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Faceplams: aka People went way too crazy with their theories and shit, there's barely a plot here lolOriginally Posted by BRoswell
Throbbing Member
aka People went way too crazy with their theories and shit, there's barely a plot here lol
Active Member
To be honest, when it comes to the narrative, I keep coming back to the first lyrics in The Wretched: "Just a reflection. Just a glimpse. Just a little reminder." It's essentially a narrative that peeks into other narratives, specifically the narratives of The Downward Spiral and Year Zero. It's almost as if he's checking out his own alternate realities. I don't know if that's by design, but that's how it feels.
Active Member
Well, sure, that will always be true of NIN fans, but Trent did say, "let’s make a record... about something. I don’t want to get into what it is, but it’s a story that starts in one place and ends where it ends. I thought it was an ugly story to tell..." on Zane Lowe when NTAE came out, which I think played a big part in us trying to look for a real narrative. There are things like Hesitation Marks and The Fragile, which have a clear theme and maybe even a recurring narrator across multiple songs, but I think that quote plus the specificity of some of the lyrics had us expecting something more along the lines of Year Zero or Bowie's Outside, which were directly presented as clues to a bigger story. Then all the Add Violence marketing comes out, which of course sent the search for an "answer" into overdrive.
Banned
Not every album has to have a direct storyline and narrative and hidden meaning. Sometimes its just cool music.
Active Member
No one went "too crazy". People were bound to knuckle down in full conspiracy mode when the full Add Violence artwork was revealed, and for good reason.
These EPs are collections of broken fragments. Each song is friendly with but at the same time disparate from all the others. Pieces of references are scattered throughout, kind of like how different texts were glitched through the Year Zero ARG websites.
Maybe there isn't a strong, linear story here, but there is a story nonetheless told from many different perspectives. It makes sense.
Active Member
People DEFINITELY went too crazy with the ARG that doesn't exist.
Active Member
There may not be a hugely extensive ARG but we know 42E is involved and there are hints all over the place to suggest that the new material links heavily into Year Zero.
IG: @IHaveThisNet
Don't forget Trent posting the back cover of AV on instagram saying, "REMEMBER WHEN RECORDS HAD BACK COVERS? NO? MAYBE THIS ONE IS IMPORTANT."
There's plenty of hints at something bigger. Whether this will become a full blown, YZ style ARG is yet to be seen. Even if not, this is still way more immersive and involved than the average band's latest record and most other NIN records for that matter. Think about it, what other band goes through this much effort to tell a story. The vast majority of records get released as an all inclusive little package. The band will drop an album, announce a tour, and repeat a few years later. Here we are still discussing the story 8 months since we've read the latest chapter. I think TR has spoiled us.
Stubby Member
Do you remember Bowie's album Outside? It was a conceptual album that told a story in a non-linear way. The songs were hints of things that happened, but they were like some pieces of a big puzzle and the story was some kind of mistery. I feel like Trent is trying to do something similar with these EPs. I agree that with what we have so far you can't call this an ARG but there is definitely a narrative in this project, and the hidden lyrics, the artwork and all of this stuff are part of it.
Active Member
I am aware that 42E is credited in the PC with "World Integration and Execution," but I don't think it amounted to much. There are some references to the Year Zero ARG, yes, I'll give you that.
Yes, I remember that too. BUT it's been 8 months since he said that and no one has figured out WHY it was important. MAYBE the 3rd EP will reveal/explain why, but I'm beginning to think that if there WAS a plan for it to tie into EP3, it may have been abandoned in favor of the less predictable direction they've decided to take things. Who knows, we'll see. I'm sure it'll be awesome either way. I just know that I've read a lot of posts here where people are REALLY reaching in their attempts to make sense of this "something bigger."
I agree with you there for sure.
Banned
Songs can have different interpretations, though, that’s the fun part of it. You can omit that info and still apply those lyrics to the unfolding story.
