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RIFFOLOGY
05 October 2026
NIN - The Downward Spiral album artwork

This Episode · No. 22

RIFF096 - NIN - The Downward Spiral

05 October 2026 ·106 min ·Season 2026
0:00 1:45:36
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Lynsey (guest)

Show Notes

When a Rented House in Benedict Canyon Becomes the Loudest Room in America

Hosts: Neil & Chris
Duration: ~106 minutes
Release: 5 October 2026

Episode Description

Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral arrived in 1994 into a world that wanted Pearl Jam and got something far more unsettling instead. Recorded at Le Pig, the Benedict Canyon house where the Manson murders took place, with blacked-out windows, nocturnal sessions and Pro Tools rigs that crashed twenty times a day, it's an album that somehow sold millions despite having no obvious audience waiting for it.

Neil is joined by special guest Lynsey, who drove down from Edinburgh (and brought two packets of fruit pastilles, which is how you win people over), for a conversation about an album neither host actually got at the time. Neil was deep in pop punk and prong; Lynsey was 13 when it dropped and didn't find it until 16, when its noise and unease were exactly what she needed. Both came back to it later and found something genuinely special.

What You'll Hear:

  • Why this record works like a horror movie soundtrack, menacing even without the lyrics or melody
  • The 1994 original pressing versus the 2017 remaster, and why louder isn't better
  • Lynsey's brilliant misreading of the concept: Piggy from Lord of the Flies getting his revenge
  • Richard Patrick thinking "Piggy" was about him, quitting, and forming Filter
  • Hidden samples from Aliens buried across the record, and the fan wiki that uncovered them
  • Whether this album was the inception point for the industrial and nu metal wave that followed

Featured Tracks & Analysis:

"Hurt" gets the deepest treatment, with Neil arguing its atmosphere and air are exactly what the remaster flattens. "March of the Pigs" is Lynsey's pick for sheer noisy fury, while "Heresy" and the closing run of "Reptile", "The Downward Spiral" and "Hurt" get picked apart. There's genuine debate over whether Flood's production is too polished compared to the bone-dry US industrial of Ministry and Prong, plus archive Trent Reznor interview clips on writing to a concept, the Nothing label, and why "pig" means something different in every song.

Tangential Gold:

  • The Lady Grey incident at a 3am service station that earned Neil a permanent nickname
  • Richard E. Grant blowing his cover on The Traitors in under five minutes
  • What your YouTube Shorts algorithm says about you (Porsches, fart cannons, Bobby Fingers)
  • The door from Le Pig selling at auction for $127,000
  • Eating 10kg of refreshers in silence with the bassist from The Farm
  • A 23-year-old who had genuinely never seen a compact disc

Why This Matters:

The Downward Spiral didn't chase a scene, it created one. NME gave it four out of ten and called Reznor an angry little goth boy, and the record went on to reshape the next decade of heavy music. This episode digs into how an album with no obvious commercial hook became a cultural landmark, and why its atmosphere still unsettles thirty years on.

Perfect for: anyone who missed this record first time round, industrial and nu metal obsessives, production nerds who care about remasters, and listeners who enjoy album analysis with a healthy side of unrelated nonsense.

You can find us here:

