Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Face it, you need a marketing campaign, but you don't have a big budget. Other companies give you 42 reasons why they're raising costs. Not us. We are 21 Entertainment at shockingly affordable costs. We'll take your promotion to the next level. Our speciality is the alternate reality game. A big commercial disguised as an artistic exercise.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: Come on down. It's nailed. A song by song. Journey through the music of Year zero. Almost forgot it there.
I'm Blake.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: I'm Jessica.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: And this is track six off Year zero.
Me comma. I'm not.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Not what?
[00:01:09] Speaker B: I guess we're gonna find out.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: I never really knew me. I'm not me. I'm not what?
[00:01:15] Speaker A: I'm not.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: This is the song that's often called Sexy, also called Slinky.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: By who?
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Numerous. I wrote down next to my note here. That's anecdotal.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: I don't know what that means.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: I decided it's anecdotal. I don't have a specific source.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Did you bang to it or something? Is that why?
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Probably.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: People call it sexy. People like the vibes. I like the vibes. This is a song I just like on a vibes basis.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: I think I'd agree with that.
I just like the groove. I like the vibes. I like the.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: I never understood what the hell it meant.
Basically because the title's weird.
I knew I like the groove and people call it sexy. That's all we need to know.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: And Slinky, whatever that means.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: I've never heard people describe it that.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Way, but okay, maybe one person did you. Whatever that means.
Okay, so we'll get into. Me. I'm not In a second. But first, we have a sort of major piece of nine inch news.
[00:02:21] Speaker C: So everything is in the news today.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: And by the time you hear this, it's gonna be old news. Of course.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: Oh, definitely.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: But still, we wanna talk about it.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: And what is that, Jess?
[00:02:33] Speaker A: So you know whenever Reznor was talking about starting a music festival.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Mm. Oh, yeah. In the GQ interview where he said that they were gonna do 5,000 things.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Yeah. He had a very ambitious plan.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: This is one of the things I definitely thought was not going to ever happen, I was like, ain't no way.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, was he kind of vague about it? He just said a music festival. Right? He was. I think it was kind of vague as to what it is. But now we know what it is. It is the Future Ruins Music and Arts Festival held at the Los Angeles equestrian center on November 8th.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: That's the horse Center.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: That's where all the horse enthusiasts hang out. Yeah, Trent's a horse girl.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: They're playing at some horse arena.
It's called Future Ruins.
And we know that the F.
That there's a space after the F and.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: The R.
For real?
For real, for real.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: What did you write here?
Reminds me of DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Oh, okay. So just kind of the plan, the way that Reznor described it is it's gonna be kind of like a reinterpretation of their score.
There's the music that the. Okay, first, hold on. We'll come back to the DJ Spooky thing, but we gotta talk about what kind of music and arts festival this is. It's not Coachella.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: No, it's not a normal one.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: Lana Del Rey is not headlining. No, this is a one day thing.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: Oh, it's one day.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: November 8th.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: It's never been done, I don't think.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: And there will be multiple.
It's basically, it all consists of composers for film and other entertainment. Yes.
So we've got people like Cristobal, Tapia de Vere. I am probably butchering this.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Yeah, close enough. I know who that is.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Yes, he did. For he's best known for his work on seasons one and two of the White Lotus. He didn't do season three, right?
[00:04:35] Speaker B: Yes, he did. He did season three and then he quit and got into some big fight with Mike White publicly.
And. Yeah, I'm not sure what all that's about, but apparently he's not coming back.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: Was it because that season wasn't that good?
[00:04:50] Speaker B: I don't know if it was about that or not. I know that he screwed up and he didn't put the main motif, the vocal thing, on the season three. Like season one intro music was cool. Season two was an absolute banger version of that.
And then three, they went in a totally different direction.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: It's like, okay, season three didn't hit for me like the other two did.
Although I did enjoy.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Nobody liked it as much.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: I did enjoy Sam Rockwell's performance probably the most. Okay, so also we have Danny Elfman.
I have little notes here. I said he better play the Simpsons theme.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: Yeah, what if that was all he played?
[00:05:29] Speaker A: I'd be fine with that. Yeah, Goblin will be there.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: That's pretty cool. I didn't know they were still a thing.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: There's also going to be a special performance of Howard Shore's score of David Cronenberg's Crash. So it won't be Howard as far As I know.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
Sorry. Hang on, I got something in my throat.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: We're recovering from colds.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: Yeah. It says Howard Shore's score. It doesn't say Howard Shore is gonna be there, which is. Okay. Who's gonna be there?
[00:05:56] Speaker A: I think he's in his 80s.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: So what if Reznor and Ross are doing.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: That's what I see.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: Variation on it. Their own version.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: So Isabel Waller Bridge will also be there. If that last name sounds familiar, it's because she's the sister of Phoebe Waller Bridge, who you might.
The creator of Fleabag.
Isabel did the score for Fleabag. She did the score for Emma. And this might sound familiar. She also did the score for an episode of Black Mirror called Rachel, Jack and Ashley 2.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: That's the one with Nine Inch Nails music in it, right?
[00:06:26] Speaker A: That's right.
John Carpenter will be there. And if Reznor and Ross do not join him for a reimagined Halloween theme, I would throw a fit and get our money back. Yes.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: That is cool. John Carpenter being there, though. I would.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it is cool.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: I'll totally go for that.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: Mark Mothersbaugh and I wrote Better Play the Rugrats theme.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: The only thing he's known for Rugrats music.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: He's known for a ton of stuff.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: I'm kidding. God, he's the devo guy, for God's sake.
Oh, keep going.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: Okay. Questlove will be there and he will be presenting the score works of Curtis Mayfield. So I guess stuff like Superfly.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Cool.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: Terris Blanchard, who has is mostly known for working on Spike Lee movies.
He's worked on things like Malcolm X, BlackKklansman, 25th Hour and Bamboozled.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: For example, Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein, known for Stranger Things.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: They're good synth boys.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
Of course, Reznor and Ross will be performing.
And Hilda Guanadottir, who is obviously Icelandic.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: The daughter of someone named Guana.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: I don't think we're saying that right at all, but I don't know. Known for Tar Women Talking Joker, which won an Oscar for Arrival in the upcoming 28 years later.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: Did they do the Joker musical songs?
[00:07:47] Speaker A: No, no. I think it was Joker. It wasn't. It wasn't the new one, so. Notice that when I was reading those names, they were all in alphabetical order.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: So.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Reznor said it's about giving people who are literally the best in the world at taking audiences on an emotional ride via music the opportunity to tell new stories in an interesting live sett.
There's no headliner. There's no hierarchy. This is a stacked lineup of visionaries doing something you might not see again.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: Well, how do you. I was gonna say Reznor and Ross are the headliners, but somebody has to play last. That's all I know. And will it be them? We don't know.
I have no clue how they're gonna do this.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Don't either. So how Reznor described it was kind of like, the artists have been kind of encouraged to just kind of reinterpret their score compositions, and there will also be, like, visual arrangements. And I don't know why I said it reminds me of DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation, but I don't even.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: Know what that is.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: Well, a long time ago, when I was very young, I went to San Francisco, and my friend was like, hey, DJ Spooky's doing this thing at the museum. We should go.
And so we went. This is why I've seen Birth of a Nation like, a million times. Anyway, so we had to watch that movie because he had never seen it. And then we went and DJ Spooky basically was mixing the movie live as he was mixing music. And it was kind of a different perspective on the movie. You know, as a black dj, I.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: Think I have heard of that.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think.
I think later on in, like, 2007 or so, there was a documentary or he made a movie or something about it. I've actually never seen that, and I should, but.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: I know. It just kind of reminded me of, like. Because that was a live scoring thing. Like, he was scoring it live, and it had the visuals that. Behind him. So it was kind of cool.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: Yeah. So, no, it's a good. I guess that's a good point then.
Yeah. So the. This stuff will somehow have to be performed live, and film score stuff is not usually made to be played live. So they're going to have to get creative.
Obviously, I'm interested in how Reznor and Ross are gonna do it. Yeah, we won our favorite bangers from the Social Network, et cetera.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Watchmen.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: Better be Challengers. So I think that was all.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: That's the tour.
Isn't that the Peel It Back Tour?
[00:10:17] Speaker B: Challengers?
[00:10:18] Speaker A: I mean, I assumed that.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: Is it just Challengers?
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Boys Noise is gonna be doing some tracks from that. That would be my guess, but I don't have no idea.
Doing some mixing live, maybe, since he mixed the.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: I'm hoping Peel It Back tour is Challengers music and nothing else.
No vocals.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: I'm gonna pay $500 for VIP tickets for this show, just so I can stand in the crowd and yell free Bird.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: Oh, God, you're gonna get killed.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: Okay. I'm kidding. I would not do that.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: So did they already do tickets for this?
[00:10:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the VIP tickets are sold out.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: Oh, yeah?
[00:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And you can sign up for a waiting list, I think. I'm not 100 on that. And I think you can still get the normal tickets, last time I checked, anyway.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: So I don't think it's realistic for us to do this one.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: Oh, definitely not.
There's no way.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: Might be a cool experience that will never. If it doesn't go well, it'll never happen again. And we'll be like, ah, shit, we missed the only composer festival to ever exist.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Well, I think he was kind of inspired by the stuff that Danny Elfman has been doing whenever he would perform, you know, various scores live from, like, Nightmare Before Christmas and whatever.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: Right. And he got actors to play the parts.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: But anyway, if you want to read more about it, I believe there's a link to an interview with Lizzie Goodman that Reznor did. It's not that long, so you can just read a little bit about it.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: We love her.
So. All right. Into the song.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: Yeah, let's do it.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Okay. So me, I'm not. Was first introduced to us before the album on February 19, 2007, at a NIN concert in Barcelona, Spain. That's five days after the first USB was found.
They found this one again in a bathroom stall.
And I included a picture of what it looked like this time because Ninwiki has a picture someone took. We were asking earlier, like, what the hell did these USB drives look like? It doesn't look all beat up. It looks, like, super tiny and minimal, and it's, like, flat. Anyway.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: Did it come with the guitar pick?
[00:12:38] Speaker B: No. I think maybe that's for size comparison.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: Maybe.
Yeah. How would you even find that? Like, it's so.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: I know, like.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: And have you ever been to a bathroom after a show or before a show?
Just shit everywhere.
[00:12:52] Speaker B: I'm scouring those bathrooms when we go to the show, though.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Are you okay?
[00:12:56] Speaker B: In August.
So on the drive were two MP3 files.
One was called 2432 MP3.
And that's part of the ARG that I'm sure we'll probably talk about at a different time.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: What happens when you run that through, though?
It shows a phone number, right?
[00:13:18] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that is some noise. If you run it through a spectrogram, it shows the phone number. 1, 2, 1. 633-318-10. That's a Cleveland area code.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: Have you tried to call any of these numbers recently? Just to see.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure they don't work anymore.
[00:13:33] Speaker A: You just get some person in Cleveland who's like, try it. Try it live.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Hang on. Okay.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: All right.
[00:13:38] Speaker B: As if Trent answers.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Oh my God. He's like, I'm practicing for my tour.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: He's like, I'm busy.
We're sorry. The number you are trying to reach.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Is no longer in service.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: Is this part of the. Argh.
I think there's an Easter egg in there somewhere.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: That voice sounded different than the voice I remember from my childhood. That would tell.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure it's been re recorded since 30 years ago.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: I like that voice though. Yeah, I don't like this voice.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Whoever the lady was. Anyway, so that number, the information given when you used to call that number led people to uswiretap.com, a site that was done for the ARG.
Casenumber required.
And is that still. Yeah, you can look at it on the Wayback Machine. I think it's a glitched up website. It's got the emblem that says unethical United States wiretap for a safer America. It kind of looks like the Bureau of Morality emblem.
A partnership corporation of the Bureau of Morality. And it's all glitchy and stuff, as you might imagine, playing on that Bush era paranoia for a safer America. Tapping your wires.
Remember the show the Wire?
[00:14:59] Speaker A: I do.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: I loved the idea that this is a corporation partnered with the government.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: I mean that's basically what's going to happen as they're dismantling everything. There's selling the federal government off piece by piece. So. Yeah.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: And this has been a right wing.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: Thing forever, so privatizing it.
[00:15:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Anyway, so you get to see some more stuff from the world by going there.
Of course. The other MP3 file on there is the song Me. I'm not.
I'm trying to remember if I heard it before I heard the album. I don't know if I did. It was out there because it leaked, obviously.
Yeah. I might have waited or maybe I did. It's been too long now.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: 2007'S like a blur. Just a lot of CSI Gary Cindy.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: This song has backing vocals on it by Saul Williams. Once again, love to hear that.
