Step Right Up, March, Push, Crawl Right Up On Your Knees

(Note: Originally done on 11/6/00 but now re-edited and extended).

After the success of the Broken EP in early 1993, Nine Inch Nails leader Trent Reznor finally found success on his own terms after years of dealing with labels and constant touring. After he completed Broken in mid-1992, he and the rest of the NIN camp moved to Los Angeles to work on his Pretty Hate Machine follow-up The Downward Spiral. He set camp at an infamous house in Bel Air where it was once the home of French filmmaker Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate which was the infamous house where Tate and several other guests were killed by the infamous Charles Manson family in 1969. Reznor and his camp bought the house as a recording studio and named it Le Pig after the bloodstains of the word “pigs”.

During the recording sessions from mid-1992 to early '94, Reznor not only recorded his own album but a track for singer-songwriter Tori Amos for her Under The Pink album and the debut record for his new protege Marilyn Manson. In early '94, Reznor completed work on his second full-length release The Downward Spiral and on March of that year before the album’s release, NIN released the first single that marked the beginning of what is known as the “Self-Destruct” era called March Of The Pigs. The single for March Of The Pigs features the original track along with a remix of the song, a non-album instrumental track and two remixes of a track from the new album. With help from producer Flood, mixer Alan Moulder, and former Skinny Puppy producer Dave “Rave” Ogilvie doing the remixes of the song Reptile. There is where Reznor road to superstardom and respect finally begins.

The first track of the single is the song for March Of The Pigs that is driven by its fast industrial-driven drum tracks that sound like live drum tracks but are really drum machines that are manipulated to sound live by Reznor and Flood that goes on for about fifteen seconds as dirge-like synthesizers come in along with Reznor’s harsh vocals and loud metal-driven guitar tracks as Reznor sings “Step right up, march, push/Crawl right up on your knees/Please, greed, feed (no time to hesitate)/I want a little bit, I want a piece of it, I think he’s losing it/I want to watch it come down/Don’t like the look of it, don’t like the taste of it, don’t like the smell of it/I want to watch it come down”.

After that first verse, the song goes into a soft, pulsating mode driven by its brooding synthesizers, and electronic percussion tracks as Reznor sings the chorus of “All the pigs, all lined up/I give you all that you want/Take the skin and peel it back/Now doesn’t that make you feel better?” that includes a brief piano break. The song goes into its hard-rock mode again where Trent goes further into his angst-ridden lyrics of “Shove it up inside, surprise! Lies/Stains like the blood on your teeth/Bite, chew, suck away the tender parts/I want to break it up, I want to smash it up, I want to f*ck it up/I want to watch it come down/Maybe it’s afraid of it, let’s discredit it, let’s pick away at it/I want to watch it come down”. Reznor finishes the song with its chorus and piano break as he finishes the song with “The pigs have won tonight/Now they can all sleep soundly/And everything is all right”.

The first remix of Reptile by Dave “Rave” Ogilvie is titled Reptilian which is an eight-and-a-half minute remix of the song that starts off with a distorted, atmospheric intro along with clashing and pulsating synthesizer breaks along with industrial-driven drum tracks and Reznor’s brooding vocals that features dark vocals of reptile skins along with wind-like synthesizer breaks and guitar breaks. Between the verses of the song, a powerful gong hit along with a synthesizer clash comes in as Reznor continues singing with its brutal guitar tracks and more pulsating synthesizer breaks and loud drum tracks that continue throughout the rest of the song. All The Pigs, All Lined Up is a seven-and-a-half minute remix of March Of The Pigs that features its fast-hitting drum tracks along with wall-to-wall synthesizer assaults and audience screams as Reznor sings the song and the chorus features a pulsating synthesizer track that is followed by its brutal guitar assault and during the second time the chorus is sung, there’s a fast guitar break that continues the rest of the track with its noisy and maniacal synthesizer breaks, audience noises, and fast-pacing drum beats to finish the rest of the mix.

A Violet Fluid is a non-album instrumental track that stands at a minute-and-three seconds that is mainly driven by a soft and pulsating synthesizer track along with an industrial-driven drum machine track that sound like hammers hitting an object throughout the rest of the track. The final track on the single is another Reptile remix from Dave Ogilvie titled Underneath The Skin which is a powerful seven-minute mix that is driven by its brooding and confrontational synthesizer tracks along with pulsating and dance-rhythmic drum machine tracks that is later covered by loud and hard-hitting industrial-based drum tracks throughout the first two minutes until another layer of synthesizers come in to follow the track until the third minute when the original mix of gongs, loud drums, and guitar breaks come in briefly for about thirty seconds along with a fast-paced synthesizer track and electronic-driven production. By the fourth minute, layers of synthesizers dominate the track along with its minimalist music approach that features loud drums, guitars, and gongs that make this remix a highlight in this single.

When the single was released prior to the release of The Downward Spiral in March of '94, it was released in two different versions. One was the domestic that featured the five tracks I just reviewed and the other is a two-disc import that featured a clean version of March Of The Pigs and an album track from Spiral titled Big Man With A Gun that came in the blue-like CD cover of the import single rather than the domestic red-colored cover. That single would mark a tradition with future NIN singles where they would be released with two or more discs that featured non-album tracks or unreleased remixes.

Overall, March Of The Pigs is an excellent single from Trent Reznor and company. The only con beside the fact it’s a single and it’s under thirty minutes is that the record is really targeted more for NIN fans and while it stands as an essential single among fans, it’s just not as good as other singles like Sin, The Perfect Drug or Closer. In the end, it’s a good introduction for fans who want to hear the NIN remixes but really March Of The Pigs stands as really the starting point of the “Self-Destruct” period of '94-'97 for Nine Inch Nails.

NIN Reviews:

Pretty Hate Machine/Broken Era (1989-1992): halo 1 - halo 2 - halo 3 - halo 4 - halo 5 - halo 6

The Downward Spiral Era (1994-1997): halo 8 - halo 8 DE - halo 9 - halo 10 - halo 11 - halo 12

The Fragile Era (1999-2002): halo 13 - halo 14 - halo 15.1 - halo 15.2 - halo 15.3 - halo 16 - halo 17 DE - halo 17 DVD

With Teeth/Year Zero Era: halo 18 - halo 19 - halo 20 - halo 21 - halo 22 - halo 23 - halo 24 - halo 25

Ghosts I-IV/The Slip Era (2008): halo 26 - halo 27

Soundtracks/Miscellaneous:  (The Crow) - (Natural Born Killers) - (Lost Highway) - (Tomb Raider) - (The Limitless Potential) - (Strobe Light)

Promos:  (seed 1) - (seed 2) - (seed 3) - (seed 4) - (seed 5) - (seed 6)

Live Shows:  (NIN/Bauhaus/TV on the Radio-6/7/06 Atlanta, GA Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheater) - (NIN/Deerhunter-8/13/08 Duluth, GA Gwinnett Arena) - (NIN/Jane's Addiction/Street Sweeper Social Club-5/10/09 Atlanta, GA Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheater)