Nine Inch Nails, Year Zero Full Album Zip
Jules Altier
Year Zero is the fifth studio album by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, released by Interscope Records on April 17, 2007.[1] Conceived while touring in support of the band's previous album, With Teeth (2005), the album was recorded in late 2006. It was produced by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and was the band's first studio album since 1994's The Downward Spiral that was not co-produced by long-time collaborator Alan Moulder. It was the band's last album for Interscope, following Reznor's departure the same year due to a dispute regarding overseas pricing.
In contrast to the introspective style of songwriting featured on the band's previous work, the record is a concept album that criticizes contemporary policies of the United States government by presenting a dystopian vision of the year 2022. It was part of a larger Year Zero project, which included a remix album, an alternate reality game of the same name, as well as a conceived television or film adaptation. The game expanded upon the album's storyline, using websites, pre-recorded phone messages, murals, among other media in promotion of the project. The album was promoted by two singles: "Survivalism" and "Capital G".
A song cut from the album included vocal work by Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme. The same year, Reznor contributed vocals to their song "Era Vulgaris", which was also cut from the album of the same name.[10]
Even though the fictional story begins in January 2007, the timeline of the album and alternate reality game mentions historical events, such as the September 11 attacks and the Iraq War. From there, fictional events lead to worldwide chaos, including bioterrorism attacks, the United States engaging in nuclear war with Iran, and the elimination of American civil liberties at the hands of the fictional government agency the Bureau of Morality. Regardless of being fictional, a columnist of the Hartford Courant commented, "What's scary is that this doesn't seem as far-fetched as it should, given recent revelations about the FBI's abuse of the Patriot Act and the dissent-equals-disloyalty double-speak coming out of Washington in recent years."[24][25]
For all his nihilistic tantrums, Trent Reznor always wanted to be loved by as many people as possible. After the multi-platinum bloodletting The Downward Spiral exploded in 1994, the depressive frontman froze, stuck in a drug-addled mindfuck of heightened expectations. And while he took eons deciding whether he wanted to be the next "voice of a generation," a fickle pop zeitgeist passed Nine Inch Nails by. Ten years and just one (insular, commercially toxic) album later, 2005's With Teeth had Reznor turning familiar tricks while desperately groping for the mass adulation of old. But, even by regressive NIN standards, the album was too lock-step, causing die-hards to question their favorite troubled teen trapped inside a 40-year-old brute's body. "A lot of what I've done as Nine Inch Nails has been governed by fear," admitted the singer two years ago, and With Teeth sounded like the product of a man paralyzed by his looming cultural expiration date.
If I recall correctly there's some sort of plot behind year zero, could you guys possibly explain it to me? Something kinda dystopian right? I'm pretty interested as I definitely liked Year Zero music wise, just kinda wanna get what the lyrics are talking about.
Personnel
- Trent Reznor: vocals, guitar, drums, keyboards, production
- William Artope: trumpet
- Matt Demeritt: tenor sax
- Josh Freese: drums
- Jeff/Geoff Gallegos: brass, wind musical arrangement, baritone sax
- Elizabeth Lea: trombone
- Saul Williams: backing vocals
- Apocalyptic Log: The "Hour of Arrival" site is a tearful letter from a soldier to his unborn child, interspersed with a log of, and ending with a Presence sighting. o my god, dj, it's over the capitol. o my god, o my god i'm so sorry.
- Alliterative Title: "God Given", "The Greater Good".
- Alternative Calendar: The story takes place in the United States in the year 2022; or "Year 0" according to the American government, being the year that America was reborn.
- Audience Participation: The project is intended as a wake-up call to the audience about the way current politics and society at the time were going. For instance, in the liner notes a warning from the fictional United States Bureau of Morality (USBM) can be found, complete with a phone number to report people who have "engaged in subversive acts." When you dial it, a recording is played with the message: By calling this number, you and your family are implicitly pleading guilty to the consumption of anti-American media and have been flagged as potential militants.
- Comedic Sociopathy: An instance of pitch-black comedy in "Capital G":I pushed a button and elected him to office, and-uh
He pushed a button and it dropped a bomb.
You pushed the button and could watch it on the television.
