I still can’t believe he was able to fit “I’ve got my violence in high def ultra-realism” into the beat *and* make that a catchy line. Love it! 2022 in a nutshell indeed.
I think this song follows the jazz model, which emphasizes the off beat rather than the down beat. I love songs like this. It's a different groove with a bit more rhythmic tension.
It’s completely amazing to me to see you break down the songs the way you do. Having no musical experience whatsoever, it’s refreshing to see a fan take it apart like this.
Most unusual! I have to say I don't give any thought to 'down beats'. I just crank it up and sing along, my 'dancing' body just knows what to do. Perhaps my ignorance really is bliss x
The video for this song in particular meant a lot to me growing up in a place where I was discouraged for exploring my sexuality. The music on the other hand gives me the rebellious spirit to prove that I have worth. Also, just a personal recommendation: if you’re ever feeling down, I highly recommend listening to ‘A Warm Place’ alone in a room with headphones. Something about it just feels like getting a hug. I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s bittersweet, but comforting. Helped me cope during more uncertain times. Hope everyone here is doing well. Remember: “You will find a better a place/In this twilight”
I'm sure you're not the only one. It's called rhythmic displacement. I don't think this song changes meter, meaning the downbeat does not shift, but I know what it's like to feel a song one way, and then it flips to another way. Totally trippy. And yeah that snare is like a hihat and snare but also a hihat. WHY TRENT
I think the downbeat remains the same throughout (with the clap kinda sound on the offbeat), BUT in the verses he's singing robotically straight on the offbeat, in a way that feels very metronomic. This shifts the feeling during that section, since there are no other clear cues telling us where "1" is. Importantly, the vocal pickup at the end of each verse shifts back onto the beat, which I think tells us it's a clever rhythmic trick.
Year Zero is one of the albums that has had the most profound impact on my musical tastes and is tied to incredible nostalgia. I was in college when it came out, and because I worked at the radio station, I got the early release screener and listened to it 3 times in a row, start to finish. An absolute masterpiece. This is a top tier track. I think God Given is my favorite, though. Thanks for the expert breakdown. I really enjoy your stuff. EDIT: When you mentioned the end sounding like Help Me I Am In Hell (which it does), but to me it sounds almost spot on for the end of Closer. And I'm not sure what I was thinking earlier... God Given is great, but The Great Destroyer has always been my favorite. Maybe it has to do with my love of Aphex Twin.
I'd love to see a breakdown of The Lovers. It was on Song Exploder and is absolutely beautiful. Or Hand Covers Bruise because his (and Atticus's) soundtrack stuff is amazing too. Or the most amazing would be something from the Quake soundtrack for incredible bonus points.
I don't know if anyone else feels this, but I don't feel the downbeat in the same place as the song goes on. It's like there's an on/off switch in my brain and it switches back and forth thru out
I'm sure you're not the only one. It's called rhythmic displacement. I don't think this song changes meter, meaning the downbeat does not shift, but I know what it's like to feel a song one way, and then it flips to another way. Totally trippy.
I love Temple of Love and have listened to it countless times but I've just realised with your comment that yeah, I actually get rhythmic displacement during the intro! I'm kinda disappointed in myself :p
@@djaxupjazz I hadn't heard that song before but I see what you mean! I heard it one way, then the other way, and then went back to the first way 😆 Heresy has been reported as giving a lot of NIN fans rhythmic displacement in the intro.
i love this video so much! Especially because i kept wondering out loud why finding the downbeat was so difficult for you lolol (Granted, when the album came out, i listened, remixed, and mixed it to 5.1 and ... Yeah. I spent so much time with the album that i feel like i know it way too intimately lol That and i think like a drummer because that's the instrument i played for years haha) I just find it incredibly fascinating how we can listen to the same thing and feel it so differently :)
The guitar solo near the end is very “Downward spiral” Also kinda “everyday is exactly the same” The bass line kinda reminds me of “the band that feeds”.