And it has been compared to Carly Simons.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: You're no Good. Wait, that's not Carly Simon. Hold on to Linda Ronstan's you're no Good.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: I'm trying to remember that one.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: You're no good. Oh, that one you're gonna. No, don't.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: No, it's good.
Nope, it's a KMFDM song. Of course.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: Kill motherfucking Depeche Mode.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: Is that what they're. That what that stands for?
[00:16:25] Speaker A: I think that's a joke.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Jerks.
I have a link to some argument between Trent and Arando on the Spiral where I think people were getting heated.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: Okay, are we gonna read some parts?
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm gonna read something.
Some Yahoo on the Internet accused it of ripping off a KMFDM song and I'm gonna get into that.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: A forum user. Wish I knew which asshole this was, but on ets.
Play me. I'm not. Then play track three. You're no good. Kmfdm from the album how ruck?
Exact same bass line and sounds the same. It's KMFDM revamped. Nothing new. Lots of ellipses in the way this person writes kind of. Again, it's stolen from KMFDM, but KMFDM's version is better.
You're no good. How ruck? In case we forgot the first time he wrote that, then Trent Reznor replied.
You go fuck yourself.
Now, the day I steal something from KMFD fucking M. What is that? Kill motherfucking Depeche fucking Mode is a sad fucking day indeed. Call up Sasha and have him sue me if you feel that strongly about it. Meanwhile, let everyone have some goddamned fun without you pissing on the parade.
Trent mad.
He probably should have ignored this dumbass. And I'll. I'll prove why he's a dumbass in a second.
Did you get a chance to listen to this?
[00:17:57] Speaker A: Yes, I did.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: What did you think?
[00:18:00] Speaker A: I mean, it's similar. Ish, but let's get into it.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I have my clips here. Hang on.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: Okay, first comparison of me I'm not to this KMF DM song. You're no good.
This is the kmfdm. The baseline is what was accused of. Yes, being the same. Obviously it's based around one note.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Okay, play you're no good again.
[00:18:39] Speaker B: So it is the same note, but the rhythm is not the same, the tempo slightly different.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: And this came out in 2005, right?
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Did you stick that out just a couple years prior? Yeah, it's really not. It's certainly not lawsuit worthy, but I did a little digging and the supreme irony here is that KMFDM actually stole that from Nine Inch Nails. What? Yep.
In a case of the snake eating its own tail, here's my comparison of youf're no Good to an earlier Nine Inch Nail song. And let's see if you can recognize it.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: Sounds like the Wretched.
[00:19:40] Speaker B: Okay. Not.
Also. Not exactly the same.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: No.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: But same note, same key that.
Let's see. Me. I'm not the Wretched. You're no good. All same key, similar tempos.
The reason I thought of the Wretched, because they're Both this like 303 sounding synth bass.
That's something that's kind of.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: They both have this groove that.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's just, you know, 16th notes on that one note. That sounds like a 303 to me. That's all fat and squelchy.
Anyway, just thought that was funny. Let's move on.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: So do you want to go ahead and listen to the song?
[00:20:26] Speaker B: Yes. Comes in at 4 minutes, 52 seconds. Good, decent.
Decent length.
Okay, here we go.
That slinky beat.
Noisy as all hell.
So many noises.
That beat's really interesting.
The weird, like clicky, whatever that is. I don't know.
Super whispery.
I'm listening very carefully to the lyrics.
[00:21:37] Speaker C: And it's hard to tell just where it's coming from.
And it's hard to see.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: This one makes you wait a bit to get into the chorus.
[00:22:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Several of the songs on Year Zero do that too.
A little break here.
Super chill. It's not getting loud on the chorus. It's not yelling at us.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Yeah. This is a nice one to just like have a little gummy and vibe.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: Which might be ironic depending upon your interpretation of this song.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: True.
That's the best part.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: The delay on down goes crazy.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: I like the end of this.
[00:22:56] Speaker C: At least.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: I tried making a lot of vocal delivery choices on this song too.
Especially in the chorus.
Everything drops out by the drums.
There's that chill slide guitar that sounds gated.
And a kind of whiny synth doing the same notes. I think.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: I love the outro to this.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: Yeah. This is this. Okay, now the lyrics are done. We still had more than a minute and a half.
