Whining, I was once told a long time ago, will get you nowhere, but in our current "culture of complaint" everybody thinks they have the right to air their grievances. That doesn't mean everybody has to listen to them, but in such an environment some people have elevated whining to an art form.
For the last 40 years, rock has been the preferred delivery system for youthful alienation. Content-wise, there isn't a whole lot that separates Mick Jagger's professed lack of "satisfaction" from Trent Reznor's musical litany of "painful convictions." The difference is that Jagger didn't project dissatisfaction as the primary motivating force in his life. Reznor, on the other hand, has built his career on the belief that he will never be happy. In interviews he admits he has achieved everything materially and artistically he's ever wanted and yet is still profoundly miserable. It's tempting to tell him to get a life, as long as he lets you have the one he replaces.
I was prepared for an evening of towering woe-is-me self-indulgence when I took my seat at the Tokyo Bay NK Hall Jan. 10 for Nine Inch Nails' first ever Japan concert. Over the last four months I've absorbed as much of NIN's newest album, "The Fragile," as I could without taking time away from records I actually enjoyed. But despite the often nerve-shattering power of Reznor's industrial soundscapes, nothing has ever taken hold. Every time I put it on I feel as if I'm starting at zero.