Thanks for writing. I was at a “Writing About Music” seminar on Sunday night where I learned a lot, and when you’re comment came the next day, well, let’s just say you hit me at the right time.

There was a lot of discussion about what really is the job of the music critic. And it came down to this — informing and conversing with your reader about what enraged, enlightened, enraptured, left you bored, left you cold, left you elated about the music you hear. And doing it in an articulate and accessible way. I agree with you that I am not always the best at doing that. I am, after all, an amateur with an extremely limited audience. I think you are right about my first bullet point, which I think is the one that incensed you most, the one about NIN’s lyrics. You’re right, the way it was written was too derogatory. But I stand by my basic point (which I didn’t make well) which is that there is a fine line between simplicity and inarticulateness. I would aver that Trent falls back & forth over that line with regularity, and that on a lot of his songs mostly towards the latter. Too many of his songs sound like tantrums. When he hits it right, though, as on Hurt or (shoot, don’t remember the name of the song on Natural Born Killers), he can be effective. (BTW, here is a nice story that talks about how Johnny Cash chose his songs for the American sessions: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/rnd/1117220631783/has-player/true/id/5933533)

My post, however, was not intended to be a review of NIN’s music or albums; in fact, I was laudatory on The Downward Spiral, which I still love. (Have you picked up the remixed edition yet? It’s great). I was writing about the performance and the unusual experience of getting to see them in such a small venue. I got to notice things that I never would have noticed in a festival environment, and of course that’s what their show is really geared for. Nobody at Glastonbury is going to notice (or care about) the bizarre water bottle roadie situation, for example. I go to a lot of shows, though, and it really was bizarre to see nobody playing their instruments and the crowd going nuts — as the song played at full blast! It looked more like a pep rally, with the band standing at the front of the stage all clapping over their heads together. I go to 30+ shows a year, and I’ve never seen any band simply stand in front of their click track like that and dance & clap without being at least a little ironic or funny about it. (Admittedly I’ve never seen any of the pop spectacle tours like Madonna, Britney and such where this is standard practice; honestly, I’d rather see a Broadway show.)

So in the end, how did I feel about the performance? Stupidly, I never really came out and said it in this write-up. So here goes: started fast, tailed at the end, band was still rough as was first gig in a hella long time. Occasionally brilliant, occasionally unintentionally comic, it’s a good show and will play well on the festival circuit this year.

As to your point about my being narrow-minded about music: dude, you’re just flat-out wrong on that one. My blog represents a very narrow view of the music I enjoy and get excited about, but even there I talk about artists as disparate as Bill Frisell, Tuxedomoon and Nine Inch Nails. I’ll be the first to admit that industrial is not my cup of tea — my girlfriend pleaded with me to go — but I’ve seen enough shows and heard so many many hours of music to feel like I can responsibly separate from the wheat from the chaff. Attending opening night of a highly anticipated tour … Gotta write about that, regardless of my biases, for or against. And there _are_ industrial bands and albums I like, The Downward Spiral for one. (Hey, whatever happened to Nitzer Ebb?) Does this look like a closed-minded guy to you? http://www.last.fm/user/entroporium

Of course I’m biased. That’s the job of a critic, and it’s a worthwhile one. To sift through it all and let people know what the good stuff is and why you’re excited about it, and possibly to avoid the other stuff. We all work hard for our money and free time, and there’s no reason we should let each other waste those precious assets on substandard stuff. In the corporatized world we live in, to separate what’s hot today because a company needs to make profits from what’s hot today because it’s good is a really important role that we ALL need to play for each other. I’m sure you’ll be burning a few copies of With Teeth for your peeps, while I burn copies of The Avalanches for mine, and that’s all cool. (Except for the artists’ lost revenue, but that’s yet another story.)

One last aside: they’re still playing Starfuckers. It’s not that great a song and piling on to Courtney at this point just seems unfair. That poor chick is a shell of her former self. Let’s leave Courtney alone!

Thanks for your note. Have a great 3-day!

Best,
Shawn

Trent Renor is a very talented musician. He writes all of the music/lyrics for NIN. He’s been doing this for over 20 years. He’s worked with other esteemed artists like David Bowie and Maynard James Keenan. Heck, Johnny Cash even performed “Hurt”. They respect his work. Let me tell you that writing music is very hard work. Sometimes the right word is the simplest word to explain how someone feels in a song. Haven’t you heard the saying “Simplicity Sells”? I’ve heard a lot of Trent’s work and he has a plethora of rhetoric. His music has been successful his whole career.

To hear you “knock” his music is an insult to everyone involved in his success. Including his fans and people he’s worked with. Music critics will forever be the scum of the entertainment industry because they have very persuasive ways to lure fans away from a certain artist or genre of music. Not to mention very narrow minds.

Last note, when you said, “Nobody was playing their instrument” that may have been true for that one song. Musicians do get tierd and sweaty and sometimes may take a break for one song. How do you know half of it wasn’t done on their keyboards? Synthesizers do have loop functions and the capabilities to run without the musician actually playing evey note. Leave musicians alone. Your review may have been constructive critisism in your eyes, but it came off as “muy derogitorio”.