the bus every damned morning for MONTHS.

― W i l l (common_person), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 03:22 (twenty years ago)

SO OTM

― American Apparel and Jeanne-Claude (deangulberry), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 03:29 (twenty years ago)

"gave up" is NIN's best "rawk" song

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 03:49 (twenty years ago)

NIN would rock great big bells if Trent Reznor wasn't such a cock.

I think the rock big bells BECAUSE he's such a cock.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 03:56 (twenty years ago)

"I'm probably not expressing this well; it's just a sense that I get from hearing them in comparison. And I really did give NIN more than the benefit of the doubt back when this came out and afterwards, and kept finding them wanting. "

dude, you just gotta be in touch with your inner 15 year-old to get some things.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 08:59 (twenty years ago)

Hmmm. Mebbe so, but I think the anger expressed on Broken -- however juvenile and histrionic -- isn't something Johnny Metalhead Teenager is going to understand as well as Johnny Recentlydumped Twentysomething. Just a thought.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 16:13 (twenty years ago)

Everything by Rammstein is better, funnier, the drums are played by a real and great drummer so the cock aspect is more tumescent and you can't tell how bad the lyrics are because they're in German.

― ian g, Tuesday, 11 January 2005 19:07 (twenty years ago)

four years pass...

Still so good.

― Alex in NYC, Wednesday, 17 June 2009 18:32 (sixteen years ago)

"Broken" was great but "Fixed" was even greater.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 7 August 2003 16:06 (5 years ago)

This is where I stand as well.

― sleeve, Wednesday, 17 June 2009 18:39 (sixteen years ago)

That part in Last when the music sorta falls away and slowly builds up to a climax with the guitar riff kicking back in and Reznor screaming "I KNOW IT'S ALL GETTIN AWAY..." is such a gloriously cathartic moment.

― circa1916, Wednesday, 17 June 2009 18:46 (sixteen years ago)

eight months pass...

just scored Broken. Happiness in Slavery is a fun lil anthem. also got Fixed as well....

sooooo, anybody seen em live

― Ballistic, Friday, 5 March 2010 04:48 (fifteen years ago)

Quite a lot, yes.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 5 March 2010 04:51 (fifteen years ago)

is trent JUST AS ANGRY LIVVE AS HE IS ON DISC

― Ballistic, Friday, 5 March 2010 04:55 (fifteen years ago)

He delivers them all in a gentle whisper while wearing an Ascot.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 5 March 2010 05:17 (fifteen years ago)

why did i decide to rewatch the broken movie

― Brad Nelson (BradNelson), Friday, 5 March 2010 05:24 (fifteen years ago)

I take it you didn't like the one part where the guy gets his [SCENE CENSORED]

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 5 March 2010 05:33 (fifteen years ago)

He delivers them all in a gentle whisper while wearing an Ascot.

I just got an image of Trent singing Those Canaan Days from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat....I want this to happen yesterday

― Ballistic, Friday, 5 March 2010 14:13 (fifteen years ago)

I was picturing Trent joining Vampire Weekend, but come to think of it "I'd look psychotic in a balaclava" could TOTALLY be a line from Broken.

― you gone float up with it (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, 5 March 2010 14:19 (fifteen years ago)

Still my favorite NIN project. Listening to Moby's Move last night, released the following year, I wonder whether these guys should have released forty-minute projects for the rest of their lives.

― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 5 March 2010 14:21 (fifteen years ago)

I was helping a friend empty out her storage unit in a warehouse today and there was a large industrial fan of some sort with a REZNOR logo on it. I'm guessing he stole his last name from this brand?

I don't mind NIN but I've never been enough of a fan to know this sort of trivia.

I do remember thinking that one song from Broken had some pretty crushing guitar on it at the time. Haven't heard it since though.

― Nate Carson, Sunday, 7 March 2010 04:39 (fifteen years ago)

Stole nothing -- that is his last name via his mom, who is descended from the founder of the business.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 7 March 2010 04:55 (fifteen years ago)

haha I did like Nate's explanation though.

"*sigh*, nobody will ever buy my records with a name like Trent Bigglesworth. (sees fan). An 'industrial' fan. AND I MAKE INDUSTRIAL MUSIC. Henceforth I shall be known as TRENT REZNOR."

