amazon shipped my DE right now and by having a premium shipment account I will most likely hold it in my hands tomorrow! woohoo, one day less waiting for me!
EDIT: I couldn't really resist though since I listened to every song for about 1 to 2 seconds somewhere in the middle to catch at least a little bit of the general atmosphere. :P
Last edited by dlb; 08-28-2013 at 08:07 AM.
Read this... http://www.echoingthesound.org/commu...808#post120808
And instead of being lazy, a few simple clicks on the internet and you should be able to find the full version with no problem....
What is being said at the 5 min. mark of disappointed?
I haven't listened to the album yet (been trying to build up excitement until the CD arrives in the mail) and stumbled upon a positive review by Tom Breihan who usually writes for Pitchfork.
Can we expect the vinyl version to have a different mastering?
vinyl SHOULD always come from a different master than CD/digital (unless you're really, really good and confident in your process, like Rosetta with their new album). Trent is an audiophile and loves vinyl, so i'm almost certain they would have used a different master for the vinyl version.
I really like the Rundgren remix of All Time Low..
" Fans can hear"Everything," the new single from Nine Inch Nails, now on NPR Music's "All Songs Considered". The song is the second single from Hesitation Marks. The video for "Everything," directed by Shynola, will premiere the week of the album's release. "Big mistake IMO. While I don't think Everything is bad song, I don't think its a good representation of the album.
Holy hell, this new news about the alternate album mastering is glorious. Probably someone else'll beat me to the punch by the time I hit "post," but here:
Basically the "audiophile" version says "fuck you" to the loudness war and gives us a more nuanced master. This will be fantastic...Hesitation Marks was mastered in two different ways - the standard, “loud” mastering (which is what you’ll find on the CD, vinyl, on iTunes, and everywhere else), and also an alternate “audiophile” mastering, which we’re offering as a free download option for anyone who purchases the album through nin.com. For the majority of people, the standard version will be preferable and differences will be difficult to detect. Audiophiles with high-end equipment and an understanding of the mastering process might prefer the alternate version.
Last edited by xolotl; 08-28-2013 at 09:39 AM. Reason: I suppose "master" is more appropriate than "mix"
Since when did singles have to be a good representation of the album?
surely they just have to be good songs that can stand alone and make people want to pick up the album.
In that sense Everything is the obvious next single.
Say someone has never heard of Nine Inch Nails or any of their songs (which is more likely now than ever, especially for people listening to the radio). Maybe they hear Everything and think the rest of the album will be uplifting pop-punk. And then they get to the album and are assaulted with heavy distorted beats and reflective crooning. And they say "what the fuck, fuck this band".
I'm just saying, it makes more sense from a marketing perspective to use a single that is "more representative" of the album as a whole (so Came Back Haunted was a good choice). Everything only makes sense if you assume people have also heard Came Back Haunted, and you can kind of use it as an indication that the album is varied.
Well:
Very very interesting.
edit: I wanted the vinyl but shit, I'm a poor bastard. 40$ is a lot for me right now, I'll try to get it through amazon later. I guess the download-only version from nin.com includes the alternate-mastering version too, right?
Last edited by fabripav; 08-28-2013 at 09:48 AM.
Not a huge fan of Everything, although I liked it more in context with the record, but the new single/video should have been Satellite. For so many reasons it fits perfectly to me, and would have a much bigger chance of taking off in the mainstream in my opinion.
Like when fans of The Downward Spiral were treated to The Day The World Went Away and Starfuckers, and decided to get The Fragile despite the fact that those singles sounded like My Bloody Valentine and Prodigy respectively ?
I have no idea what the media coverage was in the US or UK, but here it was null. Specialized magazines announced the TDTWWA single, it popped out, end of it. From a 1994 fan POV, it was very, very confusing. I don't think Reznor ever cared about what the fans were thinking on that regard. His attitude has always been "fuck it, that's where I am now. Unhappy ? There's plenty of other bands to go around."
That's a very cool thing to do from the NIN camp and again rises up the already high bar that NIN in musical and technical terms have established.
Guess I'm not the target audience for this, but still: will I actually have some kind of benefit from this alternate mix with standard equipment? I'll be listening to the album on my iphone the most.
A Second Audio Mix?
Fuck, NOW I really wish i'd pre-ordered through nin.com rather than Amazon :/
I honestly don't get the "Everything" hate. I was bracing myself after reading all the comments (since I was holding out for the full album), but I think that song is such a fascinating dichotomy. It's not celebrating sobriety. To me, it's about the creeping anxiety that can plague addicts (especially newly clean ones) -- generally that they'll relapse, but that creeping anxiety permeates everything. The repetition at the end (I am whole/I am free/I am whole/I believe) sounds, to me, like he's trying to convince himself. A bit of "Act as if" and "Fake it till you make it." The anxious noise that creeps over it all at the end reinforces the interpretation for me.
So it's this dark and unsettling little beast wrapped up in a shiny pop shell. Lovely. (And sooo much of the album is like this.)
Well anyway, in this day and age, is that really relevant ? You just have to spark a minimum of interest, spice it with a bit of hype, and people will check out the rest on youtube, spotify, torrent sites, etc... It's not like listeners are slaves to the old media coverage anymore. Who the hell still bases their opinion on singles ?
Plus, there are two other singles out there to balance things out...
Obviously I haven't heard the "audiophile" master yet, but I'd be willing to bet that if you've even got midrange headphones, you'd benefit from the alternate mix. I've always thought this was a good intro to the whole loudness war thing:
The "loud" mix of Hesitation Marks already sounds fantastic, of course, and Trent's folks know what they're doing - I wouldn't necessarily expect the differences to be quite so pronounced, but I bet they'd be noticeable regardless.
Shouldn't at least the vinyl version get the audiophile treatment as well? Or maybe a DVD and/or BluRay in 5.1 would be really nice...
Holy shit, I am so happy they're doing the separate masters thing, I have often frowned in my listening to HM due to the lack of dynamic range caused by the loudness wars. This is GREAT news. I wish every band ever would do this.
Ah, sorry -- I don't have that perspective. I bought TDS in 1998 at the age of 11 after hearing Closer on the radio, and as soon as I heard NIN had another album out (The Fragile), I went and bought that one straight away. My knowledge of "marketing presence" during that time (when I was 12) was basically zero. I only came back to hear the single releases much later, and never thought about the implications of them as singles.
Still, I think TDTWWA and Starfuckers represent The Fragile fairly well in general (moreso than Everything does HM, anyway). There are lots of crunchy plodding guitar tracks and dark electro songs on that album.
Agree to disagree on that regard, then !
To me they represent The Fragile like frozen and boiling water represent warmth. Two extremes representing a middle ground only as long as you mix them correctly. Not by themselves. TDTWWA flows nicely, and although I love Starfuckers it sticks like a sore thumb and should have been left as a B side, in my opinion.