But that’s just how I choose to see it, words can have different dimensions depending on the context. We have bits and pieces, nothing concrete yet, hopefully the 3rd ep will provide what we need to make sense out of all of this.
Banned
Good observation!
I think that this “character” moving through alternate realities is trent himself, blurring the line between reality and fiction, hence all the references to previous works (in nin and ouside nin).
There is no way he planned it this way from the beginning, but it seem’s he’s found lots of ties in his body of work to come up with something this elaborate.
Active Member
^^ That's a really great way of explaining that.
she/her/hers
what if we fucked up and because we didn't figure it out trent is never going to tell us why the back cover of AV was important or why the artwork for NTAE is a black & white version of the artwork for still or if there actually is deeper meaning or an ARG?
Throbbing Member
Not saying is his best play. People spinning their wheels trying to connect all kinds of dots... if there is some kind of grand puzzle in play maybe we just don't have the right pieces yet. Maybe the third ep will be the key. Or, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Either way, the mystery of it all is kind of cool, I hope he never tells and let's us devote life-wrecking amounts of time in effort to unlocking its secrets.
Active Member
I'm just glad we've had such an extensive catalog of music from Trent the past few years, and that trend will continue this year. I remember the days of 5 years between albums, or feeling that it was "over" after Fragile/AATCB and then later the Wave Goodbye tour. waiting another 3 months at most? not a big deal at all. incredibly grateful.
aka nine_inch_nerd
open discusion: for me still the matter 'quantity versus quality'. still the feeling 'quality has lost because of the quantity'
Active Member
fair point. I would argue that his film scores are better than the recent NIN output. but, that's a matter of preference on my part. I happen to lean more towards ambient, atmospheric music these days and his film scores are just that. this is not a knock on NIN's music over the past 5 years, just an observation. there are times when I need that aggression, so songs like Not Anymore are perfect for that.
one thing I think we can all (possibly) agree on: Trent's production skills have gotten better over the years (specifically starting with Ghosts). this is probably an obvious statement. but man, his stuff is just so well produced. (always was, but I feel it's been taken to new levels ).
aka nine_inch_nerd
Arrangements and productions:....even his bad songs sound good.
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Last edited by witte; 03-17-2018 at 10:08 AM.
Throbbing Member
Very excited we have even a vague release date for June. I believe they said awhile back that if they had to do a score, it would increase the wait time, and it looks like that's what happened. This has been my favorite run of NIN releases since the Fragile days, so I hope the 3rd one doesn't disappoint!
Hairy Member
i'm starting to think that even if he wasn't planning to, trent just might make up an arg for the next release so people here would be happy
Active Member
Stubby Member
I for one could certainly be accused of getting carried away with the whole poring over every detail of the two EPs since they were released. I pretty quickly (and from the things TR said about it) came to the idea that there is no ARG, but I wouldn't blame anybody for thinking that there was and TR didn't exactly help with his back covers are important sort of things he was hinting at. That, and the fact NTAE sort of looks like a puzzle to be solved, and to me sort of sounds like a puzzle, too. Now he did talk of a loose narrative connecting the three planned EPs, and I'm still having fun thinking about that and I still think there are things not figured out with both EPs so far.
I have said all of this before I know, and what I was thinking about today was the time TR said it ended up being an EP because that felt like the proper length to tell that story. So I feel like a bit of an idiot for all the times I've been trying to connect the two releases, when I guess he is after saying that they are stories or whatever in their own right.
So, looking at it now, and in light of the inspirational sources behind some of the hidden lyrics becoming apparent, it seems to me that NTAE is like the story of somebody who can't tell reality from their imagination and is losing their mind or maybe they aren't losing their mind and there are alternate realities seeping through. Something along those lines anyway. (a bit like Bleedthrough, which has already been pointed out by several on here)
Then for AV The view widens and everything is in question. This, along with the artwork has me thinking that it is the same basic idea but on a larger scale, like maybe the whole of reality is just a simulation or something along those lines, and that alternate realities are being generated at will by some sort of faceless controller or such like.
