Discipline (Nine Inch Nails Song) - Music and Lyrics

Music and Lyrics

The largely electronic instrumentation of "Discipline" has been compared to Depeche Mode, Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Giorgio Moroder. Rolling Stone magazine described the track as "the closest Reznor has ever come to disco, right down to a splashing high-hat, boosted way up in the mix". Eric Harvey of Pitchfork Media also compared the song to disco, saying that the song "eschews a typically monstrous chorus for an airtight industrial disco grind ventilated by an airy piano and falsetto cooing."

Lyrically, Spin magazine wrote that "As is true of nine out of every ten NIN tracks, 'Discipline' is about submission and domination". Harvey compared "Discipline" to one Nine Inch Nails's first singles, "Head Like a Hole", saying " comes from a long-established and now label-free artist trying to reflexively reassert his position in the pop landscape, on his own terms. 'Discipline' evinces Reznor's desire for some sort of framework In relative terms, 'I need your discipline/ I need your help' is sure a long way from the nearly 20-year-old 'Head Like a Hole' refrain 'I'd rather die/ Than give you control'."