So, I have mixed feelings for this one, as it is not really one of my favorite NIN albums but goddamn our righteous hands if it ain’t better than “With Teeth” (which sucked boygina).
It is a concept album that throughout its songs (and its stupid and gay ARG that I’m not going to talk about) it tells the story of the United States of ‘Murica under the Bush administration (I think) brainwashing the people by putting more chemicals in the water that turn the frogs and humans more gay in 2022 (which is considered “Year Zero”, get it?). Also, there’s the hand of God that sometimes appears down from the sky although that could just be an illusion caused by the gay chemicals in the water.
The songs themselves are OK for the most part. The album starts good with 3 songs that will bust your balls right open, but then it takes a not so right turn by the 4th track “The Good Soldier” (which btw, I swear to god I’ve heard that song’s opening guitar melody in an ad for clothes once) and then the album sort of keeps this “meh” consistency followed by annoying electronic melody that’s just there to pierce through your eardrums as violently as a rabid dog in heat, as expected from a NIN album, which in this case it was executed perfectly.
But still I can’t seem to shake the feeling that a lot of the songs featured here are only but a base that you would make a song out of (If that makes sense), like, its good material to remix.
Which is why I want to say that Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D is better than the original thanks to the efforts of Saul Williams and the rest of the team that worked on this.
Hell, I’ll even go as far as to say that the Youtuber’s TweakerRay’s Remix of the entire album is significantly much better than the hate fucked, inconsistent noise fest that is this album
But I still recommend you to listen to all of these versions as they are all good (to a certain extend)
I’ll give “Year Zero” a solid 7.2/10 and its remixed version a 8.8 outta 10
Also I’ll give TweakerRay’s version a solid 8/10 for doing Gods work on this one
Also also, The United States Bureau of Morality doesn’t want you to know this but there exists an interview done by the Dent Treznor where he’s talking about this album. Go watch it here, trust me bro, the link will not redirect you to porn. It’s A-OK.
Year Zero Youtube playlist for you to play: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_myAVTbHTRMuMoMzgzy0q2unOR0Xl7UnCY
Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D playlist:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n0xbxltbpUVCaDioI3q1ru6CnxdJPkOes
TweakerRay’s version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3I3xOkhxAI
TweakerRay’s Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TweakerRay