NINE INCH NAILS

And all that could have been. Live.

CD, Nothing

This one has all the right ingredients for a live-record: the atmosphere, the hits and the rawness to pull it all off. Just another cash-off? Maybe, but Trent Reznor retains his integrity by choosing all the right tools and ways, without compromising his artistic vision (I am sure there is one) and by being serious about all this.

To show that this is a proper live-record, you hear people screaming and clapping right at the beginning, and you will hear them all through the record – between songs, singing along to “March of the pigs” and acting outright frenzied. With Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor being the mastergod of Goths and 21st-century-industrial-freaks (what used to be called cyberpunks in the last century) the atmosphere in the audience must have been quite something to experience. As any good live-record does, “And all that could have been” delivers this atmosphere in an authentic manner. Even on a shitty stereo like mine, you can close your eyes and feel transgressed into the audience, dressed in fishnetstockings, black clothes, black eyeliner, dark hair, ready to pop some bad synthetic drugs and ready to be “fucked like an animal”. Yeah, I am overdoing here. Moreover, I don’t know how much of the atmosphere conveyed through the record is due to the real recordings, and just how much is due to some serious digital tampering with the original tapes. Actually, that is of no real concern to me, since I have realised some time ago, that we live in a time and age, where the mediates experience of something is usually way better than the real thing. Where does that come from? Maybe it is the parts added by our own creativity, that completely fulfils our desires and wishes, whereas trying to live out a fantasy is usually a drag and needs a lot of self-deception to come somewhere near the fantasy. No, I am not talking about sex here, though thinking about it, I might include that. I am sure, there was a lot of studio-wizardry involved in making this record, to make it sound so live and authentic (isn’t that what the simulacrum is all about?), so I don’t envy the people who really were there. I can re-visit the experience now anytime. About the editing, assembling and manipulating of the recordings, it says so in the booklet. There is also a list of the tour-personnel on the tour this was recorded on. About 55 people, among the four stylists, three wardrobe-people, three guitar technicians, and one tour accountant. Don’t tell me this is no business. And what the heck is an “artist coordinator”? Five people, please be on stage on time! Shouldn’t be such a big thing, except if you are working with rockstars, obviously. As my granma used to say: don’t do business with rockstars.

There is another thing that a live-record should feature, and that is a lot of hits. On “and all that could have been” we find “The Wretched”, “Starfuckers Inc.” and even “Head like a hole”, so there we go. But they are played harsher, with more guitars and a rawer edge. In short, these songs kick ass. The songs of Trent Reznor usually had something, a subtle spark of individuality and originality, that I could connect to. Somehow I bought all the albums and all the remix-albums along the years. Trent Reznor never overdid his popularity by bringing out mediocre stuff or, easy enough, too much stuff. You always have to wait around until a new album comes out. Between them there are some remix-things and now this live-CD, but never too much. This is a good thing, because this way you have some time to really digest these records, get them on the shelf and inhabit them for some time. Maybe these time-spans are only due to the fact, that Trent Reznor has other projects to do, producing records, leading a record-company, and so on, so he doesn’t have too much time on his hands. But anyway, even if he had more time than he wants, he shouldn’t do it any other way. Guess that makes me a fan somehow, even though I never wear fishnet or black eyeliner, possess no Christian Death-records and couldn’t care less about drugs. You can’t chose your fans, can you? What I was aiming at, was that maybe this live-record was just produced because the record company (and Nothing is a part of the Universal Music Group via Interscope) wanted to do a Greatest-Hits-Record and this is the compromise they arrived at. And a DVD, a special packaged limited DVD, a VHS, special t-shirt and other merchandise, and so on.

02/2002