Original Lollapalooza lineup, 1991

In honor of today's Lollapalooza announcement, check out this backstage photo of the original tour lineup in 1991—Jane's Addiction, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Living Colour, Nine Inch Nails, Ice-T with Body Count, Butthole Surfers and the Rollins Band, all together. I had blast speaking with some of these musicians about Body Count, and loved reading the upcoming Lollapalooza oral history book compiled by Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour. Let me know if you read it!

Michellica

1. Metallica, "Enter Sandman"
2. Nine Inch Nails, "Head Like a Hole"
3. Anthrax and Public Enemy, "Bring the Noise"
4. Faith No More, "Falling to Pieces"
5. Rob Zombie, "Dragula"
6. Sepultura, "Ratamahatta"
7. Motörhead and Girlschool, "Please Don't Touch"
8. Living Colour, "Cult of Personality"
9. Pearl Jam, "Animal"
10. L7, "Pretend We're Dead"
11. Queens of the Stone Age, "No One Knows"
12. Danzig, "Mother"
13. Pantera, "Cat Scratch Fever"
14. Deftones, "Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)"
15. Alice Cooper, "Poison"
16. King's X, "It's Love"
17. Rage Against the Machine, "Killing in the Name"
18. Shakira, "Nothing Else Matters/Despedida"

For MLC.

No Lives Matter

No Lives Matter

1. Black Flag, "Rise Above"
2. Bikini Kill, "Double Dare Ya"
3. Anthrax and Public Enemy, "Bring the Noise"
4. Living Colour, "Cult of Personality"
5. Sepultura, "Refuse/Resist"
6. Suicidal Tendencies, "Send Me Your Money"
7. Ministry, "Thieves"
8. Time Zone, "World Destruction"
9. Nine Inch Nails, "The Hand That Feeds"
10. Saul Williams, "List of Demands (Reparations)"
11. Discharge, "Protest and Survive"
12. Bad Brains, "Banned in D.C."
13.  Faith No More, "War Pigs"
14. Motörhead, "God Save the Queen"
15. Body Count, "No Lives Matter"
16. Revocation, "Pestilence Reigns"
17. A Tribe Called Quest, "We the People..."
18. Rage Against the Machine, "The Ghost of Tom Joad"
19. Sinéad O'Connor, "Black Boys on Mopeds"
20. David Bowie and Trent Reznor, "I'm Afraid of Americans"

For DMS.

Marilyn Manson, "The Love Song"

I've written about gun sense songs here before (including Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Saturday Night Special" and Nine Inch Nails' "Big Man with a Gun"), but I'm revisiting the topic today for National for National Gun Violence Awareness Day, the birthday of Hadiya Pendleton. You can learn more about her story, and why many people are wearing orange today, in this video here, put together by Everytown for Gun Safety (full disclosure: I'm in the video).



"The Love Song" is Marilyn Manson's second anti-gun violence song, after the more blunt, albeit more ham-fisted, "Get Your Gunn". He liked it enough to put it on one of his best records, Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death), and to name his corresponding tour Guns, God and Government after the song's lyrics. This was eight years before then-candidate Barack Obama's similar, widely criticized "they cling to guns and religion" remark, which was incendiary enough for Paul Ryan to reword it in pandering to voters in 2012. And watching gun activists fight President Obama's efforts to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers this week, it's clear that Manson's "Love Song" is more relevant now than ever.

Musically, it is effective less for its lyrics than the "Venus in Furs" riff it swipes, but I like hearing "The Love Song" as an early sign that Manson could slow things down and still unleash his unmistakeable seethes and screams on the world. Coupled with Manson's best non-musical moment, his appearance in Bowling for Columbine, it serves as a reminded that most of the world would be better served by listening to Marilyn Manson.