Transcript

Show transcript Hide transcript 448 exchanges · 3 speakers
Chris0:24 Ripology. Ripology. That's very good. Tuneful. Tuneful. Tuneful. It's a weird. It doesn't feel normal because it's daytime. It's Saturday afternoon.
Neil0:37 Yes.
Chris0:37 And. And we've. Lindsay's coming in.
Neil0:40 Yes.
Chris0:40 Today. Well, let's tell the truth. Lindsay's been in. Lindsay's been in the order of thing. In the actual order. If. If we're doing time in history and time. We've already done the thing you're about to. This comes after the before bit. Yes. Yeah, but we're going to. But actually we're going to put this slot before the thing that we've just done. It's magic. Yeah. Proper magic. But Lindsay's been in and that was good. Yeah, it was great. We like Lindsay. She's awesome. She. She brought two packets of free pastels. Yeah. Just. I mean, if you're trying to get. Get someone on your side, that's what you're doing. Two package of fruit pastels. Yeah.
Neil1:14 Boom.
Chris1:14 Yeah. And she's great. And she sat beautifully and spoke beautifully about the thingy.
Lynsey1:18 She did.
Chris1:18 You did. We had a good thing. We did this album, the Downward Spiral. Yeah, it's been there. Yeah, it's cool album. Yeah. A lot of interesting stories and.
Lynsey1:28 Yeah.
Chris1:28 I don't know, like, a funny period for me because I didn't like. This is another one of those albums. I. I like. I went back to this one.
Neil1:37 Yeah.
Lynsey1:37 Yeah.
Chris1:39 I think it was probably just a bit too cool for me at the time. Yeah. I didn't get it, mate. I was. I was listening to pop punk, so I. This. This was like.
Lynsey1:47 I don't know what that is. That's just weird.
Chris1:49 It was. Yeah, it was funny. But going back to this is what, like, hurt on this album. One of my favorite tracks. Yeah. Lindsay and I talked about that. And in the future. In the future. Yeah. We had a good. A good reminisce over the time because I think she kind of went back to it a little bit.
Lynsey2:04 Yeah.
Chris2:05 Later on as well. But, yeah, funny. We talk about, like, the, like, the menacing nature of this album. Like, it's like a horror movie soundtrack almost. It's got this, like, weird thing where like, even. Oh. The tone of the lyrics is quite dark. But actually, yeah, I think even with no lyrics and even without the melody on these songs, they sound quite menacing and atmospheric. Like, you know, you kind of. You're a little bit on edge. Like you're about to get murdered.
Neil2:33 Yeah.
Chris2:35 So that was quite cool. And then we talked about what we're going to do next and we don't know. No, well, we. We had some ideas, but I've already changed my mind five times, so. But I think Chaos Ad. I, like, I love the idea because you, like, you're saying about the. The thing at the start now. Yeah. So we know we're doing next week, but actually at the start, we've not even got to the, like. We're not even talking about the. The. Oh, yeah, yeah. We should do that later.
Neil3:01 Yeah.
Chris3:02 But we've done it now, so you can't undo no time. No, I mean, what we could do if we're being really close, is edit this out and then put it at the end. Do you want to do that? No. Oh, God. I'll do the other thing. Bless her. Poor Lindsay, she's got to drive all the way back to Edinburgh. I mean, that's a good five and a half hours straight. No wee breaks. No. And no one can do that. No, no. I always made me laugh about people who claimed electric cars were terrible.
Neil3:28 Yeah.
Chris3:29 And they're like, you know, I can drive for five. You can't drive for five and a half hours.
Lynsey3:32 No.
Chris3:33 You'll need a Wii.
Neil3:34 Yeah.
Chris3:34 Unless you're 15.
Neil3:35 Yeah.
Chris3:36 I could drive for five hours, like, you know, but I can't now. I'm now 50. You couldn't anyway, because you were.
Lynsey3:41 You were.
Chris3:42 Yeah, but. Yeah, but you. I don't think, like, you can't do that, can you? No, Like a. I get bored.
Neil3:49 Yeah.
Chris3:50 And I want to get bored. Yeah. I want to stop and have a sandwich.
Neil3:52 Yeah.
Chris3:54 Or buy something that I wouldn't normally buy. Yeah. You know, you go to, like, WH Smiths and it's not necessary. You don't need it. No. Don't need it. But I like to do that big box of wasabi peas is mine.
Neil4:07 You know what I mean, don't you?
Chris4:08 In the services. I do the big plaque. They've got the big plastic trays and there's only like cashew nuts or. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bombay mix. Bombay mix, yeah. They've got a few of them and then they've got the wasabi piece. There's far too many for one person to eat. There is. Guess who has a go, though. Yeah. Yeah. Get them like a trough around your mouth. Well, I do. And also I eat too many. Yeah. And then I have that kind of like wasabi mustardy type. Oh. You know, my eyes are streaming, my nose is running. I feel like I've, you know, like I'm. I'm A pig. Then when you get there and you've got wasabi peas down your crotch and your back and you're like, they're everywhere, aren't they? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you finish them and you. And you have that, like, you've got thoroughly disappointed in yourself, but you still have another handful services. I'm going to try and stitch these things together and it may or may not be successful. Right. But, like, the most embarrassing moment of my entire life was in the service station when Paddy shouts over, what do you want to drink? And I said, a Lady Gray tea, please. And everyone but the whole band, it's like three o' clock in the morning.
Neil5:12 Yeah, yeah.
Chris5:12 And the whole, like, rock band. Cool rock band. All turned over to me and went, what earned you the nickname Lady Gray? It did. It did. Yeah. And. And, yeah, getting a nickname from a. From a band is important. But then, like, the. I like traitors. I know that, like, I don't watch a lot of like, like crappy tv, but I do like traitors. Like, I quite like Winkleman. I call her Winkers. Yeah, I quite like Winkleman. I think she's quite cool. She's quite dark. Yeah. I quite like.
Neil5:38 She.
Chris5:38 She'd like Nine Inch Nails. Yeah, true.
Lynsey5:41 Yeah.
Chris5:41 She might not, but in my. In my mind, depends how long a fringe is. I think when she goes past a certain fringe length, like that point, that's nine inches. You got nine inches. Is that where. Is that where Trent Reznor lives? He lives in Winkus Fringe. So anyway, anyway, I need to try and stitch these things together before it falls out of my brain. Richard E. Grant is on. Richard E. Grant is on the traitors. Yeah. So the concept of the traitors, for anyone that's not seen it is there's a bunch of people going to a castle and a few of them just, like, Wink. Murder a bit like that. Yeah. A few of them get. Get tagged as being traitors and then they get to kill the others and then the faithful have to guess who the traitors are.
Neil6:25 Right.
Chris6:25 That's the whole kind of thing. Right. So the whole idea of being a traitor is to not. You have to hide and not tell anybody that you're a traitor. So Richard D. Grant is there, but with a bunch of other celebrity people. James Blunt's in there as well. He's quite funny. And there's a bunch of other people in there. And in the very, like, within the first, like, five minutes of the show starting proper, somebody asks Richard E. Grant, are you a Traitor. And he said, yes, game over. It's like. And everybody just looks like, what? And then he's going, yeah. And then he tries to play out. Yeah, but he is a traitor. So he is a traitor. And. And it reminded me hugely of the Lady Gray thing. I was like, just. That's his Lady Gray moment. That is. That is it. That is him. Anyway, I don't know quite how we got on to. I don't know, Lady Gray and Richard E. Grant and the traitors. Yeah. What we did. And now we've got to go in the.
Neil7:20 Into the past
Chris7:23 because now we're going to play about the thing we just recorded. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. So we're gonna hand over to me and Lindsay because we've only got two microphone. We could have had three microphones, but you were too lazy to do it. You were just like, oh, I'm just gonna scroll. What did you do? Scrolled. Scrolling. Yeah. Just scrolling. Yeah, yeah. Shorts. Yeah, I like scrolling shorts. The thing is, like, have you ever compared somebody else's. It says a lot about you as a person. Like, Liz's shorts are all about, like, animal welfare. Looking after children. Yeah. Houses. Yeah. Home decor. Yeah. That kind of stuff. Yeah. Mine. Yeah. Are Porsches. Old Porsches. And like, people being punched in the face, people falling off stuff. People shooting things at each other. I've got. I don't know what I've done, but it's got a. You know, fart cannons.
Neil8:13 Yeah.
Chris8:13 You know, the big plastic buckets where you can fart in them and then shoot. A lot of that.
Lynsey8:17 Yeah.
Chris8:18 And also a lot of. I seem to have got a lot of old clips. Yeah. As well. Like that really funny clip where the Scottish guy's on the roof. Yeah. Saying, don't stand. And he's going, what do you mean, don't stand there? And then it all falls. Lots of. Lots of people falling off stuff. But everyone's. I think everyone's short, so, like, it says a lot about them.
Neil8:36 About them. Yeah.
Chris8:36 Mine's that bat video where he's chasing the bat around the kitchen. That comes up a lot. The lady who has the. She has like a.
Neil8:47 An accident. And then.
Chris8:48 And then. And then is. Has like a Chinese accent. Oh, yeah, yeah. Battery charger. Yeah, That's. I like her. She's really fun.
Lynsey8:56 Yeah.
Chris8:57 And what else do I have? Dog video. Lot of dog videos. Yeah.
Lynsey9:01 And.
Chris9:02 Oh, gosh. Yeah. Oh, the. The money in the fish that makes you sick. Oh, vomiting in the car. Yeah, yeah. Or loads of that. Yeah, yeah. That's Mine's just stupid stuff like that. Yeah. Why would anyone like, I don't know, like someone only needs to do that once.
Lynsey9:21 Yeah.
Chris9:21 And that's funny enough for me.
Neil9:22 Yeah.
Chris9:23 And just keep replaying the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep replaying the same. And comedians, stand up comedians. A lot of my real stand up comedians, like you're doing crowd work. Oh, who's your, who's your favorite? I like that Scouse lad, Paul Smith. I like him. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lynsey9:37 And then there's the other guy that's
Chris9:38 come up quite a bit recently.
Lynsey9:39 I can't remember his name.
Chris9:40 He did one in Ashby.
Neil9:42 All right.
Chris9:42 A couple of weeks ago. A few weeks ago.
Lynsey9:44 He's really good.
Chris9:45 He's sharp. Is he?
Neil9:46 Yeah.
Chris9:47 Comedians are. I heard it was an interview with, I think it was Jimmy Carr and a bunch of like up and coming comedians at the time. And it's really funny. They were, they, they were describing what stand up comedy is.
Lynsey10:02 Yeah.
Neil10:02 Ye.
Chris10:03 They were saying it's like. So imagine if you could remove the filter from your brain. Yes. And it just comes out. That's what stand up comedy is.
Neil10:11 Yes.
Chris10:11 But it's like they were saying it takes, it's funny. It takes a long time to remove the brakes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you're like so scared that you're going to say something that makes you look stupid and, and that you regret for the rest of your life.
Neil10:24 Yeah.
Chris10:24 So there's that whole thing where you think everyone's going to laugh at me. Like, you know, and, and eventually you like gig by gig by gig, you break that barrier. That filter just goes a little bit, a little bit. Until you're in that almost flow bit where you know, whatever occurs to you, I think you need to be, you need to be of the right, you need to find things funny. You need to be able to see the comedy and things. Yeah. And then, and like, and have that skill and then also do that bit where you kind of lobotomize yourself.
Lynsey10:54 Yeah.
Chris10:56 You're able, just dispute. But it's really funny. They were, they were all nodding away going. Yeah. I just remember removing that filter is like when you, because you, you stand up in the Stage fright. Well, I mean I did public speaking at work.
Neil11:07 Yeah.
Chris11:07 And if you like, it's the opposite of that to something where you know, you like. For me it's like I need to know the facts, I need to know what I'm going to say. I need to know which order I'm going to say. I need to. How I'm going to tell the story and you're just remembering that arc of where you are and how you're going to learn the story and you kind of feel you're ad libbing a bit, but you kind of stick into the arc. And they were describing comedy as like similar to that. Right. And you've got the arc of the things you're going to talk about, but it's, you're very much. Yeah, yeah, we've seen the Dr. Catford one. Oh, I don't, I don't know. Yeah, so this is more like a part. It's good. They are kind of stand up guys or they do do that and they do a lot of that kind of comedy club stuff. Yeah. And then they, they. But they do a podcast together and this, this one guy's talking about his, his brother who's I think probably quite severely autistic or something like that. And I'm just gonna have to show you it's the only way of doing it.
Neil12:01 Okay.