Those motherfuckers didn't last too long. Ha, ha! - Corrupt Church: The government has installed a Christian fundamentalist theocracy.
- Drugs Are Bad: Parepin, Opal and Copper. Some side effects from the Parepin include: complacency, dulling of emotions, muscle spasms, and not be able to reach orgasms anymore. Copper is worse, it could kill you if you try to kick it.
- Dystopia: The story is set in the future year of 2022, showing what Trent thought the future would look like if the Bush Administration's policies continued unchallenged, and it ain't pretty.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom / The End of the World as We Know It: "In This Twilight" and "Zero-Sum". Watch the sun, As it crawls across a final time And it feels like, Like it was a friend. It is watching us, And the world we set on fire Do you wonder, If it feels the same?
- Eldritch Abomination: The Presence, a giant, ghostly hand that reaches down from the sky, thought to be a side effect from the drugs, Parepin and Opal. But it turns out to be the cause for the end of the world.
- Entry Point: You enter the ARG by means of a number of USB drives left at concerts with intriguing data. Some contain web addresses to pages from the dystopian future, some contain distorted audio that causes spectrographs to produce simple pictures.
- Epic Rocking: The 6:14 minutes "Zero-Sum".
- Extinct in the Future: A letter in the Mailstrom shows an advertisement for killing the last black bear to obtain the title of "Omega Man," a title which is given to the person who kill the last of a species. It also mentions that the lynx, snow leopard, and orangutan have already gone extinct.
- Fun with Acronyms: "Capital G." Some fans have speculated that the "G" stands for George W. Bush, though Trent Reznor has explained it stands for "greed".
- Gaia's Lament: The first verse of "Survivalism" details just how badly humanity has corrupted the earth:I should have listened to her
So hard to keep control
We kept on eating
But our bloated belly's still not full
She gave us all she had, but
We went and took some more
Can't seem to shut her legs
Our Mother Nature is a whore. - The ARG elaborates, with Miami having been swallowed by climate change, Iran, North Korea and the Indian subcontinent destroyed by nuclear war, and the black bear nearly hunted to extinction.
- Ghost City: The entire city of Los Angeles, California, thanks to a dirty bomb attack at the Oscars.
- Large Ham: I am the GREAT DESTROYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
- Miniscule Rocking: "HYPERPOWER!" (1:42).
- My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting: The album criticizes the American government, especially the administration of George W. Bush.
- Ominous Message from the Future: The entirety of the ARG is this, with the earliest quantum computers suddenly receiving a bunch of websites from their future selves, depicting a dystopic future and the end of the world in 2022. Unfortunately, the messages sent back were partially corrupted by the future computers being damaged during the upload, either by government agents or The Presence. Nonetheless, the implication remains that having received the messages has changed the timeline and averted the events of the story.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: All over the ARG sites, seemingly the product of them being sent back in time.
- One-Word Title: "HYPERPOWER!", "Survivalism", and "Vessel".
- Oppressive States of America: The United States has become a totalitarian police state with a side of The Theocracy.
- The Oner: You could say that "Survivalism" could be counted as one, as it's still one shot.
- Properly Paranoid: The music as well as the packaging give the audience the unnerving feel that the government watches them in every step they take.
- Rearrange the Song: "Survivalism" was remixed by Music/deadmau5 on his album while (1 < 2).
- Record Producer: Trent Reznor.
- Stop and Go: "God Given" pauses its music to give a fast, whispered addition to the chorus then starts up again afterward.
- Textless Album Cover
- Year Zero: Duh!
The reality is, the record debuted at #2 and sold almost 100k LESS than the previous NIN album did two years ago. How can you justify launching such an enormous (and no doubt expensive and time consuming) campaign for results like that?
It's not a stretch to say that the pressure is squarely on Reznor to deliver. After all, you'd be hard-pressed to think of another musician who's released an album backed by this much self-imposed, carefully crafted hype. With each week that passes, the stakes grow a little bit higher, the chances of Reznor falling flat on his face a little greater. How could Zero -- which is due April 17 -- be expected to support such an epic and far-reaching story line, one spanning 15 years and three continents, involving a cast of hundreds? How could it possibly live up to the brilliantly labyrinthine promotional scheme from whence it came?