Two similar audio-"illusions": Metallica - Fight Fire with Fire, Meshuggah - Combustion. It's just this punk-beat "Tum-Pa-Tum-Pa" which has no groove centre unless an arrangement helps to find one. I don't know exactly, but subjectively snare is louder most of the time here, and it drags attention from kick.
18:00 the best part about TR's vocal harmonies is he probably records them on "loop-record" (according to his pal Atticus) in one take like Reggie Watts playing with his looper.
Since you talk about the down beat being hard to find here: One song that makes my head spin every time is "Bipolar" from Blonde Redhead. According to your (lack of) attention, the down beat seems to shift sometimes. The song loses you so bad that sometimes you feel like it changes in the middle of the song, but it doesn't. It all depends on your focal point. You can listen and go through it without noticing and sometimes, it feels like they shift 4 times during the song. You have no control over it. The result of this, since all perspectives coexist, is that you never know which one is the right mindset for this song in terms of tonic accent. They all are. They all seem right in their own way. If and when the shift (or illusion of shift) happens during the song, you get dizzy, like you would with an optical illusion. But once you perceived the shift for the first time, you are hooked and more and more subject to those phantom shifts as time goes by. No other song does that for me. Succeeding in making you lose your marks even though there are only two chords. Brilliant. I think that's the main point of this song : tricking you and forcing you to let it go so that you eventually surrender to the wave/ tide of emotions ruclips.net/video/tWs7BZHsAgs/видео.html
I have always wanted to hear this song properly, in my brain. I have always thought this was an audio illusion that I could knock my brain out of but I’ve tried for 15 years without success. The only way I can hear the downbeat is on Saul William’s and Deadmau5’s remixes. I hate that I can’t groove with the first and second versus like the chorus. It makes me insane feeling like I’m kicked out of the groove after the chorus 😢 At least I found your video and find solace in the fact that I’m not alone. Another song I had this issue with was the very beginning of Saint Veronica by Billy Talent, but there’s enough for my brain to grab on to after the bass line that I was able to shift my perception after a while. I am so sad that I’ll never hear the original Survivalism version with the proper downbeat
@@iximusic adding a different drum track definitely makes it easy to hear, which is why I have no trouble hearing the downbeat on the remixes. I need to download a version with an extra drum track to train my ear for the original studio version 😆
That's how I hear it too but least two other times I mistook the downbeat of a NIN song in the same way so now I QUESTION EVERYTHING I Do Not Want This & Big Man With A Gun
@@iximusic I will say I do bounce to the offbeats though. So even though I know where the downbeat is I nod on the &s when playing along to it. That's probably what they do live because nodding on the 1 does feel super weird. He is good at making grooves where you don't want to dance on the 1.
Ixi have you ever heard the Saul Williams album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust Trent did for him in 2007 what he did for Halsey. Came out the same year as year zero
That's how I've always heard it too. with the offbeat as the downbeat. It's unsettling to my brain hearing the electronic snare aligned with the metronome. I even went scrolling up looking for the play button to stop it, only for my laggy brain to realize I'm only looking at a video, and not using logic. Now I need to look at a live performance of this track. It had to be tweaked in some way to not throw them offbeat. Btw it goes into double time during parts of the chorus doesn't it. You can hear the offbeat more accentuated as a downbeat, after those sung chorus parts come and go, Also those blips that mean nothing to you are reminiscent of the bleepy synth line in ruiner.
I hear this song with the “snare” on the up beat but the verses are hard to hear that way. There is probably a comfortable way to write it out but it’s not 4/4. Reminds me of something off of Broken. Maybe the song “Gave Up”? I can’t remember exactly. But that may make me biased.
@@iximusic yeah, I just listened to “Gave Up” and it does have a few moments at the end where it sounds like the down beat flips. Like when he’s singing “I tried, but I gave up”. Its not as intentional as “Survivalism” though. It seems like he refined the idea for “Survivalism”. I love it! It’s so disorienting.