Chris12:01 But he talks about his brother, you know, basically has created this character called Dr. Catford. Yeah. Dr. Catford will see you now. And does this thing of that. And this basically beats him up. Oh yeah, I know. I think that's how he goes to sleep. That's how he relaxes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he literally beats him like properly beats him up. And the mum's like, well that's the only way you can go to sleep. You just need to suck it up. Yeah, that's it. Exactly that. Yeah, I think. Yeah, yeah. And then he, he rings, you know, he rings in the day and goes, Dr. Catford's got your appointment. I do love that. Yeah, I'm into all that. That's good.
Lynsey12:36 Yeah.
Chris12:36 And you like that. Fingers, man. Oh, Bobby Fingers. Bobby fingers.
Neil12:39 Oh.
Chris12:40 One of the most talented people. I do love that on the planet. I kind of like the nonsensical stuff that somebody's spent for like, like it's
Neil12:48 not
Chris12:51 like Noel Fielding. Yeah, we'll go and do nonsensical stuff and like, which I think probably took over from like Vic and Bob.
Lynsey12:59 Yeah, yeah.
Chris12:59 You know that kind of whole just, just, just ad libbing in this like really weird and it's so bizarre that it just is like, it just makes you laugh. It's just so stretched out there. Do I do like that. But I, I love that that thing where the, the comedian will like push down a like nonsensical idea that they've clearly spent a long time on.
Lynsey13:24 Yeah.
Chris13:25 And there's Just something. Those Bobby thing.
Neil13:27 I mean, that.
Chris13:27 That's. Those bobby fingers take. That's time, effort, budget. That's. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, I do. I. I'm with you on that. It's pure flow. Yeah. Absolute creative flow that you must get into to be able to, you know, go there and be able to produce all that. To go there repeatedly.
Neil13:44 Yeah.
Chris13:45 So we've not been on topic at all in this bit. Been good. But I think Lindsay and I stayed on top. Did, actually. And I'm quite. Yeah, we were on topic really. Well, we were on topic for almost the entirety of that. We should treat it like. I think you're on your best behavior, actually. Yeah. I didn't want to get in trouble. Like, you don't want to. You know what I mean?
Neil14:03 Yeah.
Chris14:03 You don't want to get told off or anything. And we've never had a girl in here before, but bizarrely, she. Like you wouldn't have noticed. And there we go. Right. Then play a song and then go into that. Oh, that's a nice way of doing it. I'll do that. I just saw your face light up. I've had a great idea. That was your great idea face?
Neil14:24 Yeah.
Chris14:24 Yeah, It's a great idea. Yeah. Let's do it.
Lynsey15:13 No one cares if there is a hell I'll see you now. And no one cares if there is a hell I see you there your God is dead and no one cares it's down as a hell I see you now it's sa. When I started working on Downward Spiral, I kind of approached it as a big chunk of work. Right. Rather than 10 songs that just happened to be written at the same time. And I tried to have a theme that kind of evolved through the whole thing. And as a kind of challenge to me from the writing end of things, going into it with no songs that I was going to put on this, just starting from scratch, I kind of came up with an overall concept that then split into several chunks into things I wanted to address, and then tried to write within those parameters just to see what would happen. And about a third of the way into it, I realized, this is insane. I can't try to come up with a song and then it has to fit in this kind of spot and the theme of this, and it should be this type of music. And I realized it was a bad idea. And then two thirds of the way through it, I just abandoned that. And then two thirds of the way through it, I looked and realized that I had just done exactly what I set out to do without thinking about it now, and the songs all fit in the right spot. Somehow I realized that it wasn't going to be a big commercial success type record. There wasn't any real singles on there. And it worked as a chunk of art, I thought, but not so much as someone said, let me hear something off your new record. And I was like, better to just hear the whole thing a couple times and understand what's going on, rather than. I mean, here's a song off it. But you don't see the importance of that song unless you see how it sits in the whole thing. So ideally, I think the record works best as a whole thing. But to try to ask people in a disposable age of, you know, it's really easy to hit that skip button and go to the next track. I don't know if anybody really does that, but records that I'd liked, you know, that worked as a whole. I think the whole concept of a full chunk of work is kind of dated. There's not a lot. Now it's a day of have one good song and a flashy video and you've got a career, you know, I think if people buy CDs now and think, wow, there's two good songs on that, it was worth buying it, you know, in a way. Whereas in the past, I remember I'd buy a record, you know, and there was two bad songs. I felt kind of ripped off.
Chris20:39 It's Lindsay. Hello, Lindsay.
Neil20:41 Hello.
Chris20:42 Lindsay's come to join us in our studio, which we're a bit ashamed about, but luckily Chris's dad's tidied it up, so. That's nice.
Neil20:48 It's a lovely studio.
Chris20:50 It is, isn't it? Let's see the mat. This is. This. This. The rug that we've got is. Goes under. Drum kits. You notice we haven't got a drum kit, but we've got. We've got a rug.
Neil20:59 Yes.
Chris21:00 So why. Why are you here with us, Lindsay? Why are you? Because you're a long way from home.
Neil21:04 Because I just invited myself and I just happened to be here and I thought, I will just come and get Crush.
Chris21:10 So you were riding the Low's 20th anniversary gig last night? Last night. Was it good?
Neil21:15 Yes.
Chris21:16 Chris is here, so we have to say nice things. Look, he's looking now.
Lynsey21:18 Look.
Chris21:19 So Chris is here, he's just not speaking. I can see his little face. And we're going to talk about album. We're going to talk about the downward spiral which gets Shortened to spiral or downward spiral. Does it by the fans? Yeah.
Neil21:34 All right.
Chris21:35 They just call it spiral or downward spiral. Now, this is an interesting record because neither me or you listened to it when it came out. No, in 94. So what did you listen to in 94?
Neil21:47 Manic street features as well as other things like Take that.
Chris21:54 Do you know, my friend is. He was really heavy, Mettler when we were kids. He's really into Take that now.
Neil22:01 Really?
Chris22:01 Yeah, he went to see them. Went to see them on their tour. It was gushing about how awesome they were. He's like a late discovery into Take that.
Neil22:09 Is he the only man there?
Chris22:13 I don't know. I don't know. But I know he posts on his social medias. You know, people, you know, your friends post and you're like, that's a bit weird. He's one of those. But he really loved it, like. But I think it's interesting because this wasn't an album I liked in 94. This wasn't a scene I really got in 94. Bit like. It's a bit like Slipknot as well. For me, that. That whole scene, there was a. A bunch of stuff that came out between, like, 95 and, you know, probably the early 2000s that just was. I just didn't get it. I was like, I don't really understand that scene. I don't understand those people. It's always girls that wore Nine Inch Nails. Do you know what I mean? The hoodies or. They wore the Slipknot hoodies. And. And I was just like, okay, it looks cool. Like, I like the look of this, but I'm not sure. I mean, I wasn't really sure about it because my world was all about prong at this point. And I had a bully bit. Green Day. There's. There's like. There's Megadeth and Slayer was still releasing stuff about this point in time as well. And it wasn't until probably mid 2000s for me, going back to this and then thinking, do you know what it's quite like, especially this record. It's really dark. Like, it's not metal y, but like, there's some guitary bits in there, but, like, not. It's not like a guitarist. It says keyboard album. Really.
Neil23:35 It's noisy.
Chris23:37 Yeah.
Neil23:37 That's what I like about it.
Chris23:39 It's really dark. I think the. The. The tone of it. The. It's like. Like the reason I brought it back with Slipknot is it's quite menacing.
Neil23:47 Yeah. I mean, definitely.
Chris23:49 It's like A horror movie kind of thing. It's got this. It's got this weird tone to it where, like, it doesn't work that well for me on, like, just with speakers. It's got. If I put my headphones on.
Neil23:59 It's unsettling.
Chris24:01 Yeah, yeah. It pulls you in and it's like this. This, like, bizarre kind of. It's a bit like being in a horror movie.
Neil24:08 Yes.
Chris24:08 It's got this kind of. You know, I mean, it's like the atmospherics.
Neil24:11 That'll be why I was drawn to as well, because that was exactly me and my teenagers. I was. Well, when it came out, I would have been 13 or 14. Moment I started listening to it, I would have been 16. Ah, okay, 97.
Chris24:26 So what. What horror. Because there's a bunch of stuff in here and I'm have to go down to my list, but there's a bunch of stuff that they. They were watching loads of movies, loads of horror movies and just other kinds of stuff that got sampled and used in the record now. Tons of it. Like, I know the movie, but I didn't recognize it in the album only. And the fans, like, fans are awesome. The fans and the. They've got a wiki and people have been through it and listen to interviews and other bits and pieces to try and, like, you piece it all together. But there's tons of stuff from, like, Aliens, which is like, we've talked about before on the show. But I love Aliens. I think. Well, the first three. I think the first two are phenomenal. The third one's okay. It's. I think it's the. I just love it. I absolutely love everything about Aliens. And I didn't recognize those clips. I mean, I probably listened to Bobby, watched each one of those movies, like, I don't know, 50 times over the years and didn't recognize them. Like on Reptile, this stuff from a power loader, and like, Ripley's Stasis chamber being cut open. The downward spiral. It's from, like, the opening of the movie and I didn't. It's funny the way it's all spliced and layered together cleverly. I didn't recognize it, but I don't know. I think it's clever.
Neil25:48 Yeah. Makes you want to go back and watch it again and figure out the bits.
Chris25:52 It does. When I. When I got the list from the. Which I put on our blog, when. When I went through the list, I kind of made me go back to each one of the tracks and then. You know what I mean?
Neil26:01 Yeah.
Chris26:02 You're listening. Is that it? Is that it? But it's bizarre. I still have no idea how they manage to. To. To match this. I just don't know how people have managed to. To match it. I think it's. It's. It's magic and genius, but. But is. I don't know. Like, I can't think of another band that were doing this stuff in 94. They had a lot of issues making the album, I think, because of what they were doing. Like, they, like, famously, they. It's Pro Tools in 94. And it would break all the time. There was. There was tape machines that ran and connected, like, samples and other bits and pieces into Pro Tools and it would break like, 20 times a day. So they were constantly, like, raging, apparently, at the. At the tech. But I don't know, I was just thinking of who else was doing like, this, like, you know, that kind of amount of samples and digital stuff at this point in time. Who else was doing that stuff?
Neil27:07 Well, just to bring it back to the manuscript preachers again. They did it for the Holy Bible. Every song had a sample at the beginning from some weird documentary or the Nuremberg trials are just some weird, dark stuff. And they came out within days of each other, I think the album. So.
Chris27:27 Yeah, well, that is true. That is true. I'm trying. Like, it was. It was like, if you go back to 93, 92, I don't know, like, it felt like it was quite new, quite. You know what I mean? It felt like it was pretty cutting edge to do that kind of stuff at that period of time. The other thing, I think they hit me with this record. I loved the industrial scene. Like I said, there was prong and there's like a bunch of those, like Static X and a bunch of others, right, that were kind of doing, like, this U.S. industrial scene. But it was quite gritty, right? It was almost punky in, like, Prong came out of Tommy Victor and CBGB's. And it was like. Had quite a dry. Yeah, got a dry, punky production, but it was industrial, if that makes sense. And that's what the industrial scene kind of was. It was like Ministry and a bunch of others. And it's funny, like, this has got that same undertone to it. It's like, musically, it's a similar kind of industrial stuff, but the production here is radically. It's far more polished. This is a much more polished and produced record than they were. You know, there's. There's like. No. Although it sounds quite menacing, there's no rough edges to it. It's not kind of quite. Do you mean there's bits of. Of the music that is like, unnerving, where it just stops or changes or suddenly changes tone in it, but, like, it's not the stuff you would get from Ministry and from Prong, where there's like bits in there that are just overly dry and a bit kind of like, you know, gnashing. It kind of hurts your ears a little bit. This is super polished.
Neil29:06 See, I kind of disagree. I like the noisiness and the bits that sound unfinished and kind of homemade. But then, I don't know, maybe that's just me. I'm not.
