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Book Review
Sep. 2nd, 2013 11:04 pmPretty Hate Machine
by Daphne Carr
I'm not quite sure how to review this book, as, despite what it's title and inclusion in the 33 1/3 series would indicate, it's not quite about Pretty Hate Machine. There is very little about the album, its history, its songs, its musical or lyrical content, or its production. Instead, Carr undertakes an almost ethnographic examination of the social and cultural roots and meaning of Nine Inch Nails, especially as experienced by the fans. More than half of the book is comprised of material from lengthy correspondence and/or interviews with several white male* fans in their 20s and 30s. This study is actually very interesting and contains lots of terrific insights into industrial and alternative music in the waning industrial centers of the American midwest of the 1980s and '90s. Thus this book turned out to be good despite the initial disappointment. I'd still like to read a book that's actually about Pretty hate Machine itself, and I's also like to read a longer and more involved study of Carr's real subject.
*Carr is aware of the significance of this, and addresses it in the introduction.
by Daphne Carr
I'm not quite sure how to review this book, as, despite what it's title and inclusion in the 33 1/3 series would indicate, it's not quite about Pretty Hate Machine. There is very little about the album, its history, its songs, its musical or lyrical content, or its production. Instead, Carr undertakes an almost ethnographic examination of the social and cultural roots and meaning of Nine Inch Nails, especially as experienced by the fans. More than half of the book is comprised of material from lengthy correspondence and/or interviews with several white male* fans in their 20s and 30s. This study is actually very interesting and contains lots of terrific insights into industrial and alternative music in the waning industrial centers of the American midwest of the 1980s and '90s. Thus this book turned out to be good despite the initial disappointment. I'd still like to read a book that's actually about Pretty hate Machine itself, and I's also like to read a longer and more involved study of Carr's real subject.
*Carr is aware of the significance of this, and addresses it in the introduction.