@@davidasher22 i had the revelation when watching the And All Tha Could Have Been live version, the synth solo sounded nice with the "one" at the right place!
Is it just me or the guitar part after the last chorus is a reminder of the little piano line at the end of Closer? 🤔 I can't help myself not to hum the "Closer" piano along this guitar line each time I hear it...
Me too! I'm starting to feel confident about this because I watched some live recordings and the drummer is making it more obvious. The guitar/bass resting on the downbeat only is pretty unusual but Trent be like that! ;)
I imagine that's how a lot of people hear it, but I can't help but hear the snares on the offbeats. If you watch this live performance, when the outro starts, Ilan the drummer is starting and ending his fills, including a cymbal crash, on the downbeats if the snares were on the offbeats. ruclips.net/video/4V9O8fxwNw8/видео.html THE PLOT THICKENS
I feel it's downbeat on snare in 4/4 but the last measure before the chorus in 7/8. Maybe this shifting downbeat is what messes it up... Which might also suggest it's downbeat on bass drum all the time and time signature being 4/4 for the whole song after all. Meh, Schrödinger's downbeat.
After watching this live performance I'm feeling more certain the snares are on the offbeats. Listen to Ilan's kick! ruclips.net/video/4V9O8fxwNw8/видео.html You could be right about shifting time sigs but I can't feel it that way! I might need to make a dedicated video just for this haha
i'm on the "bass drum is the 1" team :-) i think it's 260 BPM and every beat is a down beat actually! it would have sounded better with a more assertive bass drum! it's the same effect on gave up... so annoying. at least we have something to talk about! it's a problem of perspective... it's the same as "is the 3D cube seen from the inside or the outside"
I am too. I can't even "feel" it with the snares on the downbeats. I think Ilan kinda clinched it for us on this live performance here: ruclips.net/video/4V9O8fxwNw8/видео.html
I went live for an hour to answer the question "WHERE IS THE DOWNBEAT" once and for all! ruclips.net/video/AkTnXgCkYgI/видео.html
I still can’t believe he was able to fit “I’ve got my violence in high def ultra-realism” into the beat *and* make that a catchy line. Love it!
2022 in a nutshell indeed.
I think this song follows the jazz model, which emphasizes the off beat rather than the down beat. I love songs like this. It's a different groove with a bit more rhythmic tension.
Continually amazed to hear new parts of songs that I've listened to thousands of times.
Especially do it on multi speaker set ups to hear how musicians can layer their sounds.
It’s completely amazing to me to see you break down the songs the way you do. Having no musical experience whatsoever, it’s refreshing to see a fan take it apart like this.
I'm so glad I finally know why the solo in Survivalism sounded so familiar!
Most unusual! I have to say I don't give any thought to 'down beats'. I just crank it up and sing along, my 'dancing' body just knows what to do. Perhaps my ignorance really is bliss x
The video for this song in particular meant a lot to me growing up in a place where I was discouraged for exploring my sexuality. The music on the other hand gives me the rebellious spirit to prove that I have worth.
Also, just a personal recommendation: if you’re ever feeling down, I highly recommend listening to ‘A Warm Place’ alone in a room with headphones. Something about it just feels like getting a hug. I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s bittersweet, but comforting. Helped me cope during more uncertain times. Hope everyone here is doing well. Remember:
“You will find a better a place/In this twilight”
i always perceived it as a shifting downbeat, sometimes i move to it like its a complimentary hihat, sometimes like the leading 4/4 snare lol
I'm sure you're not the only one. It's called rhythmic displacement. I don't think this song changes meter, meaning the downbeat does not shift, but I know what it's like to feel a song one way, and then it flips to another way. Totally trippy. And yeah that snare is like a hihat and snare but also a hihat. WHY TRENT
That outro guitar also gives me vibes of the chorus on "Ruiner" as well as the whole of "Gone, Still."
