Streaming Teeth

April 27, 2005 5:09 AM

Free stream of Nine Inch Nail's "With Teeth". Trent and the boys have set up a free stream of next week's long-awaited With Teeth album over on MySpace. More and more major label artists are taking the Wilco approach to giving away content to try and increase sales, with Rachael Yamagata and Deftones side-project Team Sleep also using MySpace.
posted by TheDonF (36 comments total)

Manchester Hip Hop artists Fingathing also on myspace (their site)
posted by 13twelve at 5:19 AM on April 27, 2005

Looks like NIN have managed to suss out some different - and more than welcome - marketing strategies to the run-of-the-mill bands, what with this and the release of one of their tracks on Apple's "Garageband" thingy.

I hope that others take note... (perhaps someone like Metallica; that'd really surprise everyone!)
posted by Chunder at 5:28 AM on April 27, 2005

So what do people think of the music?

The first track seems pretty whiny though. "Why do you get all the love in the world?"
posted by grouse at 5:39 AM on April 27, 2005

Whiny?

Next you'll be asking Robert Smith to be happy.
posted by Dagobert at 5:52 AM on April 27, 2005

Well, Trent's usual whines seem to be about betrayal, or abandonment, or just general depression. Here he just seems to be jealous that someone is getting more attention. Meh.
posted by grouse at 6:01 AM on April 27, 2005

NIN also did the very traditional listening party thing around the country through the month of April. I was at the NYC one.

Capsule review: Right Where It Belongs and Every Day Is Exactly The Same are both excellent tracks, and justify the entire existence of the album.
posted by Remy at 6:04 AM on April 27, 2005

This is good great awesome earth-shattering I have no words.

I just wish I could listen to more than thirty seconds at a time without having to rebuffer.
posted by Plutor at 6:21 AM on April 27, 2005

Once again, a handfull here and there worth biting into... otherwise, more of the same. Pretty cool of them to put it up like this though.
posted by prostyle at 6:24 AM on April 27, 2005

More streamed albums at VH1 and MTV.
posted by smackfu at 6:43 AM on April 27, 2005

Just discovered (from their blog) that My Vitriol have released a preview of one of their new tracks to myspace, too...

Strange that I'd never heard of it before, and now there are two bands that I like who have stuff on there!
posted by Chunder at 7:01 AM on April 27, 2005

And just think how exciting Reznor's incredibly enlightened approach to distributing and letting people play with his latest music would be, if his whole routine wasn't tiresome and if the music didn't suck ass.
posted by insomnia_lj at 7:13 AM on April 27, 2005

Damn, I figured My Vitriol was defunct; thanks for the link. (And I'd never heard about Team Sleep, so thanks to the original poster for that one. Now if only the Myspace interface didn't make me want to kill all hipsters...)
posted by aaronetc at 7:22 AM on April 27, 2005

Hey cool, I also didn't know My Vitriol was still going.

I'm still shocked that Myspace has turned into the go-to place for debuting new music. It's a great community, but such a clusterf**k functionality-wise.
posted by schoolgirl report at 7:37 AM on April 27, 2005

Is there something with their music player that hates firewalls? Didn't work for me in Firefox or IE.
posted by inthe80s at 7:42 AM on April 27, 2005

Cool - My Vitriol finally have something new. Team Sleep has been in the works for ages, but has finally seen the light of day. Hopefully, one day, Reznor's 'Tape Worm' project will surface as well.

As for the music, it sounds pretty good on first listen but NIN's stuff has always been a grower for me. I went to one of the warm up gigs at The Astoria in London and the new stuff they played there (especially the title track) sounded amazing.

Oh, and mea culpa for the wrongly placed apostrophe in "Nail's"...
posted by TheDonF at 7:42 AM on April 27, 2005

OMG, Trent just sang "Nothing can stop me now" again. Get some new lyrics.
posted by grouse at 7:47 AM on April 27, 2005

Oh God, I'm seventeen again...
posted by Katemonkey at 7:49 AM on April 27, 2005

Man I hate myspace more than just about anything on earth. More for people's horrendously ugly [mis]use of it, I suppose, than for the tool itself... but god I just can't stand it.

I like With Teeth thus far (been listening from um... other sources...). I am both surprised and not surprised that he hasn't matured lyrically - but that's ok. It's the same NiN I grew up with, and I'll still enjoy it. There are a few really great tracks here that excite me a lot more than The Fragile did... Takes me back to Downward Spiral with maybe a smidgeon of Broken dashed in... I like.
posted by twiggy at 8:07 AM on April 27, 2005

Very savy distribution. Horrible music.
posted by clubfoote at 8:08 AM on April 27, 2005

It's an okay pop album, loaded with cliches, true. But I'm listening to it this morning, for free. So I ain't bitching.
posted by fungible at 8:16 AM on April 27, 2005

Hey Trent, grade ten called. It wants its lyrics back.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:34 AM on April 27, 2005

10 minutes into this, and I haven't found any teeth. It sounds like NiN is trying to imitate themselves. The Fragile was an interesting, creative departure from their previous work and it showed an evolution and maturity without discarding the edge that made them good. With Teeth, on the other hand, sounds like they've discarded all the progress they made with The Fragile and are playing themselves out by using the repetitive motifs, crutches, and fall backs that had previously prevented me from becoming a hardcore fan of NiN's early albums.
It really sounds like they're doing a mediocre job of ripping themselves off. So far, this album is pretty 1 dimensional.
What a shame.
posted by Jon-o at 8:44 AM on April 27, 2005

The song has been available on the NIN site since April 15 as a 70mb garageband mixable file. Download it and do Trent one better.
posted by me3dia at 9:24 AM on April 27, 2005

For the people griping bout NIN, maybe Rachael Yamagata's "Worn Me Down" is more up your alley? It didn't do anything for me the first couple of times I saw the video, but it slowly worked its way in, and I'm pretty impressed.

