From: earle@poseur.JPL.NASA.GOV (Greg Earle - Sun JPL on-site Software Support)
Subject: Re: Nine Inch Nails : - Does anyone care.?
Followup-To: alt.music.alternative,rec.music.industrial
Summary: No ...
Keywords: NIN
Organization: Sun Microsystems - JPL on-site Software Support
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 03:26:18 GMT

In article <1992Apr16.004233.27345@bradley.bradley.edu> dave@bradley.bradley.edu (David Vessell) writes:
>mcdonghj@unix2.tcd.ie (Nascent Virion.....) writes:
>
>>Talking Nitty Gritty. NIN=INXS... Get real. Where have you been.
>>If NIN aren't industrial who is. Skinny Puppy... Sorry I forgot :-)
>
>As an experiment, try tracking down some of the bands that folks like Greg
>mention around here, like Throbbing Gristle, Einstuerzende Neubaten,
>Negativland, and early Controlled Bleeding, and I think you'll see why NIN
>gets compared to INXS and Depeche Mode so often.  I'm not definitively
>saying that NIN isn't industrial, but if you take the time to listen to the
>bands that pioneered industrial music, you'll see why some folks get worked
>up into such a lather.

While I agree with David's assessment, my comment wasn't based on that.

Some people seem to think that postings such as my original one are based on
some sort of holier-than-thou mentality, and they get their backs up and trot
out the flamage.

Look, in a week I'll be closer to 34 than to 33.  I'm a little too old for the
holier-than-thou trip.  I can be an opinionated bastard when necessary, but
one of the wonders of being thirtysomething is that one realizes that opinions
REALLY ARE "just like assholes", I'm sure you all know that koan by now.
Untimately, you become more tolerant of other's taste when you know that said
taste is well-informed, even if it happens not to be isomorphic to your own.

I've seen NIN 3 times now.  I saw them in Pittsburgh in November 1988, when
they opened for Skinny Puppy.  I saw them in San Francisco at the I-Beam, and
I saw them at Helter Skelter here in Hollywood the last go-round.  If I didn't
find some sort of worth, I wouldn't bother.  But after seeing them live 3
times, if I sense a pattern, I feel justified in expressing it.  And (BTW, I'm
not the only one who sensed this, either) I just couldn't walk out of a NIN
show without feeling like there're strong parallels between NIN with Trent as
frontman, and INXS with Michael Hutchence as frontman.  No, the music's not
terribly similar at all, but the showmanship & mannerisms are, and Trent has
this annoying habit of taking a perfectly reasonable Pop song and injecting it
with That Ersatz Funky Beat (mebbe he's got Soul roots, I dunno), which I get
from INXS too.

Thus the comparison.  No hidden agendas, no slams intended, no nothing.  Just
a simple me-as-logic-based-lifeform observation.  Additional data points
needed before inferring truth due to mathematical induction.  That kinda
thang.  Take it for what it's worth.

Just remember one thing.  For some of us, we populate a zone filled with
people like Morthund.  Phallus Dei.  Asmus Teichens.  In Slaughter Natives.
Dissecting Table.  Hanatarash.  Godflesh.  A few zillion others.  The notion
that Nine Inch Nails is somehow "Industrial" is a bit alien in this kind of
landscape.  You can think whatever you like, and if not living in a
megalopolis with access to music like this (without considerable difficulty,
like having to brave the dreaded mail-order route) makes it such that NIN seem
to be inhabiting a remote corner of your musical landscape, so be it.  But
music exists on an *absolute* scale - and if "Industrial" parameterizes a
certain subset of that scale/landscape, I have every right to consider NIN to
be outside of that landscape, considering as how I have a bit better view of
the borders of said landscape than some others.

-- 
	- Greg Earle			| Disclaimer: I would be just as
	  Sun Los Angeles		| mortified if Sun thought I was
	  JPL on-site Software Support	| speaking for the company as Sun is at
	  earle@poseur.JPL.NASA.GOV	| the thought of me speaking for it.
Newsgroups: alt.music.alternative