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Nine Inch Nails: Music Analysis

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Art is in its purest sense, humanity collectively trying to impress, relate, and grow with one another and themselves. Music is the art form that embodies all the greater characteristics from other art forms, and puts them into one. In the words of Frank Zappa “Art is how we decorate space, Music is how we decorate time.” Music carries the ability to paint pictures, tell stories, and even showcase the time period they came from. Is there a musical equivalent to a photo album? Yes there is, Industrial Rock group Nine Inch Nails issued themselves a challenge in 2008, to write an instrumental album,entitled “Ghosts” each song representing a landscape, or environment. When the album was released, the thirty-six songs each beautifully paint pictures using only sound of breathtaking landscapes. The band later released the thirty-six pictures that inspired the thirty-six songs. Listening to such an album is like viewing an art gallery. Each piece containing the lighter tones, the yellows, the greens, some containing the darker tones, the blues and blacks. This is true for all works of music, they all have within them …show more content…

From the tragedy of “Julius Caesar” to the coming of age of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” these stories have a profound effect on us as humans. In music much the same is also true. Singular songs, such as The Kingston Trios’ song “M.T.A.” tell light hearted tales of a man trapped on the subway. In other ways, whole conceptual albums can be created to tell complex stories, such as Green Day’s 2004 hit album “American Idiot” which touched on topics like love, religion, American society, and war. These stories can be deep and personal as well as funny and light hearted. Everything like introspection and depression, in 1994’s “The Downward Spiral.” to politics and corruption like 2007’s “Year Zero.” show off how dynamic music’s ability to tell stories really

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