Chris29:19 I quite like. It's not that recording. I just think that it's. I think that this, like, this took that industrial stuff and it, like, with having Flood working on it and it's got that polish to it where it's like. It's refined almost. Do you know what I mean?
Lynsey29:36 It's.
Chris29:36 It's. The production on here is quite grown up. It's got a. You know, if you compare this to what was happening in the US for industrial stuff like that in the industrial US sound was quite harsh sounding. It was quite, you know, quite punky. It's quite. Quite aggressive in. In tone. Whereas this has got like, this.
Lynsey29:57 It.
Chris29:58 You know, like for mid-90s, it's quite a polished sound. Like, for me, this record in 94, this still stands up. It still sounds really nice. The original CD player pressing of this album still sounds really good. But if you go and pick up a lot of that and like. And pick up the early Ministry stuff or even prongs, the cleansing, it's. It's. It actually sounds quite. I don't know, it's just bone dry. It's got this, like, weird. I don't know, almost like, almost empty sound to it, if that makes sense. It's really quite thin. I mean, the bottom end's not heavy. It's not quite. It's not got that same kind of kick and thick, thick thickness to it. The production here, I think, is really cool. I do think that they ruined it, though. I think in that they did that. They did repressings of it in 2017 and I think they kind of messed it up a little bit. This is. I think this album, it. In the 94 version, it's right on the edge for me of, like, being overproduced. Right. It's got these beautiful layers in it. It's got, like, hurts. Incredible. It's got this lovely air to It. And it's lovely kind of atmosphere and lots of this.
Neil31:02 The.
Chris31:03 The album has got this lovely kind of atmospherics to it. It's kind of beautiful. And if you listen to the 19, the. The 2017 remaster of it, it's like just all gone. It's much louder album. All of the quiet passages are just kind of lost in it. And it, like, for me, that's what. I don't know. This. It's almost perfect. This is a 94. It's just got this. I don't know from production perspective. I just think it's. It's like a master classic. And getting it just right. I mean, just loud enough, big thick sound, but like, enough stuff, enough atmosphere, enough quiet bits to make it. Make it work, make it sound cool.
Neil31:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't think about things like that when I'm listening to stuff. I haven't got your technical brain. I just like the noise.
Chris31:55 It's funny. Like, there are bits. There are bits in albums that you just take you away from that, like Hurt is a good example of that on here. For me. Like, I. I think Herbs on this record, it must be. I think it's one of the best songs. I think it's just incredible. And it's. I don't know, it's like. It's. There is something about that that just put. It pulls you out of the real world a little bit and it just. You just kind of go into it. But it's funny. Like the. The remasters and stuff don't do it in quite the same way. And it's like. It's funny. My brain kind of like lights up a little bit with that stuff. And, you know, why, why, why, why. Why does that one sound different? Why. Why does that one having a different effect? Why is it having this? Do you know what I mean? Because it does. It's really weird. It had this. This subtle thing where you like, a good song is a good song, right? And it's. And it's. It's. It's always going to be a good song, but there's just this weird thing where, you know that. That magic where you've got the right producer and the right band and it's recorded at the right time, and it just kind of of, I don't know, just elevate it just takes them to this next level and you don't really realize it, you know, as a fan, you listen to it and you just kind of think, oh, yeah, I really love that.
Neil33:07 Yeah.
Chris33:07 But I don't know. There's something about the magic for me that I kind of get a little bit obsessed with. I get a little bit like, why? Why does it sound as good as it sounds?
Neil33:17 So you're listening to Hurt, thinking about every little noise and how it's recorded. But I just like March at the pigs and Mr. Self Destruct, because they're not noisy and angry and that was me.
Chris33:27 Is that what pulled you into it back then?
Lynsey33:55 It. All the PS are all I know I give you all that you want Take the skin, peel it back now doesn't it make you feel better? So left inside surprise rise Stay inside. All the pigs are all lined up I give you all that you want Take the skin and peel it back doesn't it make you feel better? The pigs have won tonight. They we can all sleep soundly and everything is alright. March of the Pigs has nothing to do with the Tate Murders or anything like that. I'm not gonna tell you what it is about, but it's not about that. The name of the studio being Pig. That was a definite bad taste kind of joke about being there. Because it was. It was written on the front door at one time, I'll admit to that. But. There's no unifying. Pig doesn't mean one thing on that record. The same thing, song to song, even within a song. It means different things.
Chris36:25 What other albums were like that for you that were like kind of noisy and Nirvana?
Neil36:30 I was listening to which one? All. All of them. Although.
Chris36:35 Because, like, Nevermind was pretty different. Nevermind was super polished. That was like super. And it's not noisy. Nevermind is. I don't think noisy. Nevermind for me was very, very poppy. Do you know what I mean? But then, yeah, I don't know. Like the albums before and after were quite noisy, but never. Well, bits of Nevermind are quite noisy, I suppose, aren't they? But it's still really smooth. It's got this lovely. I don't know, but I. Yeah, I don't. We did when we did. Never mind.
Neil37:06 We.
Chris37:06 There were tons of interviews of Kurt Cobain saying how disappointed he was was with it. Like. Like he just didn't like. Like he felt like he'd sold out legitimately. Felt like it. It wasn't noisy enough.
Neil37:17 You know what I mean?
Chris37:18 It felt like they knocked the. That. That ragey noise off it. But I did like in utero and stuff. I think that that's quite. It's quite harsh in places. It's quite a. Quite. That's quite a Cool record. I quite like that.
Neil37:33 It's quite angry as well.
Chris37:34 Yeah, it was. What else.
Neil37:37 What else was I listening to?
Chris37:38 Yeah.
Neil37:38 Metallica. Black Album.
Chris37:40 Yeah.
Neil37:41 Probably the only Metallica album I listened to for a long time.
Chris37:45 Was it Bob Rock's finest work? That is.
Neil37:47 Yes. Yeah. That was my first boyfriend.
Chris37:51 Got me listening to it, that was. Yeah. I don't. They're a weird band, Metallica. Aren't they like that? It's funny, like, when I was young, Metallica. Metallica were quite hard. They were like, you know, kill them all. Then you had, you know, you had kind of Lightning and Master Puppets and stuff. It was quite a heavy metal band. And like now it's like dad rock. It's a proper dad music and it's accepted. You know, you could play Metallica anywhere and everyone's like, oh, yeah, I quite, you know, dead into that. But it wasn't. When I was little, it was. It was. I mean, they. They were like the. I don't know. Music your parents didn't like.
Neil38:28 Yeah.
Chris38:28 Do you know what I mean?
Neil38:29 Yeah.
Chris38:29 And now we are our parents, so. So that's.
Neil38:33 Didn't the fans accuse them of going grunge with Black Album? Yeah, it was probably why I liked it too.
Chris38:40 It was a. It was just a big departure, I think. I think it's funny, like, bands that do that again, we should. We should pull this back to nine. It's Nails a little bit. Because they like Metallic. Every Metallica. Well, a Metallica. As they went from record to record, everyone was a bit different. It's funny, Lightning and Puppets are really similar. Like they. They. You could almost glue. You could have almost. And there's a difference in them. But you could. You could almost glue them together and they end up being similar. A bit like Load and Reload and they've got that, like, similar tone to them. But almost every other album, like Kill Them all was like dirty, punky thrash. It was kind of like, you know, fast. It was, you know, the biscuit tin snare drum sound and then your Lightning and Puppets, which were like. Like bigger and thicker. And justice was this bizarre, like, weird, like where they switched the bass off and it had a bizarre sound. Then you got the Black Album, which was like. It was kind of like aor. It was like a, you know, adult friendly rock. It was. It's a hard rock record, really. And then you had Load and Reload, which carried on down that path. Then you had like Saint Anger, which is just bizarre. That's again, a weird, weird record. And Then you got the band trying to come back from that weirdness and try to figure themselves out. Like Nine Inch Nails are similar. They've got the. There are bits on here. They did. What was that EP they didn't ep which is like really guitari and metaly. That was done after, I think it was done after this, while Trent was still under contract and he didn't want to be under. He wanted to leave.
Neil40:19 Yeah.
Chris40:19 And they wouldn't let him out of his contract.
Neil40:20 Oh, did they record it under a different name or something? Yeah.
Chris40:23 And he was really angry and so, so he kind of went in the studio and recorded this kind of almost like this like guitar. Almost guitar, like industrial kind of track. But like the album before this sounded radically different. And then you've got Spiral, which sounded like. As you know, for me, this is like kind of almost like peak produced industrial music. It's got a real like. It doesn't get much better than this.
Neil40:49 I've never listened to another Nine and Snails album.
Chris40:52 Have you?
Neil40:52 Not the necessary.
Lynsey40:53 Nope.
Chris40:53 What's on your T shirt then? Oh, you got a head like a hole.
Neil40:56 Head like a hole. As made famous by Miley Cyrus in Black Mirror. So that's that. And then the only other song I know is the one that they did for Twin Peaks, the Return.
Chris41:04 Oh God. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Neil41:08 But I do think the Downward Spire was the perfect album.
Chris41:11 So I, I. It's funny, isn't it? And, but they, they changing and it's this, this thing where I was like as fans of a band, you, you get introduced and there's an album that you love and then you want all the albums to be like that.
Neil41:26 Yeah. With it being a concept album as well. It's like its own thing.
Chris41:30 Did you know it was a concept album? Yeah, because I did.
Neil41:32 But you want to know what I thought the concept was? Oh, come on. So when I was listening to it when I was revising for my exams, I was only kind of half listening to it. I never looked into it in any detail. But the song Piggy, I thought it was about Piggy from Lord of the Flies getting his revenge.
Lynsey41:54 Yeah, you. Hey, big piggy. Pig, Pig, pig. All of my fears came true. Black and blue and broken bones you
Neil42:20 left me here I,
Lynsey42:24 little piggy needed something new Nothing can stop me now Cause I don't care anymore Nothing can stop me now now cuz I don't care Nothing can stop me now Cuz I don't care anymore Nothing can stop me now Cuz I just don't care
Neil43:00 hey, pig
Lynsey43:04 Nothing's turning out the way I plan. Hey, pig There's a lot of things I hoped you could help me understand. What am I supposed to do? Still down the last night because of you Nothing can stop me now Cause I don't care anymore Nothing can stop me now Cause I don't care Nothing can stop me now. Cause I don't care any? Nothing can stop me now. Cause I just don't care. Nothing can stop me now Nothing can stop me now Nothing can stop. Nothing can stop me now Nothing can stop me now Nothing can stop me now Nothing can stop me Nothing can stop me now Nothing can stop me now Nothing can stop me Nothing can stop me. Sam, Does Nine Inch Nails exist? Yes, indeed does. Usually in the studio, nine inch channels had been just me, because originally I couldn't find anybody else that was thinking the way I was thinking. I was living in Cleveland, and there wasn't a lot of people thinking the same way. So I could just bitch about it and not do anything or just do it myself. So I tried to do it myself, and then it became kind of fun and got a record deal and did an album and by myself, and then got a band together to kind of play this stuff live because I wanted to make it appear to the public to be a band, because I think it's more interesting. It was something I could hide behind, in a way. And then that band toured for a couple years and. And we just kind of imploded upon each other, and we got sick of each other, and a lot of weird things was happening with the record label that we were on, and we'd gone from being a small little underground band to playing on Lollapalooza and getting big in a strange way where it was uncomfortable.
Chris47:16 Richard Patrick, So his nickname in the band was Piggy.
Neil47:20 Yeah.
