cdm72's Full Review: Ghosts I-IV [Digipak] by Nine Inch Nails
The most frequent question asked of a writer--immediately after “Do you make a lot of money at that?”--is “Where do you get your ideas?” And it’s the easiest question in the world to answer, for writers, but the most difficult to understand for a non-writer. We just get them. We get ideas from everywhere. Overheard conversations, lines in a song, the feeling a particular place gives you, a stray thought that turns into something else, the way the light shines on an object at a certain time of day, the ideas can, and do, come from literally everywhere. But that’s a story, or a novel, or a poem.
Sometimes, though, you hear a song and wonder “Where’d that come from?” That was my first impression upon hearing Halo 26: Ghosts I-IV: “Where did Reznor get his ideas?” If a song has lyrics, you can usually guess what feeling or incident inspired it, but for an album of instrumental tracks . . . where does he get his ideas? What must it be like to peek into the head of a musician, just for a day?
Originally announced and released in March of 2008, Halo 26 marks the first NIN release after the fulfillment of Reznor’s contract with Interscope Records and the beginning of the NIN marketing juggernaut. Before the album was even available in stores, fans had free access to it, in a variety of different formats. You could download the first 9 tracks for free, download the entire album for $5, or order the Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition for $300. Halo 26 became available on March 2 and by March 4 new servers had to be added to handle the mass of downloads. The business strategy was unexpected and carried the potential for disaster, but Reznor’s faith in his fans paid off. The album made $1.6 million in the first week, before its was even physically available. That’s the power of the internet.
From the official NIN website: "The rules were as follows: 10 weeks, no clear agenda, no overthinking, everything driven by impulse. Whatever happens during that time gets released as... something".
What got released were 36 instrumental tracks showing off a huge array of different styles from industrial hard rock to Asian-influenced lullabies to techno to piano ballads. There are no song titles, no structure of any kind, each song identified only by its track number. GHOSTS I-IV is divided into 4 EPs, Ghosts I, II, III, & IV, each EP featuring 9 tracks, but that’s about as formal as the album gets.
Reznor and company (Atticus Ross, Alan Moulder, Alessandro Cortini, Adrian Belew, and Brian Viglione) took the concept of improvisation a step further with Halo 26, using not just the familiar--guitars, drums, synth, bass--but also infusing whatever they had lying around, whether it be a banjo, a xylophone, or, according to Rock Band.com, “a cookie tray with a chain across it.” The experience of Halo 26 brings to mind Prince’s own attempt at a similar album when he released the 4-track improv jam CD N.E.W.S., but whereas Prince had the music in mind, Reznor is not satisfied with only the one facet and wants to create an entire experience, both for himself and his fans.
Halo 26 includes a 40-page PDF download which features artwork--photography--to accompany each track and as I listened to the album with the photos in front of me, I can say each photo really captures the essence of these songs--or maybe it’s the other way around, as, according to Reznor’s own statement in the introduction to the Ghosts Film Festival on YouTube.com: "When we started working with the music, we would generally start with a sort of visual reference that we had imagined: a place, or a setting, or a situation. And then attempt to describe that with sound and texture and melody. And treat it, in a sense, as if it were a soundtrack." Whichever came first, it worked. Once you listen to something like Track 9 and view it with the accompanying photo, you can’t help but realize yes, this is the song in a visual medium, and the two combined create a full experience. It’s the same with all 36 tracks. Halo 26 is a thing of joy to behold when experienced as a whole.
The run time is nearly two full hours, but for all that, you’d be hard pressed to find any two tracks that too-closely resemble each other. Which begs the question again, Where does Reznor get his ideas? As a non-musician, I have to imagine there can only be so many unique melodies in the world, but what Trent Reznor is able to accomplish just with a piano is awe-inspiring. Listen to Track 12 and view the accompanying photo and you can see the movement in it that the song instills.
After nearly 2 decades of screaming about loneliness and discontent, Reznor’s doing something he should have done years ago, shutting up and letting the music speak for itself, which it does loud and clear on Halo 26. The moods inspired by the tracks are as wide-ranging as the instruments used to create them, from contemplation to elation to sorrow to excitement, Halo 26 runs the gamut.
Music and mathematics are about the only two constants in the universe. 2 + 2 will always equal 4, and even if you don’t like that genre of music, no one can deny a good beat or a perfectly-phrased sentiment when they hear it. And on the strength of that, Halo 26 truly has something for everyone. Reznor claims there may be more Ghosts to come and I for one am excited to hear what’s next.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
![Ghosts I-IV [Digipak] by Nine Inch Nails](http://di1.shopping.com/images1/pi/d1/bf/72/2046037502-177x150-0-0.jpg)
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.