NIN - The Background World

Nine Inch Nails is clearly a world

renowned band, which is kind surprising considering how heavy and dark a lot of their stuff. I used to not really be into them, in fact for many years I wasn't a big fan, and then one day in high school, I listened to all of The Fragile, and I have been a fan ever since. Trent Reznor really has become an incredible composer, and has created stuff so far from the original industrial roots of NIN, it's hard to even compare a lot of his discography. He has scored films, done weird droney noisey albums, metal stuff, fully electronic songs... Just everything. Pretty impressive.

Listen to The Background World by NIN

This song is from their 2017 EP,

Add Violence, which is really a great little album. This song is absolutely my favorite off of it, and is definitely in my top 5 NIN songs ever. I love the length of it, it just keeps repeating and repeating so you sort of feel like you're in a musical trance. The ending with the ever shortening rest in between repeats is also super cool and strange. The offbeat sort of stutter somehow keeps the groove going, which is a really awesome choice theory wise. I also love his use of parallel major chord, like if we are in Dminor, Reznor will resolve to Dmajor, but continue playing a minor progression.