Piano/guitar singer-songwriter stuff. Her "Letter Read" (available at the iTunes Music Store) sounded a lot like Fiona Apple the one time I heard it.
posted by kimota at 10:39 AM on April 27, 2005

Trent's lyrics have always been and still are embarrassing. His music has always been and still is interesting. You just got older and graduated from high school and think things have changed.
posted by speicus at 11:06 AM on April 27, 2005

MAN I LOVED THIS SHIT IN HIGH SCHOOL WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
posted by basicchannel at 11:46 AM on April 27, 2005

interesting...a lot of it does just sound like older NIN (nothing wrong with that), and I agree that he seems to have shelved the ideas he was exploring in the better parts of the fragile, but there are a few bits like "all the love in the world" and "everyday is the same" suprised me a bit. he also seems to be doing a better job with the slower tempos he's been using. so much of the fragile sounded unpleasently tired and sickly. songs like "with the teeth" sound quite pleasently tired and sickly.
posted by es_de_bah at 12:07 PM on April 27, 2005

ang the last two songs are just wonderful...one of these days trent is going to grow some balls and stop screaming and thrashing so much....
posted by es_de_bah at 12:37 PM on April 27, 2005

You know, there's a terribly lengthy NIN "With Teeth" ad that shows on Adult Swim a lot, and it bugs the heck out of me. I could just mute it, but at that time of night I'm not alert enough for that.
posted by Citizen Premier at 3:45 PM on April 27, 2005

The music does indeed seem like a throwback to the earlier days of NIN, no improvements here (actually, my initial reaction when I heard "the hand that feeds", I immediately thought that it was just a retread of "Head like a hole".

However, one has to give props to NIN and Trent Reznor in particular for daring to try new ways to connect with their fans (or create new ones). The Garage Band thing was downright daring, the use of myspace is another interesting attempt to get the music distributed to their fans in a different way.

Ultimately, one has to appreciate NIN/Trent Reznor/Interscope for giving fans a chance to listen to the stuff in a different way than by downloading the tracks from an illegal P2P network.
posted by TNLNYC at 6:41 PM on April 27, 2005

I feel kind of self-conscious about still liking NIN, but I can't help it- I get nostalgic over it. And they were the group that started my walk away from Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock. I charted NIN's influences, going from NIN to Gary Numan and Depeche Mode to David Bowie.

I like the new album. It reminds me more of Pretty Hate Machine than any other of his albums. The lyrics aren't great, but (again), he's never been a great lyric writer. He actually does sound a bit more coherent than on The Fragile (though I like The Fragile infinitely more than With Teeth).

"Only" is amusing. "The Hand That Feeds", "Sunspots" and "Love is Not Enough" are catchy as hell. None of the songs move me or anything like that, and it's far from his best album, but for a "come-back" album I was pleasantly suprised with it.
posted by kryptondog at 6:46 PM on April 27, 2005

I hope that others take note... (perhaps someone like Metallica; that'd really surprise everyone!)

Not that I have any great love for Metallica, but Lars actually played a role in stopping the idiotic Sony Beatallica lawsuit recently.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:59 PM on April 27, 2005

Trent is just doing what any artist has to do these days to sell records. Hand That Feeds is terribly radio-friendly, and he even admits it sounds like a forced song in an interview.

Back in high school I use to think NIN was just for homo goths. Than I realized that the man did make some very good music as I got into his stuff, but it all pretty much is the same.

This new CD has a lot of accessible tracks on it, and it's not a bad thing.

I don't think I only speak for myself when I say I would rather have a NIN CD with a lot of throwback music and lame lyrics than 60 minutes of the worst instruments in the world colliding over even more pointless lyrics.
posted by AMWKE at 8:22 PM on April 27, 2005

Also, if Mariah Carey is selling units again, why can't NIN.

And is their ANY artist out their who has been around for a decade+ and has put out their best cd in the last 2 years....no.
posted by AMWKE at 8:24 PM on April 27, 2005

Some background: Reznor is now sober. I think a lot of the lyrics relate specifically to that, and other aspects of him picking up his life and career again. Not exactly themes prevalent in his earlier work, even if the songs sounds similar at first listen.

The music releases are part of a deliberate dialog with his fan community after his years in New Orleans, a "good place to hide and drink" as he puts it. There's a Q&A section on the website, and there was a webcam during the With Teeth recording sessions. He's working closely with a graphic designer who began as a fansite maintainer and now runs NIN.com, and has been on MySpace for ages. The music is not only stylistically retro, so is the production. So all of this really fits together.

And of course, Sunday NIN headline, more or less, Coachella.

Oh: at the Chicago listening party, I got maced. That'll teach me.
posted by dhartung at 10:08 PM on April 27, 2005

Great links, dhartung.
posted by grouse at 12:23 AM on April 28, 2005