Song Spotlight: Nine Inch Nails - "Discipline"

NOTE: The link in this post has been redirected to bring you to the download page for The Slip, the album which features "Discipline".

When I started this blog, I always intended to have 3 types of "spotlight" posts: artists, albums, and songs. There are plenty of artist spotlights by now, as well as a few album spotlights, but so far there have been no song spotlights. The only reason for that is the simple fact that each of my posts has always had more than a single song to spotlight. Leave it to Trent Reznor to change that.

Trent Reznor, the mastermind behind Nine Inch Nails, has been on an awesome creative spree in the last few years. Once known for taking half a decade or more between major releases, he has since released With Teeth in 2005, Year Zero (and its companion remix album, Y34RZ3R0R3MIX3D) in 2007, and the all-instrumental, quadruple EP Ghosts I-IV just last month. He has also begun to release a lot of material for free, a fact which has earned him a couple of spotlights on this blog already (an artist spotlight for his remix site, and an album spotlight for Ghosts I). His latest release is the single "Discipline", which was released to radio stations yesterday (just a day after being mastered), and uploaded to his website just a couple of hours ago.

Standing in stark contrast to the moody, ambient, and haunting (not to mention utterly beautiful) Ghosts material, "Discipline" has more of a classic Nine Inch Nails feel to it - a driving, danceable drum beat, pulsating synthesizers, distorted guitars and bass, layered vocals that range from whispers to screams to falsettos and everything in between, and a moody piano underscoring it all. I hear traces of songs like "The Beginning of the End" and "The Hand That Feeds" in this song, but it is definitely its own creature, and if Trent is working on something larger right now, then this is definitely a promising start.

The high quality MP3 comes complete with embeddeed lyrics and a comment that says "Go to http://www.nin.com/ May 5". The last time Mr. Reznor told us to check back on his site in 2 weeks was back in February, and that ended up being a reference to the surprise release of Ghosts I-IV. Could May 5 see the release of Year Zero Part 2? Ghosts V-VIII? Something completely different? Whatever the case, this is a great time to be a Nine Inch Nails fan. Thanks, Trent, for being such a great artist and giving us so much excellent music to listen to. Also, now that you've been featured on this blog as an artist, for an album, and for a song, congratulations on being the first Totally Free Music "triple crown" recipient; let me know if you want a certificate or something that you can keep next to your Grammys and multiplatinum albums. ;)

To anyone still reading this, I would highly recommend heading over to the Nine Inch Nails site to get some "Discipline". Happy Listening!

URLs:
http://discipline.nin.com/
http://www.nin.com/