The Music Thread

Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine is as old today as were Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours and Bing Crosby's Merry Christmas (containing "White Christmas") when it released.
 
Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine is as old today as were Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours and Bing Crosby's Merry Christmas (containing "White Christmas") when it released.
Stop telling me these things.
 

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFwYJYl5GUQ
How much sex can there be in a bass line?

Putting some thoughts on Black No. 1 here since they exceed the Music League 500 character limit. I was listening to some hair metal "bad girl" anthems (like Skid Row's album-opening double header Sweet Little Sister and Big Guns) and wondered how they felt so empty, so much a dirty fantasy of a hairspray-addicted bloke, while this one was such a cultural force. It almost is synesthesia in action. If you go to the right club, you can see, smell, and if you get really lucky even feel it (or rather, her). Black No. 1 was adopted, taken on as a canonized description of female attractiveness and sexuality for a whole subculture, and I guess it still is today for many. All the girls wanted to look and be like that, and all the guys wanted a girl like that as well. Which is a bit of a pity because the girls didn't want local goths or metalheads, but Type O Negative singer and Playgirl centerfold Pete Steele, or as the song puts it a midnight date with Nosferatu. Maybe another vampire like Spike from Buffy would also do (how the Spike vs. Angel dynamic taught a whole generation of teenage girls that nice guys are boring and bad boys are hot is a topic for another day).
How did the song do this? I don't fully know. Of course Steele's voice is full-on sexual, the scream of "she will" is a pure mating cry, and how the description of femininity are cliché to the bone but at the same time vague enough to match any kind of goth-ness definitely helps. For a song from a male perspective, there is a surprisingly low amount of male gaze, and the supernatural-wiccan undertones of the "bad girl" description definitely ring more true than in hair metal, where "bad girl" is basically code for "slutty".
Add to that that it's a legit good song with three distinct parts, the brilliant (and very aspirational as a subcultural teen) "loving you was like loving the death" climax and an almost irresistibly sexual bass line...

Too bad Pete drank himself to death.
 
I'm a sucker for a cover, good or bad, as long as it's not boring. And I've heard a lot of covers of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs", including some incredible ones....but this one might be near the top of the list not just for this song, but covers in general. Love that muted mandolin/percussion gallop in the background of the bridges. Even the use of that very slight vocal delay effect and EQ'd timbre on his voice to recall Ozzy's original vocal tracks was a well-done addition.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT8t3i8CkMQ
He's also done a worthwhile-to-hear cover of Pink Floyd's "Brain Damage" more recently, though it doesn't hit my ear quite the same way as "War Pigs" did.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_IHFa5uozc
 
I've been using the Spotify auto daylists recently that get music based on your listening habits for certain times of the day, it's usually a nice mix of stuff I'm familiar with and some new tracks mixed in. I've added several new liked tracks in a couple of days.

One is Easy Way Out by Roosevelt. Great song.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZPyjebc1dU
The only problem is, after listening to the lyrics I'm convinced that the song is about constipation. :LOL:

With every move you make
You feel it again
There's no coming out
But you keep fighting it all till the end
With every chance you take
Again and again
You're starting to shout
But you keep holding on till the end

Yeah now you keep pushing
No, there's no easy way out
No need to keep pushing
No, there's no easy way out

You're losing track of time
Your feet off the ground
It's all in your head
But you keep running away from yourself
Just give me a warning sign
No one to be found
You're starting to break
But you keep looking for somebody else

Yeah now you keep pushing
No, there's no easy way out
No need to keep pushing
No, there's no easy way out

It's coming to get you now
No way to pretend
I just wanna take the bow
Can't wait till the end
With all of the roads you take
It hits you again
Your skin begins to shake
So stop to defend
 
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