Back To Shrines ABOUT NIN+ME TRENT RECS GALLERY

Welcome to my NIN shrine! Like many others I too heard March of the Pigs at aged 12 and never moved on. (I can’t even claim the experience of seeing 90s Trent Reznor and thinking “wow I wish that was me” because it turns out that’s more common than you’d think) I don’t quite know what this section is going to look like yet but I’m excited to add to it.

I discovered NIN in 2006-2007 when I was reading a book about songs that have a loud—> quiet—> loud structure. My parents raised me on grunge so I already knew most of the songs except one: March of the Pigs. Onto the family pc I go to look it up –



The song does indeed go loud—> quiet—> loud but there’s a guy with long hair wearing leather pants and a mesh shirt so babybat Cem is focusing on that. Thats nice to look at and also the vibe I was going for, when I’m older and taller of course. (18 years later I’m the same height I was then – 5ft) During the loud sections the guy is thrashing around so much he hits himself in the face and gets a nosebleed. What a great song and music video. I watch it again then click on the next video by this Nine Inch Nails since I want more of this.



[the actual censored version that I saw at the time]

About a minute into Closer it is not going loud—> quiet—> loud but it does have me looking around to make sure my parents are still in the living room so they don’t ask me what I’m watching. About two minutes in I’ve forgotten the living room and the people in it exist because the man (Trent Reznor - the 100s of thirst comments inform me) from the previous video is tied up and shirtless. (this will be a formative moment for me it turns out) I know this isn't porn because its got the MTV logo in the corner but I still decide not to watch it again until I’m certain no one is going to come into the room whilst its playing. I settle for looking up what album these songs are from. After a bit of reading, I learn that NIN’s The Downward Spiral is one of the most acclaimed albums of the 90s, hugely influential, one of the greatest albums of all time etc etc. So I’m confused as to why it’s not in my parents’ 900+ CD collection. I decide this is one of those situations where I’ll save my dinner money during the week so I can buy it myself at the weekend.





I get home from HMV and proudly show my parents my brand-new copy of TDS. They aren’t pleased. “Not sure that’s really appropriate”, says my mum. This is unusual. My parents are usually either ambivalent towards or actively enjoy any music I listen to; I brought home Cradle of Filth’s The Principle of Evil Made Flesh a few weeks prior and they happily put it on the hifi. I’d never been told something wasn’t appropriate because they don’t believe art should be censored. I’m absolutely made up with this, I can finally be a moody teenager with my music that my parents just don’t understand.* I played that album to death in on my iPod and on the boombox in my room, I loved every song but the first time I heard Reptile I felt it in my bones. It sounded like a big mechanical monster and I thought it must be amazing to hear that live – this led me to NIN live at Woodstock ’94 (aka Mudstock)



Oh shit it sounds even better live actually, that scream just altered my brain chemistry. As I’m trying to recover the riff of the next song comes in near the end of the video and it isn’t one from my beloved TDS, its much heavier. I have to hear more.



Wish is the first single from the Broken EP, released in 1992. It is angry. The entire EP is angry. The music video for Wish is the band angrily performing until the even angrier mob on the outside eventually break through and attack. Trent Reznor is wearing another outfit: tiny leather shorts and fishnets this time – I think this is excellent and file it away as another outfit I will wear when I’m older and cooler in the future. Broken was the first NIN CD I smuggled into my room remains my favourite NIN release to this day. (note: the smuggling was completely unnecessary - none of my CDs were ever taken off me. Trent posters had started to appear on my wall so everyone knew I had these albums. I was just fucking stupid)



When you look up Broken by Nine Inch Nails you’ll see two things: the EP itself and the Broken movie. The Broken movie is kind of a compilation of the music videos for five of the eight tracks: Pinion, Wish, Help Me I am in Hell, Happiness in Slavery and Gave Up. Awesome! I’ve loved all the music videos so far so I’ll watch that next.



The Broken movie certainly is those music videos altogether – done in the style of a snuff film. A man is kidnapped and tortured in various ways whilst NIN music videos are playing. They’re all pretty nasty, depending on your gore tolerance. Mine was low at this point because I was 12 and hadn’t yet made friends with the kid that invites everyone over to show them videos on rotten and bestgore. The one that messed me up the most was Happiness in Slavery. I just wasn’t prepared to see a man get put in a contraption that stabs him repeatedly, pulls his (hard) cock off and eventually grinds him into gore whilst Trent looks on from his little enclosure. Happiness in Slavery may be one of my favourite NIN songs (even after I made it my alarm for a year or so when I was at school) but the music video was not one I played on repeat. Despite this it does feature one of the Trent Reznor outfits I have recereated a few times: plain black suit. Broken was never officialy released but did appear on thepiratebay in December 2006. A blog post from Trent was posted at the same time: "Happy Holidays! This one is a guilt-free download. (shhhh - I didn't say that out loud). If you know what I'm talking about, cool."(it is also avalible on nin.com if you know where to look)






I struggled to find a new Pretty Hate Machine CD for some reason. So I had been listening to the finest NIN_terrible_lie.mp3 and kinda_i_want_2.mp3 etc that limewire had to offer until I found one second hand. I’m really into its more 80s sound - I can have a little dance in my bedroom. In the video for Head Like a Hole Trent is again tied up but this time in tape (for a long time I also thought he had tape on his head but I eventually realised that he had dreads at this time) In the unreleased video for Sin he is tied into another contraption (apparently its called an aerotrim) and spun around. I am beginning to see a pattern.