And that there would be the loose narrative connecting the EPs rather than any specific storyline for anybody to find. That would explain the clues here and there on both releases. And as he goes along, TR is connecting elements of his past work to the idea as @BRoswell has pointed out up there, sonically and lyrically and thematically.
That is my thinking on it for today at least, I'm sure I will come back to it again, but I'm not expecting any sort of big reveal with the 3rd EP, just more of a sort of theme being drawn upon again, and probably from a different perspective than the first two, maybe some callbacks here and there or maybe not.
"Ye trespassen so ofte tyme as dooth the hound that retourneth to eten his spewyng"
Last edited by astfgyl; 03-18-2018 at 10:12 AM.
Throbbing Member
"Fuck, I got goose bumps just thinking about that possibility right now — the idea that someone could be thinking so hard about an album." Trent Reznor, Vulture.com interview.
Mission accomplished =)
Totally feathered up
But for all this effort, there is a lot of continued world building going on for this to amount to just a “oh that stuff? It was kind of just an homage to the YZ era”. I mean, the physical components, the involvement of 42E, the return to the world that spawned the YZ ARG, he’s already played and won this game before. It doesn’t make sense to just tease with echoes of it.
Now... all that said? Is it possible that there just isn’t enough information to put the puzzle together yet? Or that the concept was dropped along the way? Absolutely. But to just come out and say that there isn’t a new ARG based on evidence? That seems shortsighted. There’s too much in the way of breadcrumbs, but so far the structure, much like the artwork in the last PC, is only wireframes.
Do I hope like mad that something is there? Sure. I mean, the closing of TBW, the video of Burning Bright, and hell, the weird recursive thematic elements that bring HTDA into the mix made us all look a bit closer... but I think you have to be a hell of a cynic to just say “all that? It’s nothing more than the usual effort that goes into the aesthetic of a release”.
I’m content to revisit, rethink, and reevaluate for as long as needed, but nothing has said “nope, nothing to see here” for me yet.
Stubby Member
Could you fucking imagine if the third EP was actually STROBLITE and he released it on April 1st for real this time?
One wonders what the physical component would be.....
Active Member
A tab of ecstasy.
Throbbing Member
"Are you ever concerned that the hunt for clues overshadows the music?"
"Certainly with Year Zero it did. We went crazy with that album, building a world and telling a story that was mainly meant to provide context for the music. And what happened was that far more attention was paid to what the world was and how that got revealed than was paid to the music. If anyone actually bothered to fucking listen, Year Zero was a good fucking album. I’m not saying every album should be something that invites people down a rabbit hole. I’m just saying I care about context." TR
Couple that with the whole Vinyl statement and paying attention to his music, I'd say ARG is not happening. He's just messing with us enough to tweak our interest and pay attention to the releases. I'm not saying that there isn't a connected message in each of the releases.
Banned
It is very likely that there is no ARG here and that all there is are clues, bits and pieces that provide more information about the context.
Trent clearly cares about the context of his albums and the narrative behind each release. In some cases he has spoon-fed the context to us, in others it’s been a case of figuring things out by ourselves. In the case of the NTAE and AV nothing has been said that could give us a more or less defined concept. So we are hungry for that context and we’re trying to figure it out. At the same time these 2 EP are filled with bits and pieces of what we think are clues that will take us there, but nothing has been confirmed.
But I do not think that this hunt for context is taking away from the music: both NTAE and AV have been praised by critics and fans. And parallel to that, I think TR is very aware of his fanbase and how his work gets dissected and analyzed, and I think he willingly contributes to that experience. In the specific case of these EPs, TR himself has pointed at certain elements that are important.
Unless anything else is discovered, I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Active Member
Man. Personally, I'm not into any of the ARG stuff Nine Inch Nails has ever put together. With Year Zero being my least favorite NIN release so far, I'm fine with him focusing his creative attention elsewhere.
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