Oh, but just vibes to go out on.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: Which is. I mean, I love how like chill this song is, considering it follows vessel.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
The most chaotic song of the album.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: I guess it makes sense it'd be followed by this.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: Kind of a almost guitar solo sounding thing at the end too.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: You get occasional me, I'm not whispers.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: Of course. A noise solo going nuts here.
Dying machine noises as it goes into the next track too.
Okay.
Clip's corner.
Of course, the drum beat some Hi hats in the chorus.
I think that's the only way that chorus beat changes. Very subtle.
Something called Crystal BT that I could not for the life of me figure out why the track was called that.
Maybe a plugin that made that maybe.
Sounds like some very effective drum samples.
Some of the bass see way different than that. Km FDM bass does a lot more stuff.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: A lot of texture or something with those glitches.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I dig that.
This is the guitar on the chorus.
I bet that's some E bowed notes on guitar where it just kind of sustains forever but then run through a gate to make that rhythm. That's my guess. That's what it sounds like to me.
And our friend the French Connection makes an appearance on this next one that was called French connect in the GarageBand files, which I'll explain why in a second.
This one's pretty quiet in the background of the chorus.
Kind of haunting. Almost.
Almost has a human.
Human wailing quality to it.
Maybe a ghost. Yeah, sounds like a spooky ghost.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: It's got a haunted quality. Haunting.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: I don't know what the creepy.
I don't know what synth generates that.
But I think they're using the French Connection MIDI controller which. Which lets you slide the ring up and down with your finger to move up and down on the pitch instead of going from key to key to get that sliding sound.
Something called resonator.
I think Reactor software was used on this song. Probably all the songs.
And that may be some of what you're hearing which is like software version of modular synth stuff from native instruments.
Effects and the outro.
Just having fun now.
That's the very end.
[00:30:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: Just improving some wacky effects there.
Modular stuff.
Maybe. This is Reactor two.
Modular stuff too. Guitar.
It almost sounds sped up or pitched up.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: Guitar playing it's so crazy to me how all these like noisy, glitched up sounds when combined with everything just becomes like a nice. Like. Yeah, the song is still a nice groovy vibe.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: Some of these just sound insane on their own.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: Like if somebody just heard them out of context and you were like, this is from a very sexy song. They'd be like, what the fuck are you talking about?
I call this the David lynch prechorus. And you'll hear why.
[00:31:15] Speaker A: Okay.
Mmm.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: Eraserhead.
[00:31:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: 1977.
Now imagine 90 minutes of that.
More than 90.
Modular solo.
That was loud. Sorry.
Most of those are barely even notes. But I love it.
[00:32:07] Speaker A: Same.
[00:32:08] Speaker B: Okay. Onto the vocals.
[00:32:11] Speaker C: And it's happening.
Never plan on this.
You got something I need kind of dangerous and I'm losing control I'm not used to this what you want from.
[00:32:33] Speaker A: Me.
[00:32:35] Speaker C: I'm not used to this I can't shut it off this I think I've begun and it's time to tell Just where it's coming from and it's time to see what I'm capable of and it's time to believe Just what.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: I've become all right, that's enough of the labored breathing, sir.
Chorus.
[00:33:11] Speaker C: Hey, can we stop Me I'm not a Can we stop Come on.
Me I'm not a Can we stop yeah Me I'm not a yeah can we stop.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: Me when Me when I'm.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: Not Me me when constipated Me when not constipated anymore Ay, Is that me I'm not oh, God.
Don't put this in. Sorry.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: No, it's going in. No, he's not doing. He's not singing notes so much. In the chorus, it's almost spoken word again.
It's more vibes than notes.
[00:34:06] Speaker C: I can swallow it down that's without the.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: If you wanted to hear what swallow it down sounds like, without the crazy delay effect.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: No, I want the delay.
[00:34:15] Speaker C: I can swallow it down Keep it all inside I define myself by how well I hide I feel it coming apart well, at least I tried.
[00:34:35] Speaker B: I.
[00:34:36] Speaker C: Can win this one by knowing not to fight if I take it all.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: Back.
[00:34:46] Speaker C: Some way somehow if I knew back then what I know right now.
[00:34:56] Speaker B: I knew if I didn't play every single lyric in the song, people would get disappointed.
Me, I'm not It's a compilation of stuff from the end.
[00:35:06] Speaker A: Mm.