He Prefers Rock and Roll

He Prefers Rock and Roll

1. Pavement, "Gold Soundz"
2. Stiff Little Fingers, "Suspect Device"
3. Blur, "There's No Other Way"
4. Sly & the Family Stone, "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)"
5. ZZ Top, "Just Got Paid"
6. The Impressions, "It's All Right"
7. Thom Yorke, "Black Swan"
8. Spoon, "The Way We Get By"
9. The Jacksons, "Blame it on the Boogie"
10. The Coasters, "Along Came Jones"
11. The Jam, "That's Entertainment"
12. The Pharcyde, "Passing Me By"
13. Danny Brown, "Dip"
14. Anthrax, "Got the Time"
15. Queens of the Stone Age, "Song for the Dead"
16. Death Grips, "I've Seen Footage"
17. Television, "See No Evil"
18. David Bowie, "I'm Afraid of Americans" (Nine Inch Nails remix)
19. The Blow, "True Affection"
20. Prince, "Batdance"

Happy birthday, Kate.

Tool, "Forty Six & 2"

A friend recently sent me one of those "What Your Favorite Band Says About You" articles, and one passage in particular stuck out to me:

"Tool: You’re either really smart or really dumb."



Tool is a little like metal's Chuck Palahniuk, an artistic, sensitive and homoerotic talent with a dedicated fanbase of bros. Radio metalheads like to sing along and like to shoot their gun, and one can almost see the band mocking their unsuspecting admirers by getting frat boys to wear t-shirts with the word "TOOL" printed across the front. Yet Tool are also favored by nerds and Liberal Arts kids who enjoy their long, mathematical compositions, abstract lyrics and music videos modeled after the Brothers Quay. The result is a band that sells millions of records, wins Grammys and packs large venues despite barely doing any interviews and refusing to put their music on iTunes.

Another way that Tool is akin to Palahniuk is that all their art is pretty much alike. Tool devotees (and boy, are they devoted) can tell me that 10,000 Days is more conceptual than Undertow, and I'm sure that if you listen to both of them 10,000 times that's true. But for those of us who also want to make time for other bands, 1996's Ænema, featuring "Forty Six & 2," will satiate our alternative prog-metal needs just fine.

"Forty Six & 2" is inspired by the Jungian Shadow, referring to the human unconsciousness. Tool also references Jung's idea of gaining two more chromosomes in the next evolutionary stage, hence the title. But more impressively, Tool signified the next evolutionary stage in heavy music, building on Metallica's thrash symphonies, Nine Inch Nails' industrial intimacy, Neurosis' post-metal artistry and the Melvins irreverent unpredictability with their own artistic stamp. Tool may not have evolved since Ænema, but as heard in bands like Gojira, Opeth and Intronaut, they got metal to evolve for them.

Nine Inch Nails at Prudential Center

CMJ hit the New York City area this week, and an abundance of shows, panels, screenings, showcases and industry parties flooded our town. Artists and businessmen of all sorts flocked through, representing all kinds of music, ideas and levels of success. All of them almost certainly had one thing in common: none of them could compare to the show that Nine Inch Nails brought to the Barclays Center and the Prudential Center this week. For all the talents that might have been performing nearby, there was only one genius playing in the city this week.

25 years into one of the most innovative careers in rock music, Trent Reznor, who is as much Nine Inch Nails as Prince Rogers Nelson is Prince, could have filled the arena with a microphone and a karaoke machine. Yet Reznor brings the passion and perfectionism that marks his best studio work onto the stage. Each song got a different light and LED treatment, with mesmerizing patterns guiding us through much of NIN's terrific new album, Hesitation Marks. A blue screen silhouetted the band for "Find My Way," magnifying Reznor's two-handed microphone tricks and guitarist Robin Finck's guitar god strutting. Strobe lights underscored the intensity of "Copy of A" and "Somewhat Damaged," perfectly supplementing a band that made the most abrasive dance music known to humanity.

Of course anyone with the right budget could afford a light show, but Reznor takes it to another level. For another band, it would have been distracting, either bogging down the pacing or an obvious distraction from inferior songs. Artists like Tool and Rob Zombie have extraordinary light shows, but both employ them at the cost of spontaneity, playing identical shows each night to stay in line with the mechanics. But Nine Inch Nails played a rock show, changing up the setlist, swinging their instruments and blowing through every song with a forcefulness that no machine could match. A pair of female backup singers, including Lisa Fischer from the Rolling Stones, gave NIN's music an R&B swing that worked shockingly well, revealing Reznor's funk sensibilities in the new "Satellite" and the underrated "Into the Void," wherein when Reznor traded stanzas with Fischer like an industrial Mick Jagger and Merry Clayton. At 48, Reznor is still unearthing his talents as an arranger.

