[series] Fifteen for Thirty - Part One

[saikou]

01. "Year Zero" by Nine Inch Nails

The year was 2007, and I was working at Nextel Partners Inc. as a Data Support Specialist. I was part of a tight-knit little group that, when it wasn't working, loved to bond over geeky, offbeat stuff. My coworker, John, was your typical intense iconoclast with an experimental rock band and a love for World of Warcraft. I had a helluva crush on John. We bonded over things like, well, World of Warcraft and experimental rock. He was the one who advised me that Nine Inch Nails was supposed to be releasing a new album. "Finally!" I said, excited by this news but also a little disheartened. I was left sort of cold by 2005's "With Teeth" (A-With-A-TEETH-A - official spelling), like many, and wasn't expecting much. However, I love Trent Reznor.

Only a few days later (February 23rd), John came into work looking a little shaken, with a story to tell me. At first he couldn't really get it out. He just shook his head vigorously, grabbed a piece of paper, and wrote a URL on it: nin.com/yearzero. "Go home," he told me in his usual intense and iconoclastic (and melodramatic) way, "turn out all the lights, put on your best headphones, and go to that site. That's it, just go to that site."

I did. I cried and could barely calm down. I came back to work the next day and raged on him. John said he "ripped his headphones off and threw them at the wall" when he watched it.

Yes, I assure you this entry is about a music album. But Year Zero is so much more than that.

"Year Zero" Teaser Trailer, February 22, 2007. RIP headphone users and imaginative folk who love creepypasta

The experience of "Year Zero" made it what it is to me. Even without it being a great musical album, it would have still been a landmark for me because of how radically it changed my mind about what music is and what music has the potential to be. Trent Reznor, 42Entertainment, and an army of fans from all over the world stopped at nothing to make "Year Zero" a juggernaut of new media in every sense.

The ARG (Alternate Reality Game) that surrounded "Year Zero" from that very first teaser trailer was one of the most satisfying and emotional experiences of my online life. And it had nothing to do with the people I met, although I interacted with some pretty cool people. No, this experience was all about being immersed in a world and accepting, through a thread of absolutely stellar storytelling and use of the technology medium, that this could be real.


Pictured: Trent Reznor, leading us along by a string (the mural, in its physical form, contained a URL that was a clue to the game. This photo, presented without comment, was the only clue to finding that clue. I'm serious.)

If you want to know more about the "Year Zero" ARG and have about a week of your life to spare, go down the rabbithole at the Wiki page for the game timeline. It's worth it, I promise. It's worth it to visit the websites, have your mind blown, get the phone calls, MAKE the phone calls, feel like you're being stalked, feel your entire reality tearing in certain places (by the time you get to Open Source Resistance, at least). But I guess it won't be the same, will it? The beauty of "Year Zero" can never be recaptured because it was a real-time experience. On Echoing the Sound and other boards, we gathered the clues, we scoured for research, we broke the codes and cracked the puzzles, we put it all together and got the rewards for it. Even when the album came out, it wasn't over. Hardly. Even to this day, it's not really over. Because some of us are still at large. And it's not 2022 yet. (I'm on there - "pinkocracy")


I had my dad call this number when I got the album, because I was a scaredy-cat. It's creepy, dude.

I've tried to recapture that experience in ARGs since, and it never quite works. The effects of "Year Zero" on my creative consciousness are strong to this day, lending a significant inspiration to "The Execution", and other stories of mine within the Stillborn Apocalypse world. (like this one!

But about the music...

"Year Zero" starts with "Hyperpower!", which reads like a J-Pop album title but is actual a cacophonous introduction of percussion, distortion, and crescendo. It sets the tone for the militaristic, dangerous, chaotic nature of the album, which is as much a concept as it is a twisted mass of music. In fact, "Year Zero" works on all of its different levels precisely because of how much ground it covers. There's in-your-face, bust-your-shit-open rock in the anthemic "Survivalism" and "My Violent Heart" (FOR SHAME, NEVER PLAYING THAT LIVE, TRENT).

In the "Survivalism" video, Trent and Co. become part of the "Year Zero" world themselves, which is pretty awesome.

There's a softer brand of distortion in the almost sexy thought piece "Me, I'm Not". There's peppy (yes, peppy), upbeat rock that belies a hard-to-swallow message in "Capital G" (the "G" is for "Greed", guys). "The Beginning of the End" takes its beat from "My Sharona". "The Greater Good" and "Another Version of the Truth" are sonically brilliant ambient pieces, the sort that Trent Reznor is known for.

It's equal parts political statement, humanist statement, emotional imprint, and musical Frankenstein. I listened to "The Great Destroyer" for the first time in the car upon getting the album, got to the breakdown, and literally SCREAMED, I was so amped up and moved by the whole thing.

"The Great Destroyer" was bringing dubstep realness before dubstep was cool.

Then there are the fantastic subtle statements such as "Meet Your Master", which manages to be psychosexual and anti-establishment at the same time.

Orgasms.

The onus of the whole album falls upon the final two songs, though - the beautiful "In this Twilight" was so moving that it was used to close the entire "Lights in the Sky" tour (which wound up being the last show of that NIN lineup, ever. It was extremely moving). But then there is "Zero-Sum". "Zero-Sum" just can't be explained in mere words. It is beyond musical criticism because it does what very little music does, outside of David Bowie and ELO's "Time". It literally takes the concept and brings it to life, punching you repeatedly in the gut in the process.

I don't really expect anyone to get the full effect of "Zero-Sum" without having been part of the real-time unfolding of the ARG. The final "timeline" website revealed was The Hour of Arrival. Just read it. Read it and listen to this. And imagine you just played this game and saw the unfolding of this whole story... and this was the end. This. Was. The End. Of everything.

