Music in a new direction, a new mind set.

As many of you may or may not know, I am a huge Nine Inch Nails fan. And as I am sitting here typing this blog, 14 days before the offical release of the new album Year Zero, I am listening to it via a live stream on their site.

Now for those of you that haven not been following along with the announcement of the new NIN album, here's a bit of the backstory. Back in Decemeber 2006/January 2007 (maybe even further back than that), small tidbits were released about the album and as the days and weeks rolled along, so did the information. Then clues to the album started appearing on T-shirts sold at the European concerts. The clues on the shirts lead to these obscure websites, phone numbers, voicemail message, and more cryptic messages. And as the clues continued to surface via USB flash drives with "leaks" of songs and photos, the concept became clearer. To date the story of the album, for the album is that its about a near apocalyptic world/society to which it faces it humanity and its end. The album presents a bleek and disturbing world of lost identity, individuality, and simple human morality.

In short, the way our world maybe headed.

And as I sit here listening to the entire album for the first time, I have never been so impressed and flabberghasted by an artist such as Reznor. This album as a whole is a solid achievement to his creativity, durablity as an artist and his true devotion to music as an art form. Year Zero is absolutely NOTHING like any of he previous works. New sounds, new textures, and a whole new feel to the music itself. Each song is literally different in all aspects. It stands on its own as single sold bold piece of art for ears but at the same time it has brought to the forefront a message of warning, of caution. And the message it conveys really makes me think about how the our society is head towards. Heady I know.

I have to say I never been so excited about music until now.

So please, go take a listen if you have a curiousity to scratch. I can't guarantee you will like it but it will at least be interesting for you.