But even if he weren't the composer, programmer and producer of every Nine Inch Nails record, Reznor would have been a rock star. Grappling the microphone and hurtling himself toward the crowd, he's a ferocious lead singer, bellowing stories of pain and hatred that transcend the adolescence that he wrote them in. Whether or not he's outgrown the lyrics to "Wish" or "March of the Pigs," Reznor understands that those feelings still matter to a lot of people, and he expresses them beautifully enough for us to keep coming back. By the time he finished "Head Like a Hole," with blazing searchlights dying down for a huge LED screen with the NIN logo, there was no doubt that Reznor's talents as a performer are in a league with his studio wizardry.

For the encore, Reznor introduced the band (it was his first banter of the evening) and treated us to a few more songs, including "Echoplex" and Hesitation Marks standout "While I'm Still Here," the latter including the first-ever saxophone on an NIN record. But best of all were "I'm Afraid of Americans" and the closing song "Hurt," two drastically different compositions that gave two legendary artists (David Bowie and Johnny Cash, respectively) late career comebacks. One could take it as a pat on Reznor's back, or even a reminder that he doesn't need any guest songwriters or producers as he nears 50. Those of us in attendance saw that, like Cash and Bowie, Reznor deserves to be held in the highest regard for the way he's reshaped modern music.

Openers Godspeed You Black Emperor played just one song, the perfectly-named "Behemoth," a droning, 45-minute song that has not yet appeared on an album. Their performance may not have won them any new fans, but it was an appropriate gesture for a band that recently made a mockery of their Polaris Prize and once trashed Radiohead for being "owned...by a gigantic multinational corporation."

Nine Inch Nails, "Somewhat Damaged"

"In the case of another boy, when the time had arrived during which it was the custom for the free boys to steal whatever they could, and it was a disgrace not to escape being found out, when the boys with him had stolen a young fox alive, and given it to him to keep, and those who had lost the fox came in search for it, the boy happened to have slipped the fox under his garment. The beast, however, became savage and ate through his side to the vitals; but the boy did not move or cry out, so as to avoid being exposed, and left, when they had departed, the boys saw what had happened, and blamed him, saying that it would have been better to let the fox be seen than to hide it even unto death; but the boy said, "Not so, but better to die without yielding to the pain than through being detected because of weakness of spirit to gain a life to be lived in disgrace."

 --Plutarch, Sayings of Spartans

1000 Homo DJs, "Supernaut"

When Ministry's Al Jourgensen brought some early demos to Wax Trax! co-founder Jim Nash, Nash allegedly told him "No one's going buy this. It'll take one thousand homo DJs to play this for one person to buy it."



By1990, Ministry was riding on two of the best albums of the '80s (The Land of Rape and Honey and The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste) and laughing all the way back to the Wax Trax! execs, who were happy just to release Jourgensen's outtakes. The result was Supernaut, a four-song EP under the the nom de plume 1000 Homo DJs.

Three of the songs sound like a major talent's outtakes, with even the eight-minute loop of Jello Biafra singing "Hey Asshole" showcasing Jourgensen's deft production. But I'm writing about Supernaut today in honor of its title track, a cover of the underrated Sabbath tune. Other than arguably Faith No More's version of "War Pigs," no tribute to metal's most-covered band has ever come so close to topping the original.

As we've learned through Sabbath's lineup changes, every member of the original band was integral. But even with one of rock music's most iconic frontmen and heaviest rhythm sections, Sabbath was all about the riffs. The onomatopoeia "Supernaut" shifts and shakes until it sounds like it's going to break free from your listening device, especially when emphasized by Jourgensen's tone. The vocalist, uncredited on the album, is one Trent Reznor. For industrial fanatics, it's like hearing John Lennon sing with Keith Richards.