They're starting to open up the sky
They're starting to reach down through
And it feels like we're living in that split-second
Of a car crash
And time is slowing down
And if we only had a little more time
And this time
Is all there is

Do you remember the time we
And all the times we
And should have
And were going to
I know

And I know you remember
How we'd justify it all
And we knew better
In our hearts we knew better
And we told ourselves it didn't matter

We chose to continue
And none of that matters anymore
In the hour of our twilight

And soon it will all be said and done
And we will all be back together as one
If we will continue at all

Shame on us
Doomed from the start
God have mercy on our Dirty Little Hearts

Shame on us
For all we have done
And all we ever were
Just zeroes and ones

And you never get away
And you ever get to take the easy way
And all of this is a consequence
Brought on by our own hand

If you believe in that sort of thing

And did you ever really find
When you closed your eyes
Any place that was still
And at peace

And I guess I just wanted to tell you
As the lights start to fade
You are the reason
I am not afraid

and I guess I just wanted to mention
As the heavens will fall
We will be together soon if we
Will be anything at all

Those are some of the best lyrics I have ever known in my life, and they become mind-bogglingly affecting when they're coupled with the experience of "Year Zero".

You felt your heart being torn out at the end of the album. Because we lost. The human race lost. And even with that, "Zero-Sum" managed to be optimistic in a way that few things can be. Trent Reznor nailed this. You felt your throat closing up. This was gorgeous, this was beyond the personal experience of music. Everyone experienced this, making it equal parts story, musical, performance piece, and online serial.

This was not personalized. This was something we united in.

That is what makes "Year Zero" different. And gutting. And so, so, so, so beautiful.

I do not have enough words for this masterpiece. Listening to it again has taken me back to a time - the last time - before everything changed. My mom was diagnosed with cancer on March 19, 2007. I had this album to carry me, this ARG to help me.

This was a beautiful moment and I was there and I will never forget it. JESUS THAT EXIT.

Dust to dust
Ashes in your hair remind me
What it feels like
I won't feel again
Night descends
Could I have been a better person?
If I could only do it all again...

But the sky is filled with light,
Can you see it?
All the black is really white
If you believe it
And the longing that you feel
You know nonw of this is real
We will find a better place, in this twilight...

Music gave me all the strength in the world at that time in my life, and Trent Reznor was the messiah I leaned on. He reignited my love for music as an art form that I hadn't known since 2001. And he did it with "Year Zero".

Okay, I know I said I was going to include download links where possible, but tbh I can't be arsed to do that. Besides, this album is seriously worth the money. Trent gave away his next album FOR FREE (and it's good, besides), the least you could do is purchase this piece of beauty.

Maybe I'm a bad NIN fan for preferring this to "The Downward Spiral" (it's up there with "The Fragile", but it's on a totally different level), but in my life this album had had so much impact. So much I can't even express fully. I'm angry because I can't find the words to express what "Year Zero" means to me, and it seems dumb!

Oh well. Art is Resistance. Thanks for reading.

Comments

[phoebeagle.livejournal.com]

I think I'm in love with this entry. Maybe I will ask this entry to marry me.

[lalalive23.livejournal.com]

Tacking myself onto this because this is exactly how I feel. I have no words. None.

[seishin.livejournal.com]

I'll be the flowergirl and this union.

[glitterati.livejournal.com]

:3 I have to pick out my mother of the bride pantsuit brb

[glitterati.livejournal.com]

Idaknow, "None" is one of my favorite words

<3

[glitterati.livejournal.com]

Entry says YES!!!! But unfortunately you can't get married yet, because this entry doesn't really believe in traditional marriage. :'(

[hopeandmemory.livejournal.com]

I love all of your posts about music. They're always so beautifully written, and I just love seeing how much passion you put into them.

I remember you telling me all about the Year Zero ARG sometime last year and thinking it was so cool. I wish Muse would do something like that but since we already seem to have passed the Concept Album™ stage, I think the Ununited States of Eurasia game is about as close as we'll ever get.

Those lyrics are really beautiful, too. And I actually quite like In This Twilight. The breakdown is rock-ish but still kinda pretty, you know? OH GOD, and that piano outro, how gorgeous! I'm glad you were there to enjoy that show. <3

[glitterati.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not, Trent Reznor is an exquisite piano player! Well, really, he's exquisite at so many instruments I can't even name them all (including marimba!)

Yeah, I sort of wished this sort of thing might come from Muse, but they just seem so much more unified in the traditional presentation of music, and I'm FINE with that. Besides, Matt's music is so self-conscious, it would be hard for him to separate his music from himself and turn it into a game for people, if that makes sense? Ugh, idek. LOL MAFF BELLALAMY.

Thanks so much, love. ♥ Remember discolike? Shit.

[glorious-rumor.livejournal.com]

Thank you, sweetie, for sharing your Year Zero story. I myself didn't take part in the ARG - I don't even think I knew it was happening, as I wasn't really involved in anything NIN related on the internet at that time - but my dad says he did some of it.

I've been listening to NIN for as long as I can remember. It means a lot to me, knowing that I have a close friend who is as invested in NIN as I am.

I love you. <3

P.S. God Given makes me physically uncomfortable, and In This Twilight/Zero-Sum makes me sob uncontrollably.

[glitterati.livejournal.com]

If nothing else, I wish I could give people the experience I had with the ARG. It was a thing that can never be duplicated, and that makes it so impossible to explain, lol. Drat!!!

I love you too, zomg can't wait to be swagging out about NIN together. <3 <3

"Physically uncomfortable" is the PERFECT way to describe it, YES.

[cryingdragon5.livejournal.com]

Beautiful post. Too bad I've never paid too much attention to them before... And Year Zero sounds fascinating.