Latest NIN remix not as strong as past effort
BY CHRIS YUNT
Scene Music Critic
In light of an ongoing Nine Inch Nails tradition, Trent Reznor and friends have come together to deliver a collective reinterpretation of 1999's much-anticipated The Fragile with its 10-track E.P., Things Falling Apart, released late last year.
Though this handful of remixes maintains the deconstructive precedent set by previous Nails releases, the record as a whole lacks the nihilistic fervor of 1992's Fixed or the innovative experimentation captured in 1995's Further Down the Spiral, mostly because of the annoying presence of three versions of "Starf***ers Inc."
Even still, fans of Reznor's work can appreciate the "fun" in taking apart and recklessly redefining an album that took five years to create, if only in the sense that kicking the crap out of your brother's tediously-crafted sand castle always proved to be quick and painfully rewarding.
The album starts out strong with "Slipping Away," which shares the same rhythmic swagger and chorus as its counterpart track on The Fragile, "Into the Void." Yet while "Into the Void" merely suggested mild funk beneath a distressed account of losing one's sense of self, this track basks in full funk glory and proclaims the process of self-privation as an occasion to get out the old Parliament records and celebrate. In this context, "I keep slipping away" is more of a taunting reminder than any serious emotional concern it might have been for Reznor a year ago.
The following track, "The Great Collapse," is ironically stable with steady beats, simple melodies, and vocal reinforcement coming from the same whispering girl featured on the elegantly melodic "La Mer" of last year. The hook, "Now you know/ this is what it feels like," becomes eerie and pensive this time around and thematically feeds right into Keith Hillebrandt's reconstruction of "The Wretched," which rivals the original version in production quality and overall listening enjoyment.
Things don't start to fall apart, however, until Adrian Sherwood's horrible remix of "Starf***ers Inc." almost single-handedly shoots the wheels off Reznor's operation. Sherwood, an old pal from the Pretty Hate Machine era, shows he has grown little during his sabbatical and returns with an out-of-date and completely irrelevant mix representing the intimidatingly-named "140dB" group. Caution: this mix has scary lasers, sirens, and people screaming "woo!" in it.
The best it has going for it is how good it makes Benelli's following version of "The Frail" sound – beautiful strings provide a backdrop for what sounds like a crippled wind-up toy on its last leg telling the story of personal loss and decay through a series of sputters and wheezes.
"The Frail" rightfully keeps intact the delicate marriage of aesthetics and demise established in The Fragile and brings back some of the momentum destroyed by the track before it. Unfortunately it is sandwiched by another mix of "Starf***ers Inc.," this time a dancy manipulation from Dave "The Rave" Ogilvie. Though it is the best version out of the three featured on this album, Ogilvie's mix is still nothing to write home about, most likely because he didn't have much to work with in the beginning.
The problem with "Starf***ers Inc." is that it exceeds the boundaries in which Nine Inch Nails operates best. While Reznor reigns supreme in the bleak atmospheres of painful introspection and self-reflection and in his ability to harness the inward momentum of self-absorption, he comes up short when dealing with external issues on a more socially-concerned level.
Regardless, the next two tracks make Things Falling Apart worth the five or six bucks it costs. Danny Lohner and Telefon Tel Aviv deliver the best remix on the album with their version of "Where Is Everybody," a beautiful and innovative interpretation of the original with vocals manipulated in a manner that makes Nine Inch Nails once again sound ahead of its time. Reznor's cover of Gary Numan's "Metal" is subtly entrancing and conjures up images of a 1980's synth-rock Reznor trapped in a world of really bad music video effects, yet at the same time manages to stay fresh with an oddly organic feel despite its title. Very tasteful.
The last two tracks, however, are unnecessary and make the catharsis experienced in Lohner's "Where Is Everybody" feel cheap and premature, especially since the version of "10 Miles High" sounds exactly like the original. And the closing track, yet another remix of "Starf***ers Inc.," uselessly hammers itself into the ground right on top of the other two buried versions beneath it.
If Things Falling Apart was refined to about six of its 10 songs, it would be extremely solid and accessible to any music fan, but its sloppy excess makes it just another novelty halo for Reznor's loyal fan base to collect.
All Scene Stories for Tuesday, January 23, 2001