Richardpalooza 2013

Richardpalooza 2013

1. The Who, "Baba O'Riley"
2. Prince, "P Control"
3. Gloria Jones, "Tainted Love"
4. 2pac, "Hail Mary"
5. ZZ Top, "Just Got Paid"
6. The Doors, "Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)"
7. John Lee Hooker, "Boom Boom"
8. Eddy Grant, "Electric Avenue"
9. Talking Heads, "Burning Down the House"
10. Bill Withers, "Use Me"
11. Mobb Deep, "Shook Ones Part 2"
12. The Specials, "Nelson Mandela"
13. Johnny Cash, "Tennessee Stud"
14. Nine Inch Nails, "Head Like a Hole"
15. Iggy & the Stooges, "Search and Destroy"
16. Snoop Dogg, "Gz Up, Hoes Down"
17. Metallica, "Master of Puppets"
18. AC/DC, "Thunderstruck"

I've known Richard long enough where I can put something as ridiculous as "P Control" or "Gz Up, Hoes Down" on a birthday mix without getting judged. The latter song, which was cut from Doggystyle due to sample clearance issues (but the sexism was apparently OK), may have been a precedent for "Homies Over Hoes," the satirical Boondocks hit from closeted rapper Gangstalicious.
Looking forward to hearing what Richard thinks.

Happy early birthday, RAC.

Shining, "I Won't Forget"

Shining is on their first ever American tour right now, behind one of the year's best albums and not nearly enough press. One One One is getting billed as prog-metal, probably because Shining used to be a jazz band and covered King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man." But One One One sounds more industrial to me, with heavy tones of Killing Joke and early Nine Inch Nails, plus the best saxophone in all of metal (sorry, Sigh and Nachtmystium). Shining is also a downright ferocious live band, thrashing and prowling all over a relatively cramped stage without missing a note.

Luckily, they're from Norway, where art-metal is more widely appreciated and they can get a budget for a music video like this one, for "I Won't Forget."



I also like this long take of them playing "I Won't Forget" outdoors.  More bands should record their videos live.



They're on their way to Illinois, Colorado and California before ending their tour. Book a flight if you have to.

Nine Inch Nails, "Everything"

"I'm happy with who I am now," the guy who named his first three albums Pretty Hate Machine, Broken and The Downward Spiral told Spin this month. "I feel fortunate to be where I am. We tried arranging the new songs with loud guitars, and it sounded false. Instead, we approached those old emotions in new ways that are subtler, and I think just as powerful."

It's the kind of answer people dread from their favorite artists. We often talk about how artists go bad once they get rich, sober up, get married and/or responsibly raise their kids--see Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica. We applaud the insatiable few artists who never settle down (Motörhead, Pantera, Matt Pike). We're happy when they make angry, angst-ridden art, even when it's at the expense of the artist's happiness, or worse, the artist's family and friends. We'd rather that bands never get rich, but we're OK if they die trying. 



A lot of people are going to hate "Everything" a single from Nine Inch Nails' awesome new album Hesitation Marks. It's in a major key, has a throbbing, invigorating beat and has the tightest vocal harmony that Trent Reznor has ever released.  I haven't been able to get it out of my head all week, and I hope it stays there. It makes me want to exercise, and I don't even like exercising. Then again, I didn't want to deal with Hurt, The Fragile, Survivalism or a Terrible Lie either.

Metalie

Natalie asked me for a metal mix. I know that she enjoys Loretta Lynn, the White Stripes and Marilyn Manson, so I took it from there.



Metalie

1. Metallica, "Battery"
2. Nine Inch Nails, "Wish"
3. Goatwhore, "Apocalyptic Havoc"
4. Torche, "Healer"
5. Motörhead, "Ace of Spades"
6. Judas Priest, "Breaking the Law"
7. Lamb of God, "Now You've Got Something to Die For"
8. Living Colour, "Cult of Personality"
9. Anthrax, "Got the Time"
10. Black Sabbath, "The Mob Rules"
11. Monster Magnet, "Power Trip"
12. Iron Maiden, "The Number of the Beast"
13. High on Fire, "Rumors of War"
14. Deftones, "Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)"
15. Ministry, "Jesus Built My Hotrod
16. Suicidal Tendencies, "You Can't Bring Me Down"
17. Rage Against the Machine, "Guerilla Radio"
18. Gojira, "Vacuity"
19. Slayer, "Angel of Death"
20. Converge, "Last Light"

I tried to sequence Metalie around an ideal jukebox night at the Lucky 13 Saloon. You come for your hits--your "Ace of Spades," "Breaking the Law" and "The Number of the Beast." But you stick around to find out that there's an American death metal band that rocks like Goatwhore, or to remember that the best Dio-era Black Sabbath song was on the Heavy Metal soundtrack.