Chris47:21 And when he heard the song, he assumed it was about him and he left. During the original sessions for the band, he formed a band called Filter. But like Trent said, it's. You've got nothing to do with him. And it's funny because, like, Pig. Well, because Pig, the word pig was used for all kinds. About the police and about all other kinds of stuff. So. And it was also written on the walls in this. In the house, because the house was the house with the Manson murders were done in. And they were written in. In blood. The people that were murdered, the. They wrote on the walls in their blood. And one of the things was pig. So. But it's funny that how I don't know, like, I think they were almost like. It doesn't come out that strongly in, in the interviews and stuff, but I think Trent was like a one man band. Yes. And I think he was quite difficult to. I think Flood famously said he was really hard to work with. The rest of the band found him difficult to work with. The. The first time they went on tour, from the album before, this was the first time he'd been out with a band and it was chaos, like abject chaos. They were smashing stuff up. Nothing worked. The band were in disarray. I said band, like, you know, so it's, it's like it's not. I don't know. Not unexpected, I suppose, how dysfunctional it became. They were recording at night. It was all done. It doesn't sound any worse for me. Everything was done at night. They're completely isolated. All the windows in the house were blacked up and they were like their own little commune. It's just bizarre, isn't it? I don't know. It made sense a little bit when we did Rolling Stones because they were in Spain and It was like 40 degrees and you think so I kind of get that.
Neil49:18 Yeah.
Chris49:19 But I don't know.
Neil49:21 Trent Reznor just seemed like a little teenage goth.
Chris49:25 Yeah.
Neil49:25 I suppose I was watching the March of the Pigs video and he's just chucking stuff about and then getting flunkies to pick up from.
Chris49:32 Yeah.
Neil49:32 And I just thought, what a teenage boy.
Chris49:35 Yeah, I suppose he's always been like that though, hasn't he? Like his own little. Like he's never had anyone say no at this point.
Neil49:43 Yeah.
Chris49:44 You know, it's all been, it's all been about him and, and I think he's had like a bunch of like people fawning, fawning over him like, like this album. I read that he, he really got stuck. So they, they tried to find somewhere to record. They were originally going to record somewhere else, then went to look at a bunch of houses, found this one. Allegedly didn't know it was where the Manson murders were.
Neil50:10 Don't believe that.
Chris50:11 Until they signed the paperwork. And in there, apparently there was like a, there was like a, a bit in there saying, you know, like, murders have happened here. You know, are you, are you okay with that? And then, and then realized that and then kind of, you know, started to read more about it and other bits and pieces, but like, I don't know. And then they'd got like four songs. Apparently they built the studio, got four songs, it was Christmas and he was with Rick Rubin and said, I'm just gonna get. I'm just gonna get it done. He said, I've had enough. I've kind of really struggling. Got a bit of a brightest block. I don't know where to go. And then Rick Rubin kind of goes on. You need to. You can't do that. You need to keep going until you've got an album that's a crime for people not to hear. And you think, like, me, surrounded by people, because Rick Rubin was part of that, you know, the. The rap movement wasn't. He was kind of big part of Interscope and all that stuff. I mean, you're surrounded by people that are telling you that kind of stuff. And I don't know, like, it must be really difficult because he was strung out on. On drugs. He was, you know, suffering with. With mental health issues and then having the, you know, everybody telling you that you're awesome and then. And then also being under pressure to produce the near. Be. Be creative, but go and do the biggest thing ever. I don't know, it kind of. It makes you wonder why, like, they don't absolutely spiral out of control and go. Go properly nuts earlier on. But. But yeah, it's a. It's a funny. It's a funny thing. It's almost like this album to me, it's like a little time capsule of where he was, you know, this. I think it was a 28, I think, when he recorded, but. But it's like a time capsule of where he was at that point in time. Yeah, but I had no idea it was a concert record like, literally until like this week.
Neil52:11 Really. Yeah.
Chris52:12 Not Claim. And I started to read more about and thinking, oh, yeah, yeah. And then I read that he was like, inspired by the Wall and. David Bowie. I can't remember there. There was a couple of albums that he said. I was really inspired by this concept of, you know, like the arc of somebody's life.
Neil52:32 Yeah.
Chris52:33 And he loved the idea of this kind of, you know, somebody losing everything and what that feels like and how it progresses and stuff like that. And you know, when you hear it, you just like, oh, yeah, that totally makes sense. I get it. I kind of get the concept now. But it's funny, I don't remember had made a thing of that. It was a concept album.
Neil52:49 But really, I do.
Chris52:52 Maybe I was not paying attention.
Neil52:53 I mean, I must have read something at the time, maybe in one of the music magazines or something. But yeah, it's one of the. It's probably when I became aware of what a concept album was from reading about that.
Chris53:07 I. The. The first concept album for me was Queens Reich, Operation Mind Crime. That was the first one I really. I know that was the first one I really got. And I kind of. I knew it was a concept album and I knew what it was about, and the songs all made sense to me. I was like, yeah, that. I get that. Well, there was loads of others that didn't really make sense. Like, I didn't know Dark. Dark side of the Moon was a concept album.
Neil53:34 What's the concept?
Chris53:35 So Dark side of the Moon is birthed to death. So it's like you're bored. Like, it starts with breathing, and then you go all the way through, and then you chasing money, and then eventually time. And then. So it's this big arc. Dark side of the Moon, about birth and life and death, which is really. And then obviously the Wall's a big concept album as well. But it's. It's. It's bizarre, some of them. Like the Wall, you know, is a concept album. Right. I don't know. It's got kind of rammed down your throat that it was a concept album. And I'm sure Darkseid would have been as well at the time, but, like, it was a little bit.
Neil54:10 It.
Chris54:11 That was 1970. 74, was it? I can't remember. 76. Anyway, 75. I'm just gonna keep guessing.
Neil54:19 70 something.
Chris54:19 70 something. So I was only just born then, and I don't remember any of that.
Neil54:24 But I wasn't born.
Chris54:25 But I don't, like. It's funny, this one. I don't remember it being. Yeah, I just don't remember. I remember being talked about. I remember it like he was all over karang and. And the. The various magazines.
Neil54:39 Yeah.
Chris54:39 But famously, NME slated it.
Neil54:41 Really?
Chris54:42 Yeah, they gave it four out of 10. They said it was shocking. I think they just said something like he was a. I don't know, like a. Like, angry little goth boy or something.
Neil54:51 Yeah, yeah, I agree. That's why I liked it.
Chris54:54 Absolutely hated it. But, yeah, I don't know. It's weird. I don't remember. And I was properly shocked when I was like, it's not. You know, when you read it and you're like, no. Then I'm like, oh.
Lynsey55:05 Oh, yeah.
Chris55:06 So it is. But I guess. Do you know, like, are there albums that you missed back here that you've gone back to and then really enjoyed? Because this is like one of them for me. Like, this is. This. There's a Book, like, even the pumpkin stuff, I didn't really get the pumpkins at this. At this point. And then, like, there are. There's a ton of albums I've gone back to and, like, fallen in love with, because you. You know what I mean? But you just missed at the time. Time.
Neil55:32 Yeah.
Chris55:33 Like, is there anything like that for you, this Pearl.
Neil55:35 Jim. I was just a casual listener. I think I had their second and a third album back to back on a tape that somebody's big brother had taped to me or something like that. But of course, it cut off the final few songs. But then it wasn't until maybe 10, 15 years ago I properly started listening to all of their albums.
Chris55:52 Well, things 94, Pearl Jam were massive. They were huge, weren't they? That was. And, like, that kind of guitar music. Music is what this album was born into. And like, again, this is really bizarre. Imagine you were a record company. You wouldn't have wanted this. You'd have wanted another Pearl Jam or Guns N Ro. I mean, everyone was chasing Guns N Roses and grunge was like, you know, Nirvana and stuff with that, but it was all guitar music.
Neil56:17 Yeah.
Chris56:18 Like, no, this. This kind of fell into a world that didn't want it.
Neil56:22 Yeah.
Chris56:22 This album, like, it wasn't a bit electronic as well. Yeah, yeah, there was.
Neil56:27 Who else was doing electronic?
Chris56:29 That's what I was kind of saying at the beginning. Like, that kind of electronic, sampley stuff. You got Manix doing some stuff, but there weren't many. And even I was thinking, like, Ministry and a bunch of others that were doing some. And they were doing some sampley stuff and doing that kind of thing, but no one was doing it in quite the same. The same. Quite the same way. And the other thing, like, if you think about it, like, it's. It's an album that's noisy. Like, all of the stuff that's done really well up to this point in the 90s has been quite melodic or, you know, like the. You know, you'd got stuff like. Well, all the grunge stuff right before that. You know, you've got Guns N Roses kind of just kind of going into the beginning of the 90s. I don't think there wasn't an audience for this. Like, if you, you know, if you were sitting there, you're the A and R person, right? And you're trying to figure out who you're going to sign and where you're going to put your money and investment of a band that's going to suddenly go really big. I'M not sure this is where you'd have put your money.
Neil57:26 You.
Chris57:26 There was some rap. Interscope had all. You know, Dre and Snoop and all of that stuff was going on. A corn were about here, weren't they?
Neil57:33 What about. Would you put Marilyn Manson in the same bracket? Because if they were recording at the same time and. And then maybe Slip Not Falling on.
Chris57:41 Didn't Marilyn Manson record in the same.
Neil57:43 At the same time in the same.
Chris57:44 In the same place? Yeah, but they didn't know it was
Neil57:46 the Manson house, apparently.
Chris57:47 I think they need. I think they knew by then, didn't they? Yeah, I think they definitely think they knew by then. But it was funny, like. Like, at the point they're recording this, I'm not convinced that anyone knew it had the. The scale in it that it had. You know what I mean? It was like, when it released. I'm always shocked with albums like this. There's a few like this. This one, Super Unknown, Iowa, probably as well. And, oh, they always shock me. Like, I like them, but you. Like, there's not a fan. There's not an audience for this. There's not. Like, you know, of all of the people I know, there may be two people that I know would like the same stuff. They like this kind of noisy, like, slightly weird stuff. And yet it sold millions of copies. Like, you just think, who are all these people? Where are all these people that like this stuff? Because you. I don't know. Like, they're not. Take that, are they? They're not. They're not. It's not music that's, like, immediate. It's not. Well, the thing. I don't know, the singles were, I suppose, like, Head Like a Hole was pretty good. Closer was pretty. You know. I mean, there's a bunch of stuff on there that was. Was quite big and immediate, but the album itself wasn't. Well, don't know. Clearly it was. But, like, it doesn't. It feels like an audience. I don't know, it feels like an album without an audience at this point because it's like, it's not Rocky, it's not Pearl Jack, it's not grungy, it's not Guns N Roses. It's, you know, I mean, where. Where's the audience for this? And then, you know, it's not rap. And then it just seemed like it almost created, like it was. It was like, unique. It created its own audience. It kind of came out and I think it was. It was what the world needed, you know. I mean. Yeah, like, it didn't go in chasing a scene that already existed. It almost created the scene and then the.
Neil59:36 The.
Chris59:37 I think off the back of this you, you know, like that scene grew and developed. There's a bunch of bands like Ministry and doing similar stuff, but it seemed to grow like off the back of this. It like that whole, you know, electronic industrial like dark sounding stuff just got bigger than Manson and all. You know. There was this thing that followed after it.
Neil59:57 But we always talk scrunch.
Chris59:59 Yeah. Post Grinch. It's got keyboards in it, but it's got. I don't know, it's. It's got this. You know we. We often talk about that. That point. Like there are albums that you can point to and then a scene kind of came off the back of it. But maybe not immediately but like there. There are bands that built on or. Or were inspired by that one record and then that scene grew. I don't know. I like. So I'm trying to get at is that like did this come from somewhere or. Or is this that Inception? Is. This is Trent Reznor that, that Inception for maybe that industrial stuff and that dark and then the new metal stuff.
Neil1:00:39 It all.
Chris1:00:39 It all kind of was there maybe
Neil1:00:41 German industrial stuff going on.