I was listening to and halfway through this song and the notification for this video came up - good timing!
Backing vocals by Saul Williams great artist in his own right and Trent helped him develop sounds for his niggytardust album too.
Such talent! Sidenote, love the matching blues :)
I think the downbeat remains the same throughout (with the clap kinda sound on the offbeat), BUT in the verses he's singing robotically straight on the offbeat, in a way that feels very metronomic. This shifts the feeling during that section, since there are no other clear cues telling us where "1" is.
Importantly, the vocal pickup at the end of each verse shifts back onto the beat, which I think tells us it's a clever rhythmic trick.
Year Zero is one of the albums that has had the most profound impact on my musical tastes and is tied to incredible nostalgia. I was in college when it came out, and because I worked at the radio station, I got the early release screener and listened to it 3 times in a row, start to finish. An absolute masterpiece. This is a top tier track. I think God Given is my favorite, though.
Thanks for the expert breakdown. I really enjoy your stuff.
EDIT: When you mentioned the end sounding like Help Me I Am In Hell (which it does), but to me it sounds almost spot on for the end of Closer. And I'm not sure what I was thinking earlier... God Given is great, but The Great Destroyer has always been my favorite. Maybe it has to do with my love of Aphex Twin.
I'd love to see a breakdown of The Lovers. It was on Song Exploder and is absolutely beautiful.
Or Hand Covers Bruise because his (and Atticus's) soundtrack stuff is amazing too. Or the most amazing would be something from the Quake soundtrack for incredible bonus points.
I love The Lovers! The Song Exploder episode was really great.
I don't know if anyone else feels this, but I don't feel the downbeat in the same place as the song goes on. It's like there's an on/off switch in my brain and it switches back and forth thru out
I'm sure you're not the only one. It's called rhythmic displacement. I don't think this song changes meter, meaning the downbeat does not shift, but I know what it's like to feel a song one way, and then it flips to another way. Totally trippy.
@@iximusic I have that problem with Temple of Love by Sisters of Mercy, too. It takes all the intro to find the downbeat :)
I love Temple of Love and have listened to it countless times but I've just realised with your comment that yeah, I actually get rhythmic displacement during the intro!
I'm kinda disappointed in myself :p
@@djaxupjazz I hadn't heard that song before but I see what you mean! I heard it one way, then the other way, and then went back to the first way 😆 Heresy has been reported as giving a lot of NIN fans rhythmic displacement in the intro.
Same with ‘copy of a’ for me. But granted that one uses polyrhythms.
i love this video so much!
Especially because i kept wondering out loud why finding the downbeat was so difficult for you lolol
(Granted, when the album came out, i listened, remixed, and mixed it to 5.1 and ... Yeah. I spent so much time with the album that i feel like i know it way too intimately lol
That and i think like a drummer because that's the instrument i played for years haha)
I just find it incredibly fascinating how we can listen to the same thing and feel it so differently :)
Thanks for this Ixi
There is a cover by a female-led band from 🇷🇺 called Conflict that does an amazing cover of this track. ❤
The guitar solo near the end is very “Downward spiral” Also kinda “everyday is exactly the same”
The bass line kinda reminds me of “the band that feeds”.
Two similar audio-"illusions": Metallica - Fight Fire with Fire, Meshuggah - Combustion. It's just this punk-beat "Tum-Pa-Tum-Pa" which has no groove centre unless an arrangement helps to find one.
I don't know exactly, but subjectively snare is louder most of the time here, and it drags attention from kick.
10:57 that percussive track is from the rehearsal video of love is not enough
18:00 the best part about TR's vocal harmonies is he probably records them on "loop-record" (according to his pal Atticus) in one take like Reggie Watts playing with his looper.
Reggie Watts live is magic.
It gives the Downward Spiral theme too.
Since you talk about the down beat being hard to find here:
One song that makes my head spin every time is "Bipolar" from Blonde Redhead.