I also took a few cues from Natalie's sister, whom I've known to teach Suicidal Tendencies in her classroom and throw horns to Monster Magnet outside of it. I've even included a few songs from a mix I made for Natalie's sister, most notably the Metallica/Nine Inch Nails combo that kicks things off. I wanted to try something new, but couldn't resist the way that the two sound together, or think of many bands that stand up next to either of them. They didn't become the great crossover metal and industrial artists by accident. In any case, consider Metalie a Sister Mix to her sister's mix.

But Natalie is her own lass, and she gets her own songs. I'm hoping that the Torche, Gojira and High on Fire tracks are all winning endorsements for modern metal. Maybe Natalie will hear Jeff Hanneman's immortality in "Angel of Death" and a Lamb of God song that wouldn't exist without him. Maybe this mix will provide endless headbanging delights, or maybe she'll forehand it into the garbage by the time she gets to "Guerilla Radio." But if that isn't metal, I'll eat my Motörhead box set.

Opinions vs. Observations

I could give you dozens of reasons as to why metal is better than reggae or techno. I'm happy to tell you why Death is better than Dååth, or why Suicidal Tendencies are better than Suicide Silence. At Governor's Ball last month, I watched Guns N' Roses utterly blow away Animal Collective and Kings of Leon. But in my heart of heart and brain of brains, I know that it's all just my opinion.

Then again, I don't. Consider, for example, that Trent Reznor is a better composer than Winds of Plague. This doesn't seem arguable. Understanding why something like The Downward Spiral is better than Decimate the Weak signifies an intelligent grasp of music, not an opinion. Who could argue that W.A.S.P. is better than Metallica? It would be like claiming that Dan Brown is a better writer than Kafka. I'm sure that some people actually believe it, but I'd hope that someday they'd mature enough to change their minds.

My concern about opinions and observations is where they start and where they end. There's a wide, blurry line between thinking that Nine Inch Nails is better than Animal Collective and knowing that they're better than Winds of Plague. Where does that line start and end? Is it when one artist stands the test of time? If so, how long is that? What constitutes as enough sense to decide what is an observation and what's an opinion? What gives me the authority to decide? Can observations change over time, as standards do?

The answer, my friend, is just your opinion.

Marilyn Manson, "The Beautiful People"

Like David Bowie and Madonna, Kanye West is a brilliant consumer and interpreter of pop and underground music.  From alt-rap to synthpop, West has earned his stardom in part by re-imagining cutting edge music as something that frat boys and sorority girls could get down to. The industrial-tinged scream-rap on Yeezus has called attention to iconoclastic artists like Death Grips and Saul Williams, both of whom have self-released their music without record labels and rarely get much respect from anyone who has never written for a music blog. Hopefully that will change with the acceptance of Yeezus.

However, one Yeezus influence that people apparently aren't listening to is Marilyn Manson. Last week, a widely-shared mixtape entitled Yeezus: The Samples became internet famous for compiling all of Yeezus' samples, Manson's "The Beautiful People" included, in one stream. The problem being, that had anyone who actually listened to Marilyn Manson had anything to do with Yeezus: The Samples, they could tell that there are no Manson samples anywhere on Yeezus.



Yet it's easy to forgive listeners for assuming that "Black Skinhead" samples Marilyn Manson, who still holds the high standard for the kind of industrial pop that West is dabbling in. Nine Inch Nails is rightfully credited for bringing industrial music to the mainstream, but what Manson did in his prime was both poppier and more metallic. The guitars and choruses are simple, loud and catchy, unable to be disguised by any amount of artsy production and music videos.

Before I had ever heard a note of Manson's music, I was familiar with him through a few interviews and the cover of Smells Like Children. I had never seen a creepier rock star, an image that was enhanced by his deadpan interview delivery--he didn't seem like he was trying to shock people at all. The first song of his that I heard was "The Beautiful People," on a DC-area rock station. Even though I'd missed the DJ's intro, I could tell who the artist was within seconds. The attitude was all there.