Chris1:00:43 I don't know. Like I always thought the Ministry with the first through this stuff because there was. You had like Prong and Ministry and Static X. But it all. It all developed and got bigger and bigger and bigger towards the end of the 90s and then. Because then you kind of had that industrial stuff and new metal stuff and it was all kind of, you know, and there was an audience, it was big. And then once you got the audience and the scene was there, then like 10 times more bands appear from nowhere. But like back here in 94. I don't know it feel. It feels like that inception point to me. Whereas that. This was like the nucleus of the scene. Maybe not this out the of album specifically, but definitely probably had a big influence. Yeah, I think so. I think it's. I think this was kind of that. That point where you were going from grunge into what would become, you know, you. You would. It's a bunch of stuff that grew out of it. Like I mean corner around here. But then they. That scene just got bigger and bigger with like bands like Corn and Nine Inch Nails and stuff got. Just got bigger and bigger as the decade went on and then it. Then it all kind of died and I don't know, 2000s or whatever. But it's funny but I think it's coming back.
Neil1:01:56 Do you think?
Chris1:01:57 I do. I played this. I forced my children to listen to this in the car this week.
Neil1:02:02 They'll be traumatized.
Chris1:02:03 They didn't. My eldest, he loves. My eldest loves weird music. And he was like, this is nice. There's no way this was 94. Like, you would not believe me that this came out in 94. My youngest just said it was horrible, but Leo was like, this is this. Said there's no way this is 94. And it's funny, he starts then playing me music that he's listening to right now. And the similarities are just like, you're really, really, really stark. There's this. I think there's this kind of scene developing now where the. The youngsters are. There's definite. There's absolutely, definitely a lot of that kind of digital industrial stuff in there. The back, they're bringing it back. Although I want to bring hair metal back. I miss. I miss the 80s, you know, the shreddy. The kind of. I like. I like the big over the top 80s.
Neil1:02:55 Yeah. Didn't the Darkness try that?
Chris1:02:57 They did, but nobody else really joined in too early. It's coming back. There was just something. I don't know if you look like when the 80s, that. That period of time was just. Everything was just so happy.
Neil1:03:10 Yeah.
Chris1:03:10 Do you know what I mean? No one was crying into their shoes at that point. It was all big, you know, it was just all big and bright and.
Neil1:03:18 Power ballad. You don't get a power ballad anymore.
Chris1:03:20 You don't get power ballads. You know, what been lost. Power ballads, solos. I love a solo. I keep trying to get Chris to do solos, but he's not like, he won't. Every now and then he'll do a solo, but he doesn't. Like, he says he can't do them. Look, look. Look at his little face. Look. He's learned how to. He's learned how to do them now. He's all good. But I think solos are gone and that upset me. Like, Bob Rock made Metallica stop doing solos.
Neil1:03:49 Did he?
Chris1:03:49 Yeah, he did. After. After the Black Hole. I was after Nero St. Anger. It got. Apparently he said it was pastiche to do solos, so they weren't allowed to do solos anyway anymore. Well, I miss solos. I miss. In live gigs. I miss drum solos. Not a long drum solo. Seven minutes max. I quite like. Hey, quite like that. They don't do them anymore.
Neil1:04:15 Good.
Chris1:04:16 I like a bit of a drum solo. Quite nice. You know, something that's like. I don't know not too long. Because you know when they're like, I can't remember who we went to see, who was it? And we went to see somebody and the drum solo was like 20 minutes long.
Neil1:04:32 Yeah.
Chris1:04:33 And that people, you know, people are looking at their watches just like, just stop. But I like that. I like, I like a little bit.
Neil1:04:39 It gives you time to go to the toilet.
Chris1:04:41 Well, yeah, there is that as well. Especially if you're near the front and you've got to get out. But I like. I don't know, I like that celebration of, of. Of musicianship and playing and stuff. I think is quite. Is quite good fun. It's been a bit. I don't know, a bit lost sometimes, but do you know what I mean? I just like if you see Motley Crue. Motley Crue had drum kits rotating upside down and. Do you know what I mean? It's the theater of it and it's the. It's the. I don't know whether we've lost a little bit of that. So it's coming back, I'm convinced.
Lynsey1:05:16 Okay.
Chris1:05:17 And hair metal's on its way back for sure. Definitely. All those solos and stuff and tight pants. I'm taking it back. What are you listening to now? What's your music of choice these days?
Neil1:05:30 Oh, the same music I was listening to in the 90s mostly. I hardly listened to anything post 2000. Maybe idols first Aid Kit is really the only new stuff. Otherwise it's just wall to wall. Pearl Jam and Nirvana and this album as well.
Chris1:05:53 I go through phases. We keep saying we're gonna make Chris keep go through this idea of doing a radio show in Burton. And so I've started to like, create this big list of new music. And there's just some bizarre stuff that
Neil1:06:07 I really think that my daughter's listened to. Sounds like AI. And there's like this fake country stuff. It all sounds like it's been made by AI.
Chris1:06:15 I don't like that. I don't like country music. But like, there's a band called Hotbox that I really like and there's a girl called Tally Spear that we saw this summer and she was really good as well. And I love the Pretty Reckless. I was wondering if they're new or not. They're not really new, but I love to. I think Taylor Momsen's voice I just absolutely adore. And I think their record this year is just. Just epic. So I do like a little bit of that, but I can't. I don't know. It wouldn't sustain me. Do you know what I mean? If I had to survive on just music in the last decade, I think I would struggle, struggle. I like to go back. And do you go back further than stuff as well? Like you. I think you're the same as we are. Like, the 90s is the mainstay, like, for sure.
Neil1:06:59 But then I do like 70s stuff as well. My dad had a great 70s record collection which is now mine. And he's got all the original Fleetwood Mac. He's got Pink Floyd, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Fortune, Those.
Chris1:07:12 Those original. If you've got the original vinyls of that stuff, they're. They're like. Collectors go mad for it. It's. Yeah, it's bizarre really, isn't it? If you think about it, like, so many of them must have been pressed. Like, someone was saying, how many copies of Dark side of the Moon were pressed? And it's like loads. Like, loads and loads. But the ones that were pressed in, like, certain month of a certain year are worth, you know, thousands and thousands. And trying to get. Trying to get copies of some stuff from that era, it's just impossible. You just can't get. You either. Got it. And I think people don't sell it. You know what I mean?
Lynsey1:07:50 They're like.
Neil1:07:50 They'll all have just been sitting in garages for years and years and ruined. Yeah, until vinyl came back in fashion again.
Chris1:07:58 It's very, like. It's funny. I remember me and Dan, we. We went down to London. It was a show in London. We all went down to London and we were coming back and me and Dan were talking about vinyl. We went into rough trade in London. We were. We were poking around and stuff. Um, and on the way back, remember, we were talking about, like, used vinyl being 15 quid, and it was ridiculous paying 15 quid for vinyl. And now they're like 40 quid. 30, 40 quid for. It's mad. I don't. I don't like it at all. And even, like, you know, the. Oh, God, who's got a new. Oh, my brain is gone. Somebody's got an album that's been released and. Oh, God, what was it? Oh, I can't remember. Anyway, there was a. There was a. It was a new album and I looked at it and I thought, I'm gonna get that. And then the. The copy that I wanted is only available in Germany. If you go to this. This special listening event in Germany and you get the vital. Like, you pay like. Like 200 quid to go, and then you get this unique vinyl thing to go.
Neil1:09:11 Yeah.
Chris1:09:12 And then the other copies are like, they do, you know what I mean? They're, they're. There's like a special version for independent record shops. There's a special version for this record shop, special version for that.
Neil1:09:22 And you end up buying 10 different copies of the same album.
Chris1:09:26 I'm too old for that anymore.
Neil1:09:27 But yeah, me too.
Chris1:09:28 There's normally one that you see and you think, I like that. That's really. Yeah, that's really pretty. I want that one. Yeah, I can't get it done like that. And then. Let's not get started about Goo Goo Dolls old vinyl. Just stupid. They're 300 quid for copies of like Superstar Car Wash or A Boy Named Goo. And they're not even like, they're not the release. It's the View, the Pink or the Dark side of the Moon. The one everybody wants is the ones that were released that like, they did like a six month run when it was first released. That's the one that everybody desperately for. I think I can kind of get behind that. Like, I kind of get it. It's like it was released at the time. It's something that somebody might have had or, you know, it's, it's, you know. But the, the Goo Goo Dolls ones weren't. They were released, they were remastered in 2017 and they were never released outside of that. And they were never released outside of the US market. And rather than redo them, they just leave them. So the second hand market is mad. Don't like it. Don't like that. The other thing I don't like. While we're talking about things we don't like.
Neil1:10:30 I've got a list of things you don't like.
Chris1:10:31 Have you.
Neil1:10:31 Backpacks.
Chris1:10:32 Don't like backpacks now. I don't like people who wear backpacks or backpacks. That's not good.
Neil1:10:37 Or water.
Chris1:10:37 I don't like big water bottles.
Neil1:10:39 Yes. Oh, I thought you did like. No, that was in the. Okay.
Chris1:10:42 I like, I don't mind a water bottle, but it's when you've got like four liters, right? And it's always girls and they're always like, the water bottle's bigger than they are. Do you know what I mean? There's massive like. And it's always got a stupid straw in it. And you're like, what is. How many people do you need to like hydrate from this thing? I don't like that. I don't. And I don't like. Like this album is A good example. What things I don't like. I'm gonna. I'm wheezing. Look, you see? See, look. You see this album. This is on Apple Music. There's only one version, right? There's only one version of this album, and it's not the version I want. This is the remastered, squashed version, and I want the original version on CD.
Neil1:11:28 That's what CDs are for, then.
Chris1:11:30 Yeah, well, exactly, exactly, people, exactly. But, like, I don't. Chris was telling me that the reason they do it is after 30. Is it 30 years, Chris, that, like, the music loses its. Because there's different rights, aren't there? There's the recording right, and there's the songwriting right. And the recording right, lasts for something like 30 years.
Neil1:11:54 So that's why they can mess about with it.
Chris1:11:56 Yeah. So if you don't redo it again, it all kind of almost loses it. Like, you lose the rights to it or whatever, but. Annoys me. Like, I want to go on to Apple Music and I kind of. If you're listening Apple, just give us. Me. Just give me, like, a little drop down at the top and go. There's four versions of this. You listen to whichever one you want because they change it and they remove it. And there's other stuff as well, like as bands lose the rights for things like the Almighty, one of my favorite Almighty albums, like, about a quarter of the songs on it are missing because they're in a rights battle with the record label over who owns it, so they've removed. It's funny, like, if you're in the us, you can listen to it, but if you're in the uk, you can't listen to it, even though they're a British band. And I just don't like that at all.
Neil1:12:46 That's like in the Twin Peaks, the Return soundtrack, the one missing off it is Eddie Vedder, like, the best track.
Chris1:12:52 Oh, yeah.
Neil1:12:52 There must be some weird copyright thing.
Chris1:12:55 That reminds me of. Do you ever watch the Wonder Years?
Neil1:13:01 Yes.
Chris1:13:02 Like the Sound. Have you ever wondered why you can't buy it like this? It's not on dvd. You can't. If you ever. If you like. If you want to watch it. Yeah.
Neil1:13:10 I mean, I've not seen it since the early 90s.
Chris1:13:12 Yeah. You can't buy it anywhere. The only time you'll see it is people that have literally recorded it off the TV and then put it onto whatever. And the reason is the sound soundtrack. And they never got approval for the music. And it's full.
Neil1:13:28 That Makes sense.
Chris1:13:28 It's full of these like incredible songs from the time. I think it was like the seventies, wasn't it?
Neil1:13:34 Like.
Chris1:13:34 Yeah, it was full of these absolutely amazing. It's amazing music from the time and they just can't get it. They just, just like the people are dead or whatever and they can't get hold of the rights to the music that they used, so they can't, can't release it. And it's. I don't know, I could get it. Like you don't want to be just like using people's music and stuff. But I don't know, it feels a bit. Feels a bit weird. Yeah, just release it. Just do it.
Neil1:14:03 They're dead.