[00:35:07] Speaker B: Me I'm not It's the stuff you can barely hear.
Me, I'm not and just in the right too Me, I'm not Too intimate.
[00:35:21] Speaker C: Me, I'm not Me I'm not.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: Me.
[00:35:31] Speaker C: I'm not.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: Me I'm not Jump scared.
Some effects from the vocals.
Background vocals.
[00:35:45] Speaker C: Down.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: That's where that down went.
And then background vocals with Saul Williams.
[00:35:55] Speaker C: Can we stop?
Can we stop?
[00:36:08] Speaker B: I think that was Saul, the higher part.
[00:36:13] Speaker C: Hey, hey can we stop? Hey.
[00:36:20] Speaker B: It's hard to tell who's who, honestly.
Subtle. But he's there somewhere.
And then I had to isolate some of the Reznor noises that we love so much. Yeah, yeah Long and short. Yeah, yeah, yeah and then his famous Come on.
Wait, I think that's the same.
I think he copy pasted the K'm all from chorus one to chorus two.
That's everything.
[00:36:58] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: Need to make an all.
I think I said that about Vessel, but need to make an all version of the song that's just those.
So that's my clips.
[00:37:10] Speaker A: Do you want to maybe try to talk about what this song means and maybe how it fits into year zero at least like the.
The story of the. Argh.
[00:37:23] Speaker B: Yes, let's.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: So you and I both kind of went the drugs route.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: Uh huh. Because it sounds like every song on the album almost is about drugs when you come down to it.
[00:37:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: But then the second verse, to me it sounds like using drugs, but the second verse sounds like having regrets about that.
This is a person who recently got off drugs, so it would make sense that that's on his mind.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: I was looking through Reddit just to see what other people thought of this track and what it's about. A lot of people that's a bad idea anyway. A lot of people love this song. Number one. I'm kind of surprised. I like it.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: It is beloved.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: But it's not my favorite on this album. But I like it.
[00:38:07] Speaker B: It's not my favorite, but it's up there. I like it. I like it a lot.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: But someone mentioned that maybe it's kind of a mirror song where you can.
I don't know if this makes sense how they framed it, but it could mean something different to everyone because it's not really.
[00:38:26] Speaker B: Yeah, well it's vague.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: It's vague.
[00:38:28] Speaker B: It's Vagaries.
[00:38:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: He's not. Yeah, it's not specific fully.
[00:38:32] Speaker A: Some people went like really drawing from like the good soldier to vessel to this song. As in it's all the same person.
So they went really deep into the world and interpreted it that way. Some people interpret it as kind of when you are in like an authoritarian control situation or maybe even. Which we'll talk about with capital G.
Just how we're all kind of like complicit but we try to separate. And it's like I'm not like them though.
Like even though my tax dollars go to make drones that kill children in far off places, I'm not like them. I'm not one of them. That's what someone else kind of interpreted as.
[00:39:16] Speaker B: Or disassociating. Maybe it sounds like that in order to stay sane.
[00:39:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I still feel that. I mean, I don't know. Honestly, I don't even. It doesn't even have to fit in with the. The world of Year Zero. It could have just been a track he liked, he wrote and he stuck it in here.
[00:39:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I wrote that down that this one sounds more personal than it does sound specific about the world of yz.
[00:39:42] Speaker A: So some people suggest that maybe it's Parapin related, where someone is just kind.
[00:39:47] Speaker B: Of complacent now because that drug makes you docile, I think.
[00:39:52] Speaker A: Yeah. And like the lyric, like, I can win this war by knowing not to fight.
[00:39:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: That actually might be one of my favorite lyrics.
[00:40:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:02] Speaker A: Feel it coming apart. Well, at least I tried. I can win this war by knowing not to fight.
And just how helpless you feel as things are falling apart. Whether it's addiction or whether it's the.
[00:40:15] Speaker B: World around you and the people who control everything. And you can't do shit about it, and so you just dissociate.
[00:40:22] Speaker A: Yep.
Been doing that a lot lately. Not gonna lie.
[00:40:26] Speaker B: Same, same. Z's the title.
Me, I'm not.
I wrote down I am a non entity.
[00:40:36] Speaker A: Why did you write that?
[00:40:39] Speaker B: Because. Well, first of all, it's a reference to a previous song.
But me, I'm not. What? Maybe just me. I'm not, period.
