Hold all calls, I'm listening to Nine Inch Nails

I'm a Nine Inch Nails fan from way back.  I was hanging out with my pal $ean at the original Kemp Mill Records where he was assistant manager the day Pretty Hate Machine came out; I bought one right out of the shipping box.  I listened to it and knew immediately that "Head Like a Hole" was a future classic.  It wasn't as hard as the stuff on Wax Trax! or KK, so there were plenty of haters who derided it as watered-down industrial; too bad for them.  I saw NIN on the Pretty Hate Machine tour, at the Grog and Tankard in Baltimore, with Meat Beat Manifesto opening.  I still have the t-shirt from the show.  Come to think of it, I still have the SPK t-shirt I wore to the show; talk about threadbare!  But since then I haven't really connected with NIN; Trent took a long hiatus, I started listening to different music, and I just skipped over everything else he put out.  I really dug "The Perfect Drug," but not enough to buy it.  So now he's free of record label ties and is giving away his new music; I downloaded Ghosts I-IV, but it didn't hook me.  Yesterday I downloaded The Slip, and it did hook me!  I've listened to "1,000,000" three times so far today!  My initial reaction is that this is Trent's best album since Pretty Hate Machine.  This is the new music buzz I remember from my youth!

The Slip has the feel of Trent's live-on-the-radio performances with Peter Murphy: no more futzing around in the studio with umpteen overdubs trying to get everything just perfect, he's just laying down a few tracks and rocking out!  And it works beautifully!