Bleedthrough

Perfect is not a 10. It's a 9 with an asterisk.

Nine Inch Nails ringleader Trent Reznor almost named the band’s 2005 album Bleedthrough instead of With Teeth. He decided against the former title since it reminded him of “a tampon commercial.” Well…I think Trent’s first impulse seems apt for this essay. Flawlessness does not equate to “perfection.” The human touch has to bleed through.

Bleedthrough art concept by NIN collaborator Rob Sheridan

The other day, I picked up Music Is History, a fantastic book by music historian (and drummer for the Roots) Questlove. Maybe the book fell short of flawless, but I gave that sucker 5/5 on my Goodreads. Music Is History has mistakes — albeit very minor ones which, chances are, you would not notice. So what?

I’m writing about all of this, so evidently, I give a damn. Don’t think, though, that Questlove should be taken to task. Besides the fact that his knowledge floored me, I love fucking around with words, and Questlove strikes me as being the same way. Creative sentences abound in Music Is History, and I’m envious of many of them. You can’t experiment with words, or anything, without leaving a mess behind.

This experience got me thinking about my own insecurity (shoutout to this other thing I wrote on here). Why flip yourself inside out over something the vast majority of your audience will zip right by? Even an editor! I like to joke that mean people thrive as editors, because even nice ones can come down on you like a hammer forged out of the stuff bank vaults are made from. (Ask me how I know.) I’ve edited before, and there have been instances where I want to leave a little bit in there to suggest a human wrote it, resisting my urge to iron every seam. In today’s world of, dare I mention it, Ay Eye, that kind of thinking feels crucial.

There are times when I play old songs which suffer from recording imperfections. Tempos fluctuate. Crackles in the master tape make themselves heard. Even squeaky-clean acts, like Steely Dan, offer up the odd “what was that?” during a re-listen. When I cranked up Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild” after years and years, I was shocked at how dirty and imperfect it was. But that doesn’t mean a thing. It will be blasted in crappy bars until the end of the universe.

Or other times, I find myself reading back a piece I’m proud of writing and I stop to say something along the lines of “oh, fuck! That’s wrong!” Chances are, though, that my audience would have not noticed if I didn’t say anything. When I listen to the music I make, same sort of phenomenon. “Wait, the drums have to hit harder! Motherfucker, that guitar part could be a little tighter!” You get the picture.

Shortcomings feel like a necessary evil, or even unnecessary, like a half-blessing. Case in point: my SketchCassette audio plugin, which mimics worn-down tapes. Sometimes I throw it on a mix, to suggest that my new track was not made in Logic Pro X, a place where all can be quantized and everything is handed to you on a silver platter.

At the start of this essay, I mentioned Nine Inch Nails’ With Teeth. One of the biggest songs on the album is “Only,” a cut I’ve known for a decade at a minimum. I can rip through all of the lyrics from memory. Here’s (mostly) the bridge: “when the tiniest little dot caught my eye, and it turned out to be a scab, and I had this funny feeling like I just knew it’s something bad. I just couldn’t leave it alone…” At this point, Trent lowers his voice further, and the synth picks back up, obfuscating his train of thought for a moment.

Perfect metaphor for all of this. Are you going to let the noise in to amplify and pound your head, until you can’t focus on anything but the little fragment, now-snowballed? To use the song’s title, only you can determine how much power a little blemish has.

I felt inspired to write this essay because I lost track of how many times I said to myself “wow, I wish I wrote that!” while reading Questlove’s book. Behold, the ultimate praise I can give, better than “perfect!” because there’s no such thing. That’s the way perfection should be.

A ten? Nonsense. But you wish you did that.