Chris1:14:04 They're not going to come back from. Well, it's always somebody. It's always somebody's auntie, isn't it? It's like somebody's like long lost auntie
Neil1:14:10 that comes after you controlling the estate.
Chris1:14:13 A bit bizarre, but it's funny how music gets involved in that, in that stuff and how. I don't know, like how interwoven it is. There's tons of things as well where we've. We've been doing this show and the like, the, like some albums, like when we do the blog, I always go and look where, like where the album's been used. Do you know what I mean? Like where the soundtrack has been used. And it's funny like some, like this has been used. I did a thing, I did a table on this one. Downward spiral. If I go down to my. Oh God, it's too long. This blog. Where's the. Oh, well, there it is. So it was used in. This was used in seven.
Neil1:15:09 Yes, that makes sense.
Chris1:15:12 Kyle Copen. Kyle Cooper's opening titles run to Coyle and Danny Hyde's closer, Logan 2016. The trailer used Johnny Cash's Hurt, Rick and Morty. The season two finale plays her over. Rick Surrender and then Rock Band and Fortnite Festival. You might, you might have. Are you familiar with these things? Fortnite Festival and stuff? No, my kids do. They love all this stuff but they're like, like big online events in games and then they'll have musicians and stuff will come and there's like the Avatars play and they'll do music and stuff. But this was used in there as well. And I don't know, like for me, this like Trent Reznor, he was like a bit of a techno weirdo, right? He was kind of ahead of his time a little bit and I think really understood that. You that if you can, like, get resonation. If you can get your song used in different areas that. That match the. The tone of your music, it really resonates. There are bands that just absolutely vetoed it for years and years and years. I think Pink Floyd were like that. I think. Oh, I'm trying to think of others that. There's a few. There's a few others that are literally just. Just like prints was famously. Just wouldn't let anybody use their music at all. Like, it was just a flat. No, there's like, you know, can I use this? No, no, just absolutely flat. No, famously. Prince allowed his stuff to be used for Stranger Things, though, you know, at the end. Like, at the end of. Yeah, at the end of the. The Stranger Things. I don't know how many series or four or five. It was at the end of the last season. They allowed it, but he apparently only got allowed because Kate. They allowed Kate. Kate Bush allowed her song on it. And it. And it absolutely reignited and it went back in the charts. And so they were kind of saying, look, actually, we can, you know, we'll do you a solid. You know, I mean, actually, you should pay us for it. But it's funny, I, Like, I. I don't know. Like. I think Trent is like, as much as. He's like a, you know, a weird little goth, right? I think he's quite. I think he's quite switched on. I mean, all that. I kind of get the feeling he knows exactly what he's doing. Like, there's no. I don't know, like, it's. It's not. You know, some bands you feel like. Like when you hear. I remember listening to an interview by Poison and they. They. They were just like, we. That we. We could do one thing, but we only did one thing. We only did one sound. We only write one type of song. And we only looked like. That's the way we looked. Like, we. People always said, oh, you know, you were trying to fit in a problem. But that's.
Neil1:18:06 That.
Chris1:18:06 That's genuinely what we look. So all our mates look like. That's what we did. And we couldn't do anything else. And so that was either going to be successful or it wasn't like there was. There was no like, in that early day. It wasn't like, you know, have got a master plan. I mean, I've got. I. I know I've got a business plan. This is how we're gonna do it. You know, it's just. That's what we were. And luckily this. That scene and that time took off and like, took us with it. Like, I get the feeling that Trent almost had a business plan. I mean, I get the feeling he kind of almost had a. This is how this is going to be. This is what I'm gonna do. This. I think this is going to work. This is. You know. And like, I. I don't know. I get the feeling that the cogs in his brain were properly. Do you know what I mean?
Neil1:18:47 You can see how it was used in sort of horror movies. That unsettling vibe. So maybe that was his idea. Maybe he always wanted to do film music. That's what he's doing now.
Chris1:18:58 It's funny, isn't it? Because it is like if you. If you take away some of the heavy bits in this album, it's horror movie.
Neil1:19:06 Yes.
Chris1:19:07 It's, it's. It's. It's set in that scene. It's making you feel like even without. Like you just close your eyes.
Lynsey1:19:13 Eyes.
Chris1:19:14 It makes you feel uneasy. Even without any context to it. It's just all the things that kind of, you know, like Ridley Scott was really good at, I think in Alien. Just these, like. I don't know, like I made. I forced my kids to watch Alien. And it's really weird. Like they're like going, I'm really scared. But I don't know why. Do you know what I mean? There's like. But every scene, there's. And it's the. The music and the atmosphere and the way it's all kind of positioned and the way it. Like the cameras sometimes in really tight so you don't, like, you don't get the context of what's going on and you're like. And that's. You know, the jump scares come and. And it's like. I don't know, like there is a huge amount of that in this record where the.
Lynsey1:19:53 The
Chris1:19:55 like not the melody. Not that, you know, the kind of. The big heavy bits of the songs but the. You know, the kind of building bits or the quiet bits that you could. They could be taken straight out of the like 80s or 90s horror stuff.
Neil1:20:09 Yeah, definitely.
Chris1:20:09 I do love all that I do I do love all that I
Lynsey1:20:16 hurt myself today to see if I still feel I focus on of pain the only thing that's real the needle is
Chris1:20:42 a whole life
Lynsey1:20:45 the old familiar st. Try to kill it all away But I remember everything. What have I become? My sweetest friend Everyone I know Goes away in the end you could have it all
Neil1:21:58 My empire of darts
Chris1:22:04 I
Lynsey1:22:04 will let you down. I will make you her. I wear this crown of upon my life. Full of broken thoughts I cannot repair. Beneath the stains of time the feelings disappear. You are someone else.
Chris1:23:10 I am still right here.
Lynsey1:23:16 What have I become?
Chris1:23:23 My sweetest friend?
Lynsey1:23:29 Everyone I know goes away in the end you could have it all. My empire dust. I will let you, I will make you hurt. If I could start again a million miles away I would keep myself sa. Well, the idea of nothing. My record label is basically just a shell for Nine Inch Nails to operate within. And again, coming from a bad situation of not being entrusted to any creative decision that regards your own music or anything else, and understanding the oppression and the terrible mindset that you get into in the very unconstructive ways you have to just deal with. You know, I have an idea. But to get it out, you have to filter it through a bunch of idiots that you don't respect and they don't respect you. And it's a nightmare coming from that. We became very self contained. And that probably added to my reputation of being control freak or megalomaniac or whatever it is. But when we got our new deal with Interstate, we just made it clear we know what we want to do. Just let us do it. No offense, I don't even know who works for you. The company is probably pretty good and we have since found out that it is excellent. But we went into it with a very clear mindset. If we know what we want, let us do it. Give us a chunk of money, we'll give you a finished album with artwork, with singles, with videos. And you don't have to worry about us. We'll take care of ourselves.
Chris1:26:55 Should we do some facts?
Neil1:26:56 Facts? Yes, please.
Chris1:26:58 I'm going to give some facts. These are from our blog and they're, they're facts. So I'm going to give you them. So the door from the studio, the pig studio, that, the house that they, that they worked in to record this record. Trent famously, at the end of the period, they weren't there very long. At the end of the period of that he moved and stole the door
Neil1:27:28 as you do and then put that
Chris1:27:30 door on the new studio and it was sold at auction in 2023. Do you know how much it sold for? $127,000 for a door. And I bet it's got nothing to do. The reason they wanted that door was nothing to do with this album. I bet it was all to do with the fact it was the Manson murders. The other thing is not in the facts list, but something that I just think is a fascinating story. They were told not to be in the house on the anniversary of the Manson murder. So they were advised just, you know, don't be there. So the band just did one. It just disappeared for a couple of days and when they came back, it was just. There were just flowers everywhere and like weird stuff, like daubed and scratched into the ground. It was just like mad. And it was this mixture of people that were. Were like genuinely, like upset by the whole thing and wanted to kind of, you know, the sympathy and empathy for the event. And then those that were still, you know, like obsessed with the cult that surrounded it and it was just mad. But it's funny in a way, like it prop for me that properly fits the band's culture, you know, like. Yeah, do you know what I mean? This, like, the way Trent was, the way the band were, the way they were operating, that chaos. It just all fits to me. Like, you know, like, can you imagine, like Coldplay haphazardly finding themselves in a house where there were murders and stuff? They'd be out of there in a heartbeat. They'd be like, no, no, no, no, we're gone. And like, you know, Trent is like, nah. Yeah, that's right.
Neil1:29:09 They knew what they were doing.
Chris1:29:10 Yeah, I think you might be right. On the second Nights of Nothing show in 1996, Richard Patrick rejoined for Head, like a horror whole three years after leaving to form Filter. I quite like Filter. They were in that. They were in that US Radio rock. They've got that kind of like heavy, heavy radio rock sound to them, I don't think.
Neil1:29:31 Quite cool.
Chris1:29:32 Put them on on your drive back to. To Edinburgh. You should. You should have a chill out to Filter. They're quite cool if you like that kind of American stuff. The base on the Becoming is a prototype Oberheim move. Moog. Moog. Do they say Moog or Moog? They always say Moog. Like whenever you hear, you know, keyboard keyboardists, they always say Moog, don't they? I don't know what. Anyway, Lent by Rezna's repairman, Richard Bug. The project for that was scrapped. Lee heard Hurt at A and M, demanded a cassette and marched everyone to a strip club across the street where he played it on the sound system. I can't imagine, like, Hurt's not a song that I think should be played in a single strip club. It doesn't feel that. It doesn't feel at the right vibe.
Neil1:30:15 You can't really dance to it.
Chris1:30:16 It's like snuff, isn't it? It's like slipknot. Snuff is not a song I would expect to hear. There are other songs that would perhaps be good in a strip club. That's not one of them. So bit bizarre. Marilyn Manson recorded parts of his debut, Portrait of an American Family at the same studio, Lepig in 1992. Like you say, that was all done at the time. Same, same. All done at the same time. There is absolutely no way, like, I don't know, there's no way that that the. The influences and all of the stuff there didn't obviously mean. Quite clearly went into naming.
Neil1:30:50 Yeah.
Chris1:30:51 Naming his stuff. But I kind of buy that they didn't know it was that house when they picked it. But I think that would have gone as far as to when they signed it.
Neil1:31:02 You know what I mean?
Chris1:31:04 So I kind of buy that, you know. Yeah, that one looks okay. But I don't buy that they didn't know.
Neil1:31:12 But the house wasn't already a recording studio.
Chris1:31:15 No.
Neil1:31:15 So why else would they pick it?
Chris1:31:18 I don't know. Apparently the rumor is they looked at 15 houses in one day, they literally got off the plane, whizzed around and I would imagine pick the biggest one with space and whatever. I don't know. Cheapest. But, I mean, it would have been cheap, right? I would imagine. But which is. Which is. Yeah. Anyway, Nine Inch Nails also recorded Broken at the house and filmed the Gave up video there. The gay. If you watch the Gave up video, that's the Pig Studio. That is the. If you. If you watch that video, that's the Pig Studio inside the house, which doesn't exist anymore. It was. It was bulldozed down. The first Australian CD had index error. So late tracks selected individually started up to 41 seconds early. Although the album played correctly straight through. So if you play. We talked about this loads, actually, is that. And the kids won't get this. But CDs were brilliant for, like, hidden tracks.
Neil1:32:12 Yes.
Chris1:32:13 Whereas, like today, like on vinyl, before that, vinyl was all about playing backwards. Do you know what I mean? I remember, like, it was when I was a kid, like the teenagers when I was younger, they were all obsessed with. Blessed with like, dragging records backwards and hearing the devil. For us, it was about hidden music in. In CDs and like, you would. You would play it all the way through. And there's some of them that we've talked about where, like, the album plays through straight end to end. And to get to the Hidden track. You almost have to like get to like track seven and then skip back.
