The Sentence 09.26.06: 2nd Chances
Posted by Frank Estrada on 09.26.2006
This week we are going to be taking about 2nd chances. Get burned by a band you love? Read on.
This week we are going to talk about 2nd chances. I'm sure you give a lot of people 2nd chances on a daily basis. Experience bad food service on day and yet you go back to a place. Have a favorite band who put out a crappy album, yet you decide to either see them live or buy their next album? Well let's do that today, let's give somebody a second chance.
THE SENTENCE: I am going to give__________ one more chance, because I will forgive you for _____________.
Actually this is the hardest thing for me to right because I am going to give my favorite band a chance. I guess someone should put them in check.
THE ANSWER: I am going to give Nine Inch Nails one more chance, because I will forgive you for With Teeth.
Hey, I get it. Some of you really loved this album. There are some good songs here. I try and I try and I can't get in to it. I really like the first track All the Love in the World, but then I get bored. I don't think I even finished the album all the way through. The singles are ok, but I will be honest, all this new stuff sounds way different and better live.
I know some of you think this chance should have been given to their last album the Fragile, but I think that is their best album and that is mainly why I think I was disappointed with With Teeth. The Fragile took NIN to a depth that Trent was flirting with in the Downward Spiral. While not dark as TDS, the Fragile best tracks were just that, fragile. I can see that the Fragile was a victim of too many tracks and probably would have been better as a single disk. While there were no hard hitting tracks like March of the Pigs or career defining tracks like Hurt, I think the Fragile is very mature and very deep (intellectually), and polarized the NIN fan base. And just incase you are keeping score; I have been a fan since Pretty Hate Machine.
Ok let get our teeth into With Teeth. The hype for this was standard, NIN has a new album coming out, woo hoo. First it was called Bleed Through, and that was kind of a kick ass title. Trent was going back to the early angst of NIN, mainly because of the criticism of the Fragile. Also big news was that David Ghrol was going to be pounding for a couple of tunes, so that was awesome. Later Bleed Through was going to be changed to With Teeth. I was puzzled by the name change to something that was not memorable. I got 2 tracks leaked online and they were ok. I realized that they weren't cd quality or even finished. Then the album came out and….I didn't like it.
Right before I bought the album though, NIN headlined Coachella. I was stoked, a buff Trent came out and was going through his hits, the newer songs, well I just wrote them off as I am not familiar with them yet, but the band ripped through them and I was happy. I realized this was the tour opener, of course there were some warm up shows too. Later in the tour, NIN came to the Hollywood Bowl, armed with the Queens of the Stone Age and sometime has past since I last seen them so I was hyping myself up again. This was an ok show. There were some bland points. Later they came back to California, played the smaller Verizon Amphitheatre and I got free tickets to this one. See I wasn't going to pay for this tour anymore. I think it was the new songs. This time with Bauhaus and Peaches, NIN played the best show I have ever seen. They played fewer songs from this album and more of the old stuff. I was a fan again. So there I want to let Trent and who ever is going to be in the future line up that you are getting a 2nd chance from me. Really look at the music scene today; we need to hold on to our heroes.
That's who I'm giving a second chance today. I know I probably could have put many other different bands here. I will leave that to you out there playing the home game. Who would you forgive? Who are you going to give a second chance too, or have you already given someone a second chance and they blew it? That would be interesting to hear. I wonder if I did that. I going to have to think about that and get back to you next week.