According to your (lack of) attention, the down beat seems to shift sometimes. The song loses you so bad that sometimes you feel like it changes in the middle of the song, but it doesn't. It all depends on your focal point. You can listen and go through it without noticing and sometimes, it feels like they shift 4 times during the song. You have no control over it. The result of this, since all perspectives coexist, is that you never know which one is the right mindset for this song in terms of tonic accent. They all are. They all seem right in their own way.
If and when the shift (or illusion of shift) happens during the song, you get dizzy, like you would with an optical illusion. But once you perceived the shift for the first time, you are hooked and more and more subject to those phantom shifts as time goes by.
No other song does that for me. Succeeding in making you lose your marks even though there are only two chords. Brilliant. I think that's the main point of this song : tricking you and forcing you to let it go so that you eventually surrender to the wave/ tide of emotions
ruclips.net/video/tWs7BZHsAgs/видео.html
19:00 - I'm getting the piano bit from the end of "Closer" there.
I love beat ambiguity!
I have always wanted to hear this song properly, in my brain. I have always thought this was an audio illusion that I could knock my brain out of but I’ve tried for 15 years without success. The only way I can hear the downbeat is on Saul William’s and Deadmau5’s remixes. I hate that I can’t groove with the first and second versus like the chorus. It makes me insane feeling like I’m kicked out of the groove after the chorus 😢 At least I found your video and find solace in the fact that I’m not alone. Another song I had this issue with was the very beginning of Saint Veronica by Billy Talent, but there’s enough for my brain to grab on to after the bass line that I was able to shift my perception after a while. I am so sad that I’ll never hear the original Survivalism version with the proper downbeat
Curious if this will help! It's another video I did about it! ruclips.net/video/AkTnXgCkYgI/видео.html
@@iximusic adding a different drum track definitely makes it easy to hear, which is why I have no trouble hearing the downbeat on the remixes. I need to download a version with an extra drum track to train my ear for the original studio version 😆
hey this is pretty neat. I better watch more of these.
I did a remake of Reptile with a mannequin a couple years ago that you might like.
I definitely hear the snare on the off beats, which jives with the new sections coming in on the 1. That puts the vocals on the off beats
That's how I hear it too but least two other times I mistook the downbeat of a NIN song in the same way so now I QUESTION EVERYTHING
I Do Not Want This & Big Man With A Gun
@@iximusic I will say I do bounce to the offbeats though. So even though I know where the downbeat is I nod on the &s when playing along to it. That's probably what they do live because nodding on the 1 does feel super weird. He is good at making grooves where you don't want to dance on the 1.
The piano work around 14:00 sounds like you're about the break into "Between Days" by the Cure, or the Ben Folds cover.
Ixi have you ever heard the Saul Williams album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust Trent did for him in 2007 what he did for Halsey. Came out the same year as year zero
That's how I've always heard it too. with the offbeat as the downbeat. It's unsettling to my brain hearing the electronic snare aligned with the metronome. I even went scrolling up looking for the play button to stop it, only for my laggy brain to realize I'm only looking at a video, and not using logic. Now I need to look at a live performance of this track. It had to be tweaked in some way to not throw them offbeat.
Btw it goes into double time during parts of the chorus doesn't it. You can hear the offbeat more accentuated as a downbeat, after those sung chorus parts come and go, Also those blips that mean nothing to you are reminiscent of the bleepy synth line in ruiner.
I feel they used a TON of modular synth on this track
with the metronome it sounds like a ska song
Have you tried muting all the drum tracks and adding a simple midi drum track?
I got chromaticISM (extremely Trent voice)
😆
I hear this song with the “snare” on the up beat but the verses are hard to hear that way. There is probably a comfortable way to write it out but it’s not 4/4. Reminds me of something off of Broken. Maybe the song “Gave Up”? I can’t remember exactly. But that may make me biased.
Gave Up has that same problem yes :'(
Ah. That's a great comparison. I might need to make dedicated video for this!
