Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Nine Inch Nails
Baby Rock Records
Baby Rock Records has released a dozen or so of these bizarre records where someone takes a popular rock artist and lullabizes their tracks. The Nine Inch Nails disc had me curious from the start, partly because Trent Reznor's lyrical themes are generally not well-suited for the nursery or sleepytime, but also because I figured that slow, quiet versions of his songs would just come out sounding creepy. Luckily, these versions are all instrumental, so my first concern was moot. The second concern was just, though, and while some of these versions are quite pretty, some are also kind of disquieting.
The first track here is "Hurt", made famous by Johnny Cash a few years back (well, made famous by Trent Reznor, I guess, but then again by Johnny Cash). This is definitely one of the prettier renditions. Much like Cash's version, the various xylophones, sousaphones, glockenspiels, and midi-keyboard-o-phones used here create a pretty broad emotional wallop. I know that baby isn't going to be getting all introspective and pensive in the crib, but still, it's kind of neat.
"Closer", on the other hand, doesn't work as well, even if it's only because I know what the chorus is supposed to be saying. You can hide it behind twinkly bells all ya want, but this is a song about doing it. But basically, for me, these work on whether or not I liked the original. "Sin" is cool, "Head Like a Hole" is all right, and "Wish" is very good, while tracks like "The Fragile" and "Piggy" are decent but nothing great. Incidentally, closing with "Something I Can Never Have" is a little questionable, because while the original version is probably the quietest and most soothing of these songs, this version is creepy as heck. Hopefully baby's frolicking down Dreamydream Avenue by this time, otherwise he might be on a non-stop to Boogeyman Lane. No lie, as I was typing this up and this song came on, one of my dogs hopped off the couch and onto the floor and started shaking.