Like Kanye, Manson was terrific at adapting underground music for mainstream listeners. Hints of Ministry, Killing Joke and Bauhaus are all in "The Beautiful People", simplified and produced with Interscope Records and MTV in mind. Antichrist Superstar was purposefully written to make Marilyn Manson an iconic outsider, the most controversial rock star on the planet, and somehow it worked. To this day, it sounds audacious--will anything this Satanic ever play the MTV VMAs ever again?



That audacity wouldn't last. Cynics will say that all shock rockers have short shelf lives, but comparing "The Beautiful People" to Manson's subsequent, less popular albums, it sounds like he lost interest in the mainstream long before the mainstream lost interest in him. If his songs were still this infectious, he'd still be selling out arenas. But Manson doesn't need to build on his legacy anymore. Kanye's got that covered.

David Bowie, "I'm Afraid of Americans" (Nine Inch Nails remix)

"'Bowie is trending' pretty much describes his entire amazing career,"  comedian Robert Florence wrote on his Twitter page today. He was addressing the Goblin King's 66th birthday and announcement of his new album.



Whether he's forging new trends or capitalizing on current ones, Bowie has been one of the most forward-thinking minds in modern entertainment, moreso than can be capsulized in a 140-word comment. But let's look at one angle.

My first Bowie record was Earthling. I was young enough to believe that the best introduction to any artist was through his or her most recent work, but also impressionable enough to enjoy Earthling immensely. It does have some good songs, fun forays into electronic and industrial music that sounds neat albeit dated in the 21st century.

The only song from Earthling that has aged well is "I'm Afraid of Americans," written with Brian Eno and remixed by Bowie fanatic Trent Reznor, whom also co-stars in the music video. You've seen this before--the quinquagenarian rock star allotting himself with chic younger musicians in a bid for commercial success. But in this case, Bowie seems genuinely inspired by Reznor, his 1995 tourmate, coming up with a seething, paranoid anthem worthy of Pretty Hate Machine. Too often pigeonholed as an escapist, Bowie conjures NIN's angst with a musically and lyrically bold skewer of humanity. Unlike "Born in the U.S.A.," "Fortunate Son" or "Rockin' in the Free World," there's no confusing this song for nationalism.

"He encouraged the computer to misconstrue input, willing it to spew out bloated misshapen shards of sound that pierced and lacerated the listener," Bowie later wrote of Nine Inch Nails. "As a companion piece to Baudelaire’s To the Reader, the preface to Flowers of Evil, second to the Velvet Underground there has never been better soul lashing in rock." Maybe not, but this comes close. 

Mike Scaccia, 1965-2012

Like Randy Rhoads before him, lead guitarist Mike Scaccia was an expert musician who seemed destined to outlast his infamous, hard-living co-conspirator. But in an affirmation of life's unfairness and unpredictability, Ministry's lead guitarist died onstage this week of a heart attack.

Scaccia first found success Rigor Mortis, a pioneering thrash metal act that almost single-handedly represented the genre in Texas in the early '80s. Their song "Foaming at the Mouth" appeared on the Decline of the Western Civilization Part II soundtrack, where Rigor Mortis' speed and ferocity distanced them from songs like Faster Pussycat's "Bathroom Wall" or the Lizzy Borden version of "Born to Be Wild."



When Scaccia joined Ministry in 1989, he accelerated the band's jump into metal, a move move that divides Ministry fans to this day. Whatever your take is, Scaccia's riffage helped kick off Ministry's most popular and influential era, including their only gold album Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs. College-radio hits like "Just One Fix" and "N.W.O." turned synth-poppers, new wavers, and shoegazers onto metal, and humanized industrial music with guitars that sounded live instead of programmed. That influence can be heard in White Zombie, Nine Inch Nails, Fear Factory, Marilyn Manson and Chinese Democracy.

"Jesus Built My Hotrod," featuring Scaccia's primal riffage and guest star Gibby Haynes' "Surfin' Bird"-on-a-spit scatting, is one of rock music's greatest achievements. How many industrial guitar solos can you think of? How many of them are good?



A moment of cacophony for Mike Scaccia.

Song of the Day: Nine Inch Nails, "Big Man With a Gun"

Robert Bork, who passed away this week, once cited Nine Inch Nails' "Big Man With a Gun" as part of "Modern Liberalism and American Decline" in his book Slouching Towards Gomorrah.



"The obscenity of thought and word is staggering, but also notable is the deliberate rejection of any attempt to artistic distinction or even mediocrity," wrote Bork, adding, "It is difficult to convey just how debased rap is."

I'd never thought of Nine Inch Nails as "rap" before, but Bork may have actually found what Trent Reznor was getting out. His spat-out rhymes and electronic beats are delivered in a rap-like performance, and Reznor even told Spin magazine that "Big Man With a Gun" was written as a skewer of violence and misogyny in hip-hop. What is that satire is doing on The Downward Spiral, a labyrinthian concept album from metal's Stanley Kubrick, is puzzling. Orchestrated loops, off-meter melodies, self-hating lyrics, Nietzsche quotes and one minute-and-a-half long swipe at self-aggrandizing gangbangers?

Reznor allegedly regrets putting "Big Man With a Gun" on The Downward Spiral, and it still sounds a little out of place, hundreds of listens later. But I'm glad that it's there, throwing a left-field rant into Spiral's density and meticulousness. As a boy reading the liner notes along with every lyric (and still unable to grasp what some of them meant,) "Big Man With a Gun" left a stronger first impression on me than any of the other tracks on The Downward Spiral. It is still the first piece of art that I think of when I whenever I hear anybody associating guns with their freedom or manhood. "Big Man With a Gun" may not be representative of the album, or of NIN over all, but it defines Ted Nugent more thoroughly than "Cat Scratch Fever."

The Five Best Metal Interpreters

Frank from Metal Injection once told me that he thought Testament deserved to be in Metal's Big Four and not Anthrax. This seemed like it was worth fighting over, so I informed him that he was wrong. I stand by my case, but he did make one point that I could not counter, which is that Anthrax's best songs are all covers.

Recorded metal covers don't usually do much for the original or the interpreter. Watching the Dillinger Escape Plan roar into Nine Inch Nails' "Wish" in person is a favorite memory for anyone who's been so lucky, but no one who owns Broken needs another version. It takes some extra character to successfully reimagine a song with a tape rolling, and for that we salute these five.

1. Anthrax

Anthrax have no shortage of great originals, but it was their charisma--Scott Ian's tones, Charlie Benante's blast beats, the entire band's penchant for comedy, comic books and Stephen King--that edged them past Testament, Exodus and Overkill. They elevated Public Enemy with "Bring the Noise," spanked Trust with "Antisocial" and topped themselves with this d-beat breakdown of of Joe Jackson's "Got the Time." Flea once observed that this song "made my kidneys flip upside down."



2. Faith No More

FNM won metal hearts in 1989 with a take on "War Pigs" that remains the best cover of the most-covered metal band in history, then proceeded to weird out listeners with faithful, unironic takes on the Commodores' "Easy" and John Barry's Midnight Cowboy theme. Check out their video for the Bee Gees' "I Started a Joke" and keep waiting for the punchline. There isn't one. 



3. Guns N' Roses

They did "Live and Let Die" better than Paul McCartney, "Mama Kin" better than Aerosmith and "Since I Don't Have You" about as well as the Skyliners. Other than the obvious choice of Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower," I have never heard a better Dylan cover than GNR's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." It reminds me of Nick Hornby's take on pre-sellout Rod Stewart in 31 Songs*.



4. Metallica

It takes more than original songwriting to become the greatest metal band of all time. The $5.98 E.P: Garage Days Re-Revisited did more for underground metal than any fanzine ever did, and its '90s sequel is Metallica's most underrated release. Who knew what a great song "Breadfan" by Budgie was until James Hetfield's downstrokes invigorated it? When Hetfield retires, his right hand should be enshrined in a museum, next to Axl's larynx and Ozzy's liver.



5. Rage Against the Machine

On their last studio album, Renegades, RATM ran Dylan, Springsteen, Eric B. & Rakim, the Stones, Minor Threat, EPMD, Devo and more through Tom Morello's effects pedal wizardry and Zack de la Rocha fiery delivery. It all sounds like Rage; in short, it's fantastic. Any other metal band would be laughed at for taking on Afrika Bambaataa's "Renegades of Funk," but with Rage at the helm it's as potent as "Bulls on Parade."