Like, I'm not there. I don't exist. It's as if I'm nothing.
I'm blinking myself out of existence.
I don't want to be here so badly that.
Or maybe it's not a personal choice, it's just a result of environmental factors.
[00:41:17] Speaker A: Yeah, it's too vague. It's too fucking vague.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: It is vague. So you can put whatever meaning you want on it because it's.
Yeah. It's not specific, like capital G or something.
[00:41:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:29] Speaker B: Okay, so let's talk about me. I'm not. Live version.
We saw it live.
I wanted to ask if we liked it live, but you might not remember it being played.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: I did not remember it at all.
[00:41:45] Speaker B: Okay. A lot of songs. We saw a lot of songs.
I thought it was good.
It's kind of like. It sounded kind of like the album, but not exactly. It was good. What can I say it? I think Robin was playing a cool.
Almost like a pedal steel type guitar thingy on this one.
It was first ever played live on May 9, 2007, at Luna park in Sydney, Australia. And that's the place with a big creepy face.
[00:42:16] Speaker A: Hold on, let me look at that.
[00:42:17] Speaker B: And I put a picture in there.
[00:42:20] Speaker A: Oh, God, that place is terrifying.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: She just, like, jumped.
[00:42:25] Speaker A: Jumped. I always forget. Okay. I remember that face. Yes. Yes. How can you forget that face? Oh, nightmare. Look it up, everyone. Look up.
[00:42:31] Speaker B: Luna park cursed face.
[00:42:34] Speaker A: Ugh. Awful.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: It was a regular on the set list throughout the Performance 2007 tour.
Originally, Trent and Alessandro Cortini both played synth on this song live.
Reznor apparently played slide guitar, which is the main line you hear throughout.
But then later it was played by Aaron North.
In later performances, Josh Freese and Jordy White did not play on this song live at all. So I guess it was just drum and bass were piped in and they. I don't know, took a piss, hit their vape pins.
Yeah, that wasn't popular then.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: I don't know if they really existed. Well, they kind of did.
[00:43:19] Speaker B: Very synthetic sounding song.
Less human. So I guess it would make sense that fewer humans need to be on stage to play it when we. Yeah, as I said, Robin was playing the pedal steel type guitar when we saw it.
Guitar people. Sorry, I don't know shit about fuck.
But you know one of those guitars that's flat out like on a table and you slide your hand up and down it with a little slide thingy.
[00:43:48] Speaker A: Yeah. It's widely used and country music mainly.
[00:43:52] Speaker B: Yep. But run through a gate.
And I thought it would be fun if we started if we played little samples of what a song sounds like live. As we talk about live stuff on the pod.
So just a snippet of what me. I'm not. Sounds like live. This is not the first appearance, but sometime in 2007.
Come on.
Just. I just want to briefly comment that the remix of this is 14 minutes long on year zero remixed. We'll talk about it later. But it's by Olaf of the Knife and with his sibling Karen Dreher, who did two songs with Reznor and Ross Has Fever Ray recently. Remember that?
Okay, so what are our final thoughts on me? I'm not. And how do we rank it?
[00:45:03] Speaker A: We don't rank anymore. I don't know why you put that in.
[00:45:06] Speaker B: I don't know. Okay, fine. You don't have to rank it or give it inches. But do you think it's sexy?
[00:45:12] Speaker A: I'll give you Slinky, but I won't give you sexy. Because the lyrical content is not sexy.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: No. People just like Trent whispering in their ear and doesn't matter what he says.
[00:45:20] Speaker A: Yeah, but I. Sorry, what? I just.
I can't not concentrate on what he's saying.
[00:45:27] Speaker B: You're right. It's a very. It's bleak. It's a bleak outlook in this song, but maybe kind of sexy. Just that groove.
It's a real fuck groove, you know?
[00:45:41] Speaker A: I guess.
[00:45:42] Speaker B: Okay, so that's everything I had. Except for I had a parody idea.
[00:45:46] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:45:47] Speaker B: Because every time I read this title, me I'm not.
I always think in my head, oh, that's not.
Which is like a meme kinda. Let me. If you don't know the reaction. Oh, that's not. When someone says something bad. Okay, let me play where that's from, and you tell me if you remember this. This is Kelly Osborne on the View. Every Latino out of this country, then.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: Who is going to be cleaning your toilet?
