Nine Inch Nails - And All That Could Have Been

So all this talk about Trent Reznor and the return of Nine Inch Nails got me in the mood for some classic NIN.  So for my travels this morning (and even watched some of the video over the weekend) I decided to go with NIN's And All That Could Have Been CD/DVD combo.  Originally released on January 22nd, 2002, this was a highlight into the career of Renzor (well, at least in my opinion).   The DVD was filmed entirely by the NIN crew versus a production company and was mixed/edited by Reznor himself while on the Fragility 2.0 tour.

Even to date I still consider this DVD and album a staple in my music mixology and always seem to veer back to it every once and awhile.  Reznor is angry, he's energetic and is met equally by the touring band backing him up.  This combination allows modern day fans of NIN to see what it is that brought him notoriety in the early years of Pretty Hate Machine and The Downward Spiral.  The visuals on set are of equal merit as they blasted strobes of lights, and giant panels in the background that silhouetted the band members.



The Fragility 2.0 tour consisted of:

Trent Reznor - Vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass guitar, Prophet VS synthesizer | Danny Lohner - Bass guitar, guitar, synthesizer, backup vocals | Robin Finck - Guitar, synthesizer, E-bow, backup vocals | Charlie Clouser - Synthesizer, theremin, vocoder, backup vocals | Jerome Dillon - Drums, samples

(Album cover)

1. Terrible Lie

2. Sin

3. March of the Pigs

4. Piggy

5. The Frail

6. The Wretched

7. Gave Up

8. La Mer

9. The Great Below

10. The Mark Has Been Made

11. Wish

12. Complication

13. Suck

14. Closer

15. Head Like a Hole

16. Just Like You Imagined

17. Starfuckers, Inc.

18. Hurt

(DVD Cover)

As previously mentioned, the DVD comprises video footage from the 2000 Fragility 2.0 tour, taken over various dates.  When watching the concert and going through the 18 songs, the vibe of the DVD felt to be climaxing twice; both at the starting and the ending of the DVD.  Opening with tracks such as "Terrible Lie" and "Sin" give onlookers/listeners the impression that NIN is not messing around and have come out swinging.

I believe Reznor was going for a climax moment when he turned away from the hard hitting singles and dove into more ambient/mellow vibes such as "La Mer" and "Gave Up", where concert goers have hit their peak of energy and now need a few songs to essentially cool off before Trent kicks into the final half of the show.

"Wish", "Suck", "Closer", "Head Like A Hole", and "Starfuckers Inc." are what I was talking about.  The final half of the set ends as vicious as the opening of the album/show, especially when Trent picks up the guitar for a trio onslaught during "Head Like a Hole" or the epic conclusion that is "Hurt".  I love the fact he chooses this song as the closing for the show (and live when I saw them).  It's got intensity masked by a solo guitar rhythm.

As much as I tried to make this about the music, I really was interested in the direction of the DVD.  This was one of my first experiences (as many DVD's I own) into the live performance of NIN, so safe to say my 15 year old eyes were glued to the TV.  Below is an excerpt taken by Mac World's website when they conducted an interview with Reznor.  The interview surrounded Reznor's decision to film the show(s) and edit them himself:

Q: Why did you decide to shoot And All That Could Have Been on mini-DV?

Reznor: Cost-wise, it made sense. We bought a few XL1 cameras, and we could film every night of the tour from eight different positions. It seemed like it was something we could manage and make it what we wanted it to be. From our perspective, we weren't video editors. The cool thing about this process was finding out that, yeah, you can do this. The ease of use of the hardware and software made it possible to get the tedious crap out of the way and just get down to what we wanted to do.

Q: The audio was assembled on a Mac too, correct?

Reznor: Normally when you film or record a tour, on our level, you get maybe two nights to record. Invariably those are the nights that aren't very good. We took some of the budget we were saving from having massive multicamera shoots, put some into the audio, and recorded four or five different nights to digital multitrack. Got back to the studio afterwards, picked the best version of the songs, loaded everything into Pro Tools on a Mac, and mixed in surround, then remixed everything again in stereo.

You can read the full interview here.

Now the bonus material (aka "Still)" that Reznor put on the album release consisted of deconstructed songs and other b-sides that he wanted to include in the double disc release.  Instruments such as piano, acoustic guitar, electric piano, or other 'real' instruments were backed by computer-generated synth textures.

Here is a small Q&A I found while stumbling through NIN archives that give a little more clarity into "Still":

And that's how you got this:

1. Something I Can Never Have

2. Adrift and at Peace

3. The Fragile

4. The Becoming

5. Gone, Still

6. The Day the World Went Away

7. And All That Could Have Been

8. The Persistence of Loss

9. Leaving Hope

I think the one aspect that most critics fail to recognize about AATCHB is that this is a LIVE album, regardless of how many hits he played throughout the show.  This does not give critics the ammo to equate AATCHB to a muddy watered greatest hits album.  This combo release was intended to give the rawest form of insight into the live aspect that is an NIN show.  Eleven years after the release, we have production companies that tweak and release live albums the day after the show.  I feel this takes away from the essence of a show in general, where musicians do not have fancy pro tools that fix those little quips and mess ups.  With that being said, this is supposed to be an album where you hear the fumbles, the missed kick, the subtle variations that make a live cut... LIVE!

If fans are looking for a greatest hits collection of NIN, wait till Trent hangs up his guitar for good (ha!).  Either that or you could start your collection of '27 Halos' to date; more on the way.