@@iximusic yeah, I just listened to “Gave Up” and it does have a few moments at the end where it sounds like the down beat flips. Like when he’s singing “I tried, but I gave up”. Its not as intentional as “Survivalism” though. It seems like he refined the idea for “Survivalism”. I love it! It’s so disorienting.
@@moliver_xxii yeah, mainly at the end when he sings “I tried, but I gave up”. The downbeat reverses on me every time. Love it!
@@davidasher22 i had the revelation when watching the And All Tha Could Have Been live version, the synth solo sounded nice with the "one" at the right place!
outro guitar is also very similar to the piano outro of closer
Is it just me or the guitar part after the last chorus is a reminder of the little piano line at the end of Closer? 🤔 I can't help myself not to hum the "Closer" piano along this guitar line each time I hear it...
Not just you, others have left similar comments!
The harmonies sound beefed up with pitch-shifting efx. Like maybe 3 were sung and the rest were pitch shifted versions
thought id mention that this song has the bassline from god given but sped up
The Outro feels like it has an overlay of 7/4.
I’ve always heard the downbeat in the gap in the bass.
Me too! I'm starting to feel confident about this because I watched some live recordings and the drummer is making it more obvious. The guitar/bass resting on the downbeat only is pretty unusual but Trent be like that! ;)
4/4 w/ snare on down beat?
I imagine that's how a lot of people hear it, but I can't help but hear the snares on the offbeats. If you watch this live performance, when the outro starts, Ilan the drummer is starting and ending his fills, including a cymbal crash, on the downbeats if the snares were on the offbeats. ruclips.net/video/4V9O8fxwNw8/видео.html THE PLOT THICKENS
I've always heard the snare/hi hat/thingy as the back beat. Now I'm questioning my life choices. Thank you ixi.
j/k
Me too. I'm overthinking it because I heard the downbeat wrong on I Do Not Want This and Big Man With A Gun in the same way so 🤷♀️
@@iximusic sometimes overthinking kills the fun. Let’s enjoy this tune as it is, even though we might dance off beat to one another! 🤣
If you like real hidden time signatures, do "videotape" by Radiohead
There are several wonderful videos about this! I watched them a few years back, and it inspired me to start a channel one day myself :)
@@iximusic Cool. Love me some Radiohead and NIN! Like your show too!
Hey Ixi! Where do you get these song stems?
www.nindestruct.com/remix.html enjoy!
@@iximusic nice! Thank you..
How did you get the multi tracks?
www.nindestruct.com - remix section! Trent released them back in the day for remixes.
First!!!!! 🤘🤘🤘
I feel it's downbeat on snare in 4/4 but the last measure before the chorus in 7/8. Maybe this shifting downbeat is what messes it up... Which might also suggest it's downbeat on bass drum all the time and time signature being 4/4 for the whole song after all.
Meh, Schrödinger's downbeat.
...Aaaand the the last measure of the chorus is 9/8 in my opinion. That would switch back the downbeat to snare nicely.
After watching this live performance I'm feeling more certain the snares are on the offbeats. Listen to Ilan's kick! ruclips.net/video/4V9O8fxwNw8/видео.html
You could be right about shifting time sigs but I can't feel it that way!
I might need to make a dedicated video just for this haha
Please do! Really enjoy all of your videos.
On choruses and in the last part with the reznory guitar lead the snares are definitely on the offbeats.
i'm on the "bass drum is the 1" team :-)
i think it's 260 BPM and every beat is a down beat actually! it would have sounded better with a more assertive bass drum! it's the same effect on gave up... so annoying. at least we have something to talk about!
it's a problem of perspective... it's the same as "is the 3D cube seen from the inside or the outside"
I am too. I can't even "feel" it with the snares on the downbeats. I think Ilan kinda clinched it for us on this live performance here: ruclips.net/video/4V9O8fxwNw8/видео.html
yey!@@iximusic having him on the drums is a blessing