Remember 'Year Zero' in Your 2007 Top Ten Lists

Nine Inch Nails’ last album, With Teeth, was a return to form, and that’s exactly what was wrong with it. With Teeth would be a standout record for any other industrial band not featuring Al Jourgensen, but for Trent Reznor it was the inevitable step sideways from an artist who had previously taken tremendous steps forward with every release. Consistent songwise but never revelatory, it threw Reznor back into the game after a six-year absence, right where he left off with his 1999 masterpiece, The Fragile. In hindsight, it looks as if he was clearing his throat for the stunning, confrontational Year Zero.

Year Zero has garnered attention for its creative ad campaign, which has included secret messages, videos, and sound clips all over the internet, each giving vague clues to the album's concept and as much a part of a greater project as the album itself. However, this is no marketing gimmick from an artist trying to push an average album which can’t garner sales otherwise. The music itself overshadows the hype surrounding Year Zero, and this is the last time you’ll see that mentioned here.

Musically, Year Zero is perhaps Reznor’s most personal record, sounding more like the guy who covered Joy Division and Gary Numan than the guy who may have sang the best Black Sabbath cover ever, and featuring only two songs that include instruments other than his computer. The music's intimate arrangements conjure up a sense of the struggle to maintain free thought in the face of an invasive government, and the songs themselves are intricate, unpredictable, and even catchy. Critics who believe Reznor's studio wizardry disguises mediocre songwriting (and somehow missed Johnny Cash's bare-bones rendition of Hurt) would adore "The Warning" if it were by Radiohead and "The Greater Good" if it were by Tom Waits, and would hard-pressed to not headbang to "The Vessel" or "God Given."

Lyrically it’s also a very personal record, unsurprising for a guy who put the “I” in "Industrial," giving a first person voice to a famously inhuman genre. He may not be singing about deep inner angst, but his introspective, self-examining mind allows him to fully grasp the horror in a world of anonymous citizens with no say in a totalitarian empire. “Shame on us, doomed from the start, may God have mercy on our dirty little hearts. Shame on us, for all we’ve done, and all we ever were, just zeroes and ones,” drones Reznor in the closer, “Zero-Sum,” managing to convey a computerized society and George W. Bush’s infamous “Shame on You” gaffe in the same verse. Reznor should also be commended for addressing the complacency of the American people as much as the leaders themselves--it is, after all, our fault for electing them and letting them get away with what they do.

Reznor’s lyrics have created an entire world not too dissimilar from the one we live in. The world in Year Zero is never black and white, as seen in the self-questioning narrator of "The Good Soldier," and is alternately terrifying ("Survivalism") and eerily calming ("Another Version of the Truth.") Thankfully, Reznor is specific enough to spark interest and incite debate, yet never to the point where the record will sound dated in a few years (see Regan Youth). Some critics have decided that the antagonist of “Capital G” (I pushed a button and elected him to office…I’m sick of hearing ‘bout the haves and the have-nots…he signs his name with a capital G) is our nation’s current leader. I think the aforementioned antagonist believes he is (and therefore shares a three-letter first name with) the Supreme Being. He never says, "My name has a capital G," it's just the one he uses. These sort of arguments over the album’s meaning just amplify its significance.

Reznor turns 42 this month, and has made his first-ever record to address the state of the world more than his own inner conflicts. It's not going to replace The Fragile or The Downward Spiral as his best record ever, but it's the most focused, least adolescent music he's ever made, and we are all the better for it.