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Originally Posted by guest
this is essentially my issue: trent reznor makes it about more than the music, to inject it with this histrionic attitude he has towards everything which comes across as an overcompensation for a lack of actual substance to his music. again, to say it for like the fourth time in this conversation, the substance of his music or indeed any music is not of a particular issue to me -- I have absolutely no problem with pop music, especially clear coming from someone who posts on here pretty frequently about mariah fucking carey -- so long as the artist is cognisant of the nature of their music in relation to a corporate system. THIS IS NOT A PROBLEM. trent reznor, however, is a major player inside this system, yet is presumably as a byproduct of ego completely unwilling to admit his complicity in all of this and puts forward his music as something more than lowest common denominator mall goth. and no I'm not going to say that trent reznor has some greater degree of artistry simply because he puts some fucking ambient interludes on his records, nor am I going to pretend to find something appreciable in his work simply because jhonn and sleazy appreciated him (with their tastes in all respects being somewhat questionable obviously).
my issue is with trent reznor not embracing the vapidity and total redundancy of his music outside of the commodification of a subcultural lifestyle which he sells to the overwrought teens of middle america. he has sapped from a particularly vital form of expression any semblance of meaning, and truthfully the blurring of lines between the TG guys and him is something which really made me lose a lot of respect for them on the basis that conceptually/artistically/however you'd like to frame it, nine inch nails are the complete antithesis of everything they originally represented, joylessness commodified yet articulated in a really cynical, altogether uninteresting way.
as for you implying that I can't have any sense of discernment because I'm 21, I mean I really don't want to bother with something so fucking condescending but what I will say is that I'd feel a sense of self is of greater importance in the modern era when that very concept is obscured, in terms of being made to navigate a culture which is so clogged by unadulterated crap, and accordingly I think I'm pretty well equipped to realise exactly what I want to hear, and when I hear something which to me comes across as cynical either through the music itself or by some other contextual means of course I'm not going to give it any attention because it's a total waste of time.
finally for you to again say that I'm beholden to pitchfork and media outlet when you're 35-40 still reading that shit on a daily basis is a bit fucking rich mate.
[this is probably full of fuck ups but I really cannot be arsed]
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Well, first of all, if you didn't want to get into it, you could have refrained from being so flippant when I (gasp!) said I was buying a NIN LP. We have different opinions on music. John Lennon was a wife-beater, but his music is excellent. It really is all about that for me. You could just say, "Oh, ok... I don't like that, but whatever." Instead you implied that listening to NIN was a waste of my life.
I mean, your whole argument just has an air of superiority, and you know that because you intentionally put it there to be combative. It's not really cool to call foul when someone responds in kind.
Secondly... I regularly mention Mariah Carey? This is news to me.
Third, I don't believe I said anything about you reading Pitchfork. Just that there was a time when such services were not available. I wouldn't criticize you for reading pitchfork. I hate them, but I skim their site daily. Rarely do I actually read more than a few words, but yeah, I frequent that site.
Anyway, point was, music wasn't always a click away. That's all. You had to take what you were could get, and if you had the resources, dig like hell from there, especially if you were from a rural community.
Funny thing is, it's entirely likely that you only like Coil because NIN championed them to a national audience back in the mid-'90s.
Finally, I wrote you a message apologizing if my age comments sounded condescending. And as I said in that message, I was playing the field as I saw it. Meaning, I figured you could take some ribbing, considering the fact that you were being snotty as hell. Your comments sound a bit condescending too, so I assumed playing rough was fair game.
Anyway, I'm not anywhere near as into NIN as you are anti-NIN. Really. They made some albums that made an impact on me in my youth, and I enjoy hearing them from time to time, but mostly they turned me on to better things. I'm not some NIN fanboy (though I suppose I'm a big enough fan to invalidate all your generalizations about NIN fans being bros on steroids), so I really don't care about any of this. I just don't particularly appreciate unnecessary unprovoked rudeness, and I felt like you were handing me a big old platter of just that straight off the bat. Now, of course, I too could have said nothing, but I always love challenging people who try to tell me why my tastes are unsophisticated or whatever, when in reality there is no metric for authenticity or sophistication in music, and your opinion is every bit as subjective as mine.
Anyway, we're probably done here, but just to re-iterate — I don't care how it looks or what you take issue with regarding what sounds good to my brain and ears. I'll talk to you about it any time, but it is possible to have a difference of opinion without being a snot about it.