― Ballistic, Sunday, 7 March 2010 06:56 (fifteen years ago)

absolutely the best NIN record, but (shock!) i agree with dan that fixed is better (which is not a NIN record, so shut up.)

― First and Last and Safeways ™ (jjjusten), Sunday, 7 March 2010 07:07 (fifteen years ago)

Thanks for setting me straight. I guess the industrial chicken came before the egg that is Trent. Or something.

― Nate Carson, Sunday, 7 March 2010 11:39 (fifteen years ago)

Clocking in with only six tracks (not including the two bonus cuts, either appended way back at the end of the CD or in the form of a bonus 3" in it's own stylish n sleeve), Broken is a tirelessly splenetic blast of very metal noise pollution, augmented with the clank'n'boom sturm und drang "industrial" trappings of the day.

Ugh. Slavishly overwritten.

― Alex in NYC, Sunday, 7 March 2010 13:09 (fifteen years ago)

The version of "Suck" that was on the 3" CD is my definitive version of that song. So fucking good.

― Bunsen burner, bubbles, IT'S ALIVE! whaaaaa-? (HI DERE), Sunday, 7 March 2010 13:36 (fifteen years ago)

The version of "Suck" that was on the 3" CD

Hold on -- is this one different than the Track 99 version on the revised CD?

― I just wish he hadn't adopted the "ilxor" moniker (ilxor), Sunday, 7 March 2010 16:40 (fifteen years ago)

The original studio version of "Suck" ended up on Pigface's debut album Gub (also Trent's only studio work with that whole enterprise). The live version later that year was sung by Ogre, and both are different from the Broken version.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 7 March 2010 16:54 (fifteen years ago)

I like the Pigface version most.

Yeah, I said it. I like a Pigface song.

― Chokoreeto Kurosawa (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Sunday, 7 March 2010 17:05 (fifteen years ago)

(The Gub one.)

― Chokoreeto Kurosawa (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Sunday, 7 March 2010 17:06 (fifteen years ago)

The original studio version of "Suck" ended up on Pigface's debut album Gub (also Trent's only studio work with that whole enterprise). The live version later that year was sung by Ogre, and both are different from the Broken version.

Understand all this. Just wondering if there's a difference btw the NIN versions on the 3" CD vs. Track 99 of the Broken re-release.

― I just wish he hadn't adopted the "ilxor" moniker (ilxor), Sunday, 7 March 2010 17:09 (fifteen years ago)

There is the secret version only available on the Closure videotape if you play it backwards while hanging upside down suspended in a torture chamber. It is known as the 'you are SO high' version.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 7 March 2010 17:10 (fifteen years ago)

oh hahaha rereading my "not a nin album so shut up" up there i realize i come off as an asshole. i was actually trying to make fun of myself for saying "broken is the best NIN evar!!11!!!! except for fixed which is the bester NIN record"

the track 99 is the same as the 3" version of suck

― First and Last and Safeways ™ (jjjusten), Sunday, 7 March 2010 17:20 (fifteen years ago)

this ep is so sick! when i was a 14-year-old whippersnapper i used to play this in my walkman and go vandalize shit

― banaka, Sunday, 7 March 2010 20:10 (fifteen years ago)

I knocked down a dairy queen drive thru sign to the sounds of "Last"

― banaka, Sunday, 7 March 2010 20:11 (fifteen years ago)

somewhere there's a pimply 30-something man who has a raging Pavlovian reaction to that song because of you....

― Ballistic, Sunday, 7 March 2010 20:13 (fifteen years ago)

three years pass...

Just noticed via the NIN official Facebook that they tried to put the Broken movie up onto Vimeo earlier, only for Vimeo to remove it after a couple of hours because they didn't approve of the content of it... haha!

― The Jupiter 8 (Turrican), Monday, 6 May 2013 20:39 (twelve years ago)

three years pass...

Hmm, I'm beginning to think that 'Last' may be my favourite thing on this now... it used to be either 'Wish' or 'Happiness in Slavery' ...

― ...so music and chicken have become intertwined (Turrican), Saturday, 8 April 2017 00:40 (eight years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.

In Praise of.....the BROKEN e.p. by Nine Inch Nails