In middle school, the computer game Duke Nukem had come out, and David Lambert and I figured out how to play against each other *over the phone line internet*. It…was…awesome. Anyway, when I was playing Duke Nukem way too much, I always turned off the game’s music, and put in one of two CDs: E. 1999 and the Downward Spiral. It was these two albums, along with the game’s sound effect explosions and Duke Nukem’s badass banter that still hold a warm, nostalgic place in my heart.

Now, about your article–it was beautiful! I suppose that my love for music is more plain stimulation…more ethos, less pathos. In fact, you could argue that my musical preference is really immature, or, in a way, ADD, considering one of my most recurring desires is that a song be more unpredictable–in a way, a song that repeats itself too much simply can’t keep my short attention span. But reading your analysis, I found myself nodding in agreement to every point you made. My favorite thing you noticed was the fact that neither album had anything like it before, and neither album has since had anything like it either–inlcuding from the same band. In a way, I think I have always loved The Downward Spiral more than I’ve ever loved Nine Inch Nails. With the exception of one song, The Perfect Drug, I have really loved nothing Trent has ever done outside of The Spiral.

Also, I want to point something out–this is a damn good article. I see no reason why you shouldn’t pick some small, local paper, and honestly submit this for low-stakes publication. You take out the self-depricating stuff, and it’s as good as any other sort of music review I ever read. Yeah, it pandered to me because I happened to like both those albums, but it’s still good. And, they’re famous enough that your average newspaper or magazine reader would be familiar with them. I say just contact a few small-time newspapers and see what they think!

Anyway, enjoyed it, read it twice, and now I’m going to listen to some Spiral while I read your newest post.

Now that I’ve read the article thoroughly, a few points:

You DID use the word Dylan-esque, you prick.

I love your point about 1st of Tha Month. In this day of ‘flossin’ and conspicuous consumption, it is hard to really imagine anyone coming out with a track about the joys of the gettin’ that gov’t cheese. I especially love the line ‘Wake up and I see that my sister is already dressed/She said “I’m gonna run and go get my stamps/Watch and make sure no one snatches my check”‘. A song that hot about welfare? Get the fuck outta here.

But I guess what I really love about E. 1999 (I’ve never been that into NIN, apologies) is that when I first got the album, I was 12 or 13 years old and just loved the funk-laced party tracks mixed with the raw, high intensity beats that encompassed the album. The lyrics were all, as I said before, just syllables. I didn’t know what yayo or tweed was or what why the fuck everyone was so obsessed with green leaves. I just love the music. And now, as I grow older, I always pick up something new every time I listen to the album that had not previously registered in my white-bread, Midwestern brain. And it makes me feel like a kid again.

Props to my mom for not giving a fuck about parental advisory labels and buying one of the most hardcore hip hop albums of the 90s, if not all time, for her 12 year old son.

And don’t be stingy. Please no pinners, make it swollen.

Speaking of an above point about the Parental Advisory topic, I recently listened to a podcast about explicit-language lawsuits a lot of television networks are a part of. It is pretty ridiculous that we have agreed that some words are off-limits, even to the point of being legally binding. I agree that parents should be ‘advised’ about language and content and be able to use that info to keep pure their own family unit, but as far as I understand, there is ABSOLUTELY NO (scientifically researched) link between offensive language and the development and character of a person.

We, as a society, all just believe that certain words, when said or heard by someone, kills a person just a little bit inside or makes them darker or unattractive or something. Thats fucking shit! There IS something wrong with a six-year-old cussing up a storm, but its not the language or actual words, it is the meaning behind the words, which is that this kid and their parents are probably jerks. I guess I don’t have much stake in the matter, who is going to stop me from cussing on my podcast or graphic novel, but the point of the podcast I listened to was how ridiculous it is that TV stations can be fined for this kind of stuff. Most of the examples were when expletives were uttered accidentally live. A slipped curse, like a slipped nip, is something to giggle about, not be offended by.

…not that the people who are going to read Drew’s blog need this convincing, I just wanted to type something.