[00:46:17] Speaker B: Donald Trump.
[00:46:17] Speaker C: Oh, in the sense that.
[00:46:22] Speaker B: So the reaction to Kelly Osborne accidentally being racist was, oh, that's not.
And I love that she tries to backpedal and say in the sense that.
So anyway, somebody will think this is funny. And I had to make. Oh, that's not. As a parody version.
And I'm not sorry that I did that.
[00:46:48] Speaker A: All right, let's hear it.
[00:46:55] Speaker C: Oh, that's not.
[00:47:02] Speaker A: Oh, that's not.
[00:47:06] Speaker B: In the sense that.
[00:47:08] Speaker A: Oh, man.
The View has given us many wonderful moments of television.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: The View.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: Do people still watch that show?
[00:47:17] Speaker B: I think somehow it's still on. I have no idea who's still on.
[00:47:19] Speaker A: I don't even know who's hosting it anymore.
[00:47:21] Speaker B: But Whoopi Goldberg has canceled herself thousands of times on. It may still be on there for all I know.
[00:47:28] Speaker A: Sarah Gilbert from Roseanne, maybe, or wait, I don't know. Is that Melissa Gilbert?
It doesn't matter.
[00:47:34] Speaker B: That's me. Okay.
Me. I'm not.
[00:47:41] Speaker A: I wonder who was saying, oh, that's not.
[00:47:45] Speaker B: It might have been Rosie Perez, it looks like.
[00:47:47] Speaker A: Ah, okay.
[00:47:49] Speaker B: But I don't think the camera was on them when they said that.
[00:47:52] Speaker A: I do remember that moment, though. It was very all over the place.
[00:47:55] Speaker B: Who's gonna clean your toilets, Mr. Trump?
So that's all for me. I'm not. We want to.
[00:48:03] Speaker A: If I worked for Donald Trump, I would simply steal his toilets because they're gold.
[00:48:08] Speaker B: No one's gonna see you walking out with a gold toilet.
[00:48:10] Speaker A: I'd be like, hey, under your co. I need to take this in for repairs because the person who poops in this eats nothing but filet o fish.
[00:48:19] Speaker B: Anyway, okay, so two quick things to remind people of before we go the. We're extending the deadline on our Patreon Year Zero remix contest.
So for those who get the bonus episodes and are subscribed to the Patreon, we're asking for you to send in your Year Zero remixes, whatever you want, and we will play them on a bonus episode.
Also, we want to do a Year Zero nail bag halfway through our coverage of the album.
So send us. This is for everyone, not just Patreon.
Email us your Year zero fan theories, your comments, your questions about it, or whatever you want to ask or say about the podcast.
Attack us, argue with us, Tell us you disagree. Yeah, so. Nailedpodmail.com.
[00:49:17] Speaker A: Yeah, and try to have those in by what is the date this upcoming Saturday?
Yeah, try to have those to us by Saturday the 7th.
[00:49:26] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:49:27] Speaker A: And Blake will probably post reminders on Instagram before this comes out, but we're gonna try to record that pretty soon.
[00:49:33] Speaker B: Along with capital G. Yeah, I'm extending that Remix deadline to July 1st, by the way.
[00:49:39] Speaker A: Oh, sorry, I thought you were saying it was June.
[00:49:41] Speaker B: No, I forgot to say the date. I think it was June 1st now. July 1st.
[00:49:45] Speaker A: Yeah, we're just a little bit behind and we're trying to.
[00:49:48] Speaker B: We fucked up.
[00:49:49] Speaker A: Well, listen, life happens. I'm sorry. And it's gonna be a really crazy summer because we're moving and.
Yeah.
[00:50:00] Speaker B: Very hard to do your podcast while you do that.
[00:50:03] Speaker A: No, it's very hard.
So we're trying to get our shit together to try to put this back out. But if just thank you for your patience. And we're trying.
[00:50:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:19] Speaker A: So, okay.
[00:50:20] Speaker B: Thank you for listening and patreon.com nailedpod for even more stuff.
Get at us on Discord.
Anything else, Jess?
[00:50:32] Speaker A: Me?
I'm not talkative today.
[00:50:37] Speaker B: Oh, I get to say this on the outro. It's most relevant on this episode.
Hey.
[00:50:45] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:50:45] Speaker B: Can we stop Sam?
