Nine Inch Nails(NIN) closed out their final show in New York City, by playing the legendary 1992 EP Broken, in its entirety at the Brooklyn Kin’s Theatre. This is the group’s second time performing this classic EP in its entirety, the first time occurred at the beginning of their “Cold and Black and Infinite Tour,” that started off in Phoenix, Arizona back in September.”
According to the Brooklyn Vegan, the group performed this song alongside other classics including “March of the Pigs,” “Reptile,” “Even Deeper,” “Head Like A Hole,” “The Hand That Feeds,” and “Hurt.” They even threw in some newer material, performing a new track entitled “God Break Down the Door” and “Shit Mirror,” which is of Reznor’s How To Destroy Angels project “Parasite.”
Classic Scottish alternative rock band Jesus & Mary Chain opened for the band throughout NIN’s entire stint in NYC, while electronic music producer Daniel Avery opened up the show for that night. The Brooklyn Vegan went on to say that each of the four nights had an entirely new set-list to diversify the performances for their respective audiences.
Broken was notorious for several reasons upon its original release back in 1992, with five of the music videos that accompanied the eight track project being censored and banned from television airplay. Despite this censorship, that occurred during an era when MTV was integral to an artist’s promotion, the project still went on to land within the top ten on the Billboard 200 chart, ultimately landing at number 7.
This EP served as a sonic departure from NIN’s more synth oriented debut project Pretty Hate Machine, that was released three years earlier. Broken held a heavier sound that was classified more into the industrial and alternative metal sound for the group.
“Broken […] had a lot of the super-thick chunk sound, and almost every guitar sound on that record was [tapes consisting of] me playing through an old Zoom pedal and then going direct into Digidesign’s TurboSynth [software in a Macintosh computer],” Trent Reznor, the main musician behind NIN during the 90s stated. “Then I used a couple of key ingredients to make it [be heard as being] unlike any ‘real’ sound.”
Reznor also attributed this sonic departure due to his discontent with the label he was previously signed on, TVT Records, who classified his music as “synth-pop.” Eventually Reznor was able to leave the label for Interscope records, where he remained signed to until 2008.
“So I felt like, well, I’ve finally got this thing going but it’s dead. Flood and I had to record Broken under a different band name, because if TVT found out we were recording, they could confiscate all our shit and release it,” Reznor explained. “Jimmy Iovine got involved with Interscope, and we kind of got slave-traded. It wasn’t my doing. I didn’t know anything about Interscope. And I was real pissed off at him at first because it was going from one bad situation to potentially another one. But Interscope went into it like they really wanted to know what I wanted.”
NIN will continue their tour well into the year’s conclusion, with a show planned for the Hollywood Palladium on December 14. Tickets begin at a starting price of $160.
Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat
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