Torn Apart By Hooks

I always felt that if I were to be sucked into a demonic netherworld where my flesh was torn off by hooks and biomechanical attachments were inserted all over my body (a la Hellraiser), I would want Nine Inch Nails to be playing. Nine Inch Nails is my favorite music for transcendental unhappiness. I don't mean, "Oh shucks, my baseball team lost last night." I mean existential angst, crushing despair that sits on your chest and presses you into the floor. If you were having withdrawals from heroin, and you got beaten and left for dead in a urine-soaked alley, AND you just got a Candygram that all of your family had been murdered, that would be Nine Inch Nails time.

NIN is basically one man, Trent Reznor, and I am not making fun of him. I think he is a phenomenal songwriter and lyricist. His latest album With Teeth is awesome. I like every song on it from start to finish. I just think his music fits my worst moods. Reznor can certainly write a catchy pop song, but some of his music is the audio equivalent of an H.R. Giger painting. I find it very interesting that Johnny Cash liked Reznor's work enough to cover "Hurt," the depressing NIN song that became an even more depressing Johnny Cash cover. Cash's video for "Hurt" makes me tear up every time I see it. It is the most depressing thing I have ever seen that wasn't Holocaust related.

Anyway, I thought I was being too negative in my blog, so I thought I would be positive about something, or as positive as I can be. Trent Reznor is a great American (and so is Johnny Cash).