NIN: Nine Inch Nails (Paperback)

~ Tommy Udo (Author) "He is the electric Lord Byron, the dark Orpheus and the technological Luciferian..." (more)
Key Phrases: pretty hate machine, industrial bands, industrial music, Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor, Marilyn Manson (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

By popularizing electronic music, Grammy Award winning artist Trent Reznor rewired the mainstream with his act Nine Inch Nails.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Sanctuary Publishing (October 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1860744141
• ISBN-13: 978-1860744143
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,465,828 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars More about things NIN related, then actually about NIN, April 1, 2003

By	J-po (Grand Forks, ND United States) - See all my reviews

I bought this book in my continual search for information on my favorite band, Nine Inch Nails. And this book certainly had a lot of information to provide me with. However, the format used almost got to the point of being annoying.

What this book does it introduce a subject (the production of Pretty Hate Machine for example), mention that it heavily used synthesizers, then go into the history of synthesizers. After 2 pages, then it gets back to the topic at hand. And while sometimes I was intrigued by the information provided (say, for FLOOD), most times it was something that either didn't need to be mentioned in a book about Trent Reznor, or could be in a book about the industrial music movement.

I used the same method in my senior composition class to pad papers, but in this case it wasn't warranted.

Come to think of it, the book tries at times to be an all encompassing encyclopedia of industrial music, which isn't why I bought it at all. I suppose I'm more knowledgeable about it because of the information provided, but it wasn't by choice.

The information about NIN is fascinating, and ends with the recording of their live album "And All That Could Have Been." Overall, I liked the book, but could have lived without the extraneous information about everything under the sun.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, yet get more information, March 3, 2003

By	gab (Fresno, CA USA) - See all my reviews

I wouldn't say I am a fanatic Nin fan but a really really big fan. Tommy Udo wrote a great book it gives a lot of good information and goes over the history pretty well. But He made a mistake. There is a part in one of the first chapters where he is explaing the albums. And he said that the Live Album was called And All That Might Have Been. When in fact it is titled And All That Could Have Been. And he takes quotes out of context. Where one time he says that Trent Said. "I see that I am saving Rock n' Roll. billy Corgan failed, now it's all up to me." He said that in this context "people are saying that I see that I am saving Rock n' Roll, Billy Corgan Failed, so it's up to me whenI really don't ever like Rock that much". Great book though, he just needs to leave thigns the way they are.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Parts of it may bug the hell out of you, January 2, 2007

By	Stefan Isaksson "www.stefanisaksson.se" (Malmoe, Sweden) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Nine Inch Nails is Tommy Udo's biography about the band with the same name and its founder Trent Reznor, beginning with the birth of electronic music long before Mr. Reznor came along, his musical trials and errors before the release of Pretty Hate Machine, all the way up to double album The Fragile and DVD And All That Might Have Been which came out a few years ago. Udo himself is a fan, which isn't much of a surprise, I guess. Still, he's not a fanatic, but rather is of the opinion that Reznor and his ideas have had such an important part in the history of music that he deserves to have a book written about him.

And he's right, of course. One may love or hate Reznor's contributions to the world of music, but no one can dispute the fact that he's had an enormous impact and has been, and still is, a huge influence on countless musicians all over the world.

Still, Nine Inch Nails feels more like a summary than a biography.

Reznor isn't the one with the longest career in the music business, but throughout the 232 pages of the book Udo nonetheless fails to get into any kind of depth when it comes to Reznor and his music. In all fairness it should be mentioned that Udo never claims to have written the ultimate biography, which is quite fortunate, because then the end result would have been truly horrible, instead of how it is right now: semi-bad.

A freakishly large part of the text is made up of quotes from different magazines, and more or less every single one of these quotes have one or more errors or typos that not even an apprentice proof-reader should ever have missed. The continuous use of various quotes do result in one getting the feeling that Udo really doesn't have any personal opinions about Reznor and his music and instead simply relies on what other believe. It really does give the appearance of being the easy way out, and the innumerable typos and grammatical errors soon become a massive nuisance.

Udo might be the most passionate fan out there, but passion doesn't always automatically lead to great results.

is a book that many fans might appreciate, but the lack of depth is sure to piss many people off, too. I wasn't looking for anything but an overview, so to me it was OK. But still far from great.