*On Stewart's version of "Mama You've Been on My Mind." "Stewart's evident love for the song rescues it, or at least spotlights it: where Dylan almost throws it away, with the implication that there's plenty more where that one came from, Stewart's reverence seems to dignify it, invest it with an epical quality that Dylan denies it. I probably like both version equally now, but if it hadn't been for Stewart, I never would have been able to spot that there was anything there."

Five Great Records that Robert Christgau Trashed

Earlier this week I met Robert Christgau, the "Dean of American Rock Critics." He could not have been friendlier. I did not expect the Pazz & Jop founder (and the guy who once wished death on Paul McCartney instead of John Lennon) to make time for me, but I learned that his demeanor is worthy of his talent.

Christgau's reviews were, for better and worse, a harbinger for Twitter. He specializes in short, sharp remarks that say more about how music feels than how it sounds. Any serious music writer has spent hours with his Consumer Guide books or web site, which are always entertaining and often infuriating. Whatever part of his brain made him one of America's top journalists did not help him at all when it came to appreciating metal.

"I admire metal's integrity, brutality, and obsessiveness, but I can't stand its delusions of grandeur," he wrote in one of his rare positive reviews, for Motörhead's Orgasmatron. He's come to terms somewhat, more recently telling Salon, "I don’t think metal’s as bad as I hear it as being." But for all his virtues, the Dean is not to be trusted when it comes to the headbanger's art. In some ways, he's metal's perfect foil--an artistic, intellectual type who prefers Sonic Youth in his haughty publications. In honor of Christgau's game-changing style and questionable taste, let's give his writing a taste of his own acerbic medicine.

1. Black Sabbath, Paranoid



They do take heavy to undreamt-of extremes, and I suppose I could enjoy them as camp, like a horror movie--the title cut is definitely screamworthy. After all, their audience can't take that Lucifer bit seriously, right? Well, depends on what you mean by serious. Personally, I've always suspected that horror movies catharsized stuff I was too rational to care about in the first place.

Calling metal on its campiness is like making fun of your friends. If you're a proven comrade and appreciator, it's fine, but if it comes with a "C-" you're asking for a fight. In fairness, metal does have audience that's misguided enough to believe in Satan, and they're also into banning books.

2. Van Halen, Van Halen

For some reason Warners wants us to know that this is the biggest bar band in the San Fernando Valley. This doesn't mean much--all new bands are bar bands, unless they're Boston. The term becomes honorific when the music belongs in a bar. This music belongs on an aircraft carrier. 

On an aircraft carrier? What does that even mean? Christgau's prose is often brilliant, but here he's either too smart for me or has no idea what he's talking about.

3. AC/DC, Back in Black

"Shoot to Thrill," "Given [sic] the Dog a Bone," and "Let Me Put My Love Into You" all concern the unimaginative sexual acts you'd imagine, and "What Do You Do for Money Honey" has a more limited set of answers than the average secretary would prefer. My sister's glad they don't write fantasy and science fiction, and if you're female you're free to share her relief. Brothers are more deeply implicated in these matters.

The number one pratfall of music critics is that they respond to lyrics more than music. Personally, I think Back in Black is full of gems ("She told me to come but I was already there,") but any appreciation of AC/DC starts with the riffs. What Brian Johnson sings
about doesn't matter as much as what you can sing along to.

4. Metallica, Master of Puppets

(T)he revolutionary heroes I envisage aren't male chauvinists too inexperienced to know better; they don't have hair like Samson and pecs like Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's the image Metallica calls up, and I'm no more likely to invoke their strength of my own free will than I am The 1812 Overture's.

Confirmation that everyone assumes that the music they detest is enjoyed by their enemies from high school.

5. Nine Inch Nails, The Downward Spiral

Musically, Hieronymus Bosch as postindustrial atheist; lyrically, Transformers as kiddie porn.

Industrial Bosch actually sounds kind of great, though I have no idea where the second part came from. Maybe he meant to write "transformers, kids and porn," and turned it off before he got to "Hurt."