Neil1:32:42 Oh yeah, yeah.
Chris1:32:43 Or fast forward or skip back. I love that. We lost that a little bit, haven't we?
Neil1:32:48 You can't have hidden fun discovering a new one.
Chris1:32:52 It's brilliant. Skunk and Anti had cool stuff. I did a load.
Neil1:32:55 Yeah, I remember.
Chris1:32:57 Yeah, loads. I don't know. It was cool. I liked that. I think, I think I do like CDs. I don't know whether I've told the story on the show yet, but my mate Jake, he's 23 and he's big F1 fan. So we go and do F1 things together. And him and my youngest Barney, we went into F1 Arcade in Birmingham and I took my car. Car which doesn't have. It's got a CD player in it and that's it all it's got. And he horror on his face when we got in the car and Barney asked him which CD he'd like to play. He'd genuinely never seen a CD at 23. Could you believe that? Never seen it.
Neil1:33:36 I could. I don't.
Chris1:33:36 Never seen a compact disc I've ever played them. Would not believe that that's where the music came from. Like genuinely. He was like, so. But there's no, there's no Bluetooth. It's not on your phone. It's not Bluetooth.
Neil1:33:47 Me. My daughter who's 21 recently watched this Life. Do you remember it from the 90s? It's on iPlayer now. And I had to explain to her things like putting an advert in a newspaper, phoning up to do it and leaving a message.
Lynsey1:34:00 Wow.
Chris1:34:02 Yeah, good times.
Neil1:34:04 But she loved it.
Chris1:34:05 Good times. In 2009, Apple rejected a 9 inch nailed iPhone app over objectionable content in the title track. Then they reversed their decision days after without explanation. This was a weird time for Apple. They like the App Store would have just launched because the iPhone launched without an app store. And Apple were coming to terms with being this like two headed beast, right? You had Apple computers and they were. Apple as an organization were always quite clean. It's very squeaky clean. Really obsessed with doing the right things. It was all about, you know, the environment back then. It was about doing the right thing for the environment, doing the right things for people, you know, really, really squeaky clean. I mean you're really defensive about their, their image which if you think about other computer companies at the time, it wasn't about that. They didn't really have the same, like the same kind of Same kind of image. And then Apple got involved in music. So with itunes and other bits and pieces. So there were like these two. Two huge parts of the same organization. One, cool down with the kids, itunes, music, music studios, all of that kind of stuff. And then the computer company and they would. They would. That corporate and music bit clashed. They were clashing here. They were figuring out how to deal with it. And you saw weird stuff happening in that. In that business around this time. I think, bizarrely, I think they're an organization that is like, look, because they're cool, right? Apple, like, it's a cool organization. They seem to have managed to, like, adopt that and music and all the cool things about music, like, without being tarnished by it, if that makes sense. You know, I mean, without, like, being criticized for what an artist has done or said or whatever. So obviously figured it out along the way, but they were having a bumpy time back then. The Closer to God single are titled Closer to God. So. But the track is actually called Closer. So on the singles, you know, the. And again, the kids won't remember this stuff, but they used to go. Used to go and buy a single.
Neil1:36:24 Yeah.
Chris1:36:24 With like two songs or three songs on it. And they were called Closer to God, but on the album. And the actual track was called closer. And in 2015, the clothing brand Nice Collective sold replicas of the boots that Rezna wears in the March of the Pigs video. Have you got a pair of them?
Neil1:36:43 Probably.
Chris1:36:44 I like big boots, Chris.
Neil1:36:46 I would have wanted them in the 90s.
Chris1:36:49 Chris likes boots. Chris has more pairs of boots than he can wear. He does like a pair of boots. I always like the story about him sending boots off to be repaired and then forgetting about them, just leaving them, waiting for them to come back, which I quite liked. And that is. Is it really. We didn't really do that much in the way of, like, detailed facts on this album. There's a couple of things that I think are interesting, though. One is that it's got 14 tracks and it's 65 minutes long, which is too long for an album, but it doesn't feel it for me. This is one that doesn't feel 65 minutes long. It's. This is. I get kind of absorbed into this really quickly. There's, like. It's funny. Like, obviously Chris loves melancholy. I find melancholy really hard work. There are bits of melancholy that I absolutely love as an album. It's like a tomb of work that's just too big for me to deal with. I can't like it's too much to cope with. But, like, there are. There are songs. There are like bits of songs. There's stuff in there that I absolutely adore. This is funny because I like. This doesn't feel like I like this album end to end. This is an album that I'll put on and I listen all the way through and I won't skip. I won't jump to various bits.
Neil1:38:08 You couldn't with a concept album, surely. I don't know.
Chris1:38:12 I don't know. Because I do with Darks. I do with Dark side of the Moon. I know. I know people will be like, screaming, but I do with Dark side. Like, dark side. I do all the time with that. Like, I'll just put. I'll just put on. There's that side. That is it. I think it ends with Great Gig in the sky. And that's what that. When I'm. Whenever I get the record out, that's. I just put on that side. I never play. Well, not that I never play the other side, but I mean, I always. It's my. That's my favorite side and I put that on this. This would drive me mad on vinyl because I'd want a one and I. And I. I don't like having to change.
Neil1:38:45 The first side is definitely the best.
Chris1:38:47 Yeah, it. It's funny, like, Hurts my favorite on this. And then, like. Let's talk about your favorite.
Neil1:38:53 Where are your.
Chris1:38:54 Where are your favourites on this, then? That's the track list.
Neil1:38:56 Look up to Ruiner. See, I listen to it when I'm walking to work, which takes half an hour. Takes me up to Ruiner. So the second half I've listened to much less. I don't know as well.
Chris1:39:10 Yeah, Heresy's the one for me. Heresy's always the one that stands out in the beginning.
Neil1:39:18 March of the Pigs for me.
Chris1:39:19 I do. I like both of those two, actually. I love both of those. They're both quite short.
Neil1:39:23 Yeah.
Chris1:39:23 And I absolutely love that. And then at the end, I quite like you. Razor and Reptile and Downward Spiral and her. I like that last. That last four. But it's funny, but it is an album that. I don't know. It's an album that I put on and I kind of like, this is the next hour. You know, I'm. I'm probably not going to switch this. I'm not going to stop unless somebody irritates me and makes me do something that I don't want to do. It's properly like this. I'm. This. I'M putting it on the next hour and I'm not going to do it. Where there are others that I'll dip in and out. There's a lot of albums that I'll dip in and out of. I've been listening to a lot of Linkin park lately and again, their albums, I'm quite happy to dip in and out of my favorite bits.
Neil1:40:04 Yeah.
Chris1:40:05 But. Yeah, I don't know, It's. It's a weird one. Didn't peak in a number one one, so. Peaked at number two in the us, number nine in the uk. Other notable charts, it was number eight in Scotland. I didn't know Scotland had their own charts.
Neil1:40:21 Neither did I. I saw that in your blog and I had no idea. And if. If they did, I would have thought it's all just Simple Minds.
Chris1:40:28 And isn't that what just happened? You just. You all just listen to Simple Minds in Scotland? Is that what it is? The Almighty are my favorite Scottish band. I love the Almighty. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Neil1:40:40 Basically, rollers. We listen to them and that's about it.
Chris1:40:43 Did you see that map? Have you seen that? I'm gonna. Like. Lindsay and I was gonna have a chat now. Most famous bands in UK counties. There was a map.
Neil1:40:56 Oh, yeah, I think I had.
Chris1:40:57 Oh, it didn't. It doesn't cover Scotland.
Neil1:41:01 Yeah, there is one. There is one that's got Scotland. Yeah. But it's just. There's not many, like.
Chris1:41:08 So. So here we are. Like. It doesn't. It doesn't. This is going to be the worst, like, podcast TV ever. But there are bits in here that I think are really. I don't know, really, really quite cool.
Neil1:41:16 Yeah.
Chris1:41:17 Like. Like Norfolk is Beth Orton, where we are in Leicester, it's Kasabian. Just north of us is the Struts Def Leppard in Sheffield, look. Oasis, Manchester.
Neil1:41:30 Yeah.
Chris1:41:31 And then Liverpool, the Beatles. Tony goes as north as. That's just. That's just on the border where you are. That's. That's just on the.
Neil1:41:37 I'm sure I've seen one that's got Scotland as well.
Chris1:41:40 China Drum, Spooky Tooth, prefab sprout. Shed 7. Is that.
Neil1:41:43 That's a lot of Shed 7.
Chris1:41:47 Don't get spoken about enough. Shed 7. Who was that band that we did the. You know, we went to that thing, Chris, up north and we. We had. We. We ate refreshers with that bass player. Was it the Farm? That was surreal. Absolutely surreal. We got to a festival. Chris was playing, a band were playing and we, We. I mean, we're late or. We're either really late or really early. I can't remember. And we get there, we go in and then people do. You know when people are just like, nodding, going, you're right. Yeah, all right. And then they were like, you're here for the gig. And we're like, yeah, for the gig. And then. Oh, just. Just sit here. And it was in the green room. And in the green room there was just like this massive white bucket of refreshers. So we just. We just sat for, like, half an hour, like, quite completely silent, just. Just doing our own thing. Steam refreshers. And then eventually someone came and went, what are you doing in here? Look, there's like a massive hog roast. And, like, there's a massive. All of this. Everyone's down there. And then we turn around and walk down to this house and there's like 100 people in this, like, where everybody. Everybody's supposed to be. And we were just sitting in silence.
Lynsey1:42:54 Just.
Neil1:42:55 With foam coming out your mouth from the refreshers.
Chris1:42:58 It's like 10 kg worth of refreshes with the bases from the farm. Just sitting there. Just like. He was just sitting there quietly. We were sitting there. It was wreck. Was it Rec Rock. Yeah, it was really good. That was. I enjoyed that. It was really good.
Neil1:43:11 Laugh.
Chris1:43:13 Anyway, there we go. And I noticed James Blunt there and I like. I've been watching the Traitors and James Blunt and I like James. I don't like his music, but I like him. Do you know there are, like, people you. I know. Yeah, I do. I like him on social medias, but I'm not a huge fan of his music, if I'm honest. And that's it. That's it for. That's everything I've got every. That's everything I know about this album. What should we do next, Linds? What should we. Where should we go? I like the 90s. I like this period of time. It made me really tempted to go and do something from Ministry or, like, what else was around this time that we've not done yet?
Neil1:43:50 You've done hall, haven't you?
Chris1:43:52 Yeah, we've done whole. Yeah. That was a good album, actually.
Neil1:43:57 Yeah.
Lynsey1:43:57 Oh.
Chris1:43:58 Do you know what? Suddenly given me a thought. I bet we can't do this, though. I want to do the Distillers sing. Sing Death House. Or I'd rather wait and do Coral Fang, to be honest. Honest. We'll figure it out later. I'm very tempted. I'm very tempted to do something in that. In that era. I never. I never know whether to say era or error. Is there anything else? What else could we do?
Neil1:44:23 What about Lord and reload together?
Chris1:44:29 For me, I'm basically gonna. I don't like either of those. It's a bit harsh, I think, but I don't. They're not my kind, I don't know.
Neil1:44:37 Do you like Saint Anger?
Chris1:44:38 No.
Neil1:44:38 No. Didn't think you would.
Chris1:44:41 I kind of finished with Metallic. Well, I say finish with Metallica. Metallica for me, kind of ended around for that era. That. That era ended in puppets. I did. I like. And justice was okay, but I wasn't, like, a massive fan of it. And then the Black Album, Load, Reload, St. Anger, they kind of bite In Anger. They'd lost me completely. I was, like, absolutely out of it.
Neil1:45:02 I feel like that about the Manics a bit. I don't listen to them anymore. I don't. Their new stuff.
Chris1:45:06 I'm back in, like, death magnetic, hardwired, 72 seasons. I'm back in a little bit. I'm kind of okay. I'm right back in.
Neil1:45:14 You'll think about it and then you'll do something that you haven't mentioned at all,
Chris1:45:19 have you? Have you. You. You feel like you've been on before. Anyway, I think we could. So thanks for coming.
Neil1:45:29 Thanks for having me. It's a bit fun.
Chris1:45:30 It's pleasure. And. Yeah, we'll go. Well. Yeah, that's it.

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