!!THE FOLLOWING VIDEO IS NSFW!!



My favourite song on the album quickly became The Only Time, I love the little sytnth melody and and still do to this day. Although now I understand that when Trent’s saying “the devil wants to fuck me in the back of his car” he isn’t referring to the actual devil. The first time I heard that line I remember thinking “well of course he’s messed up over that, who wouldn’t be?” The Only Time did not have a video but at this point I had discovered NIN fansites and forums and was devouring every live video I could get like a man possessed. It was on the forum that I learnt that something new might be coming.



I’m fucking ecstatic. The first NIN activity since I became a fan months ago. People on the forums were talking about websites that had been discovered and someone else had found a USB stick in a venue that contained audio files. This would ultimately be the ARG that tied in with the new album Year Zero. I had no idea what an ARG was but excitedly watched each new discovery unfold. NIN fans were finding IP addresses, codes on tshirts, mysterious phone numbers and finally a NEW NINE INCH NAILS SONG, My Violent Heart, was discovered on a USB stick in a venue toilet. This blew my fucking mind. It wasn’t just that I’d never seen music released in this way – I’d never seen anything like this full stop. This was an entire dystopia with story and lore; in year zero (aka the then far distant future of 2022) there is no longer a separation of church and state in America so the country is now a Christian theocracy. There is a US Bureau of Morality that controls most aspects of peoples lives and those that resist get sent to a Federal Detainment Camp in Guam to “disappear”. (it’s great how this is just Trent Reznor’s concept album and has no real life parallels whatsoever) Another USB stick is found at a NIN gig and this one has the music video for the song Survivalism.



Looking back, I’m aware I’ve taken a pretty odd route through Nine Inch Nails' discography (I knew of The Fragile and With Teeth but I hadn’t paid them any attention yet – I am locked in on an ARG that I can barely comprehend) But back then jump from the NIN of the 90s to the NIN of the (2007) present was violent. I’d gone from skinny, long-haired Trent Reznor to gym rat, same haircut as my dad Trent Reznor in the span of a few months. Survivalism is a good song but it was so very different to any other NIN song I’d heard so far. (No Trent outfit of note from the music video either – I’m from the UK, so a big coat and a scarf isn’t exactly new to me) Despite my first realisation of the inevitable passing of time I’m so hyped for this album. I bought the Year Zero CD when it came out and played it immediately. Then I proceeded to unsuccessfully “look for more clues” by almost tearing the case apart (it would later turn out there was clues in the case I just didn’t find them)



What I did discover was the song God Given; it was so good I listened to it about eight times before letting the rest of the album play out. I knew I needed to have my head blown off by the end of The Great Destroyer by playing it on my parents hifi. So I take the disc out the player and it’s now white. It’s fucking changed colour and has binary code on (sadly my newer cd player doesn’t seem to get warm enough to activate this). Coolest thing I’d ever seen up to that point.





When you interact with other NIN fans you will hear over and over that The Fragile is their favourite album. Year Zeros whole ARG felt tiny compared to the mythos around The Fragile. I’d seen copies of it on the shelf in the shop - it’s a double album - so both literally and figuratively bigger than the others. Which is why it feels almost illegal to admit I only bought The Fragile on CD and vinyl in this year (2025).



When I first listened to my torrent of the album back in 2007 I liked a few tracks - Please and Starfuckers Inc. in particular - but it was too long and I didn’t understand why an album would have so many instrumentals. Over time I grew to like the instrumentals but still thought the album was too long. That remained my opinion for years until recently when I realised that I’d been listening to The Fragile a lot during work. So I bought the CD and essentially sat down in front of my hifi to listen from beginning to end. Maybe some of it is down to me being older, (Not being 12 will help at some level I’m sure) but all its parts fell into place and it just clicked. It really does swallow you whole and I can see why it’s so dear to so many. Complication (an instrumental) is now one of my favourite songs. I also now have a favourite music video for this era - Into the Void. It mainly consists of closeup shots (talking macro lens close) of Trent’s hair and eyes. As a former sit in class and draw eyes all over his books kid this is a perfect video concept. It’s one downside is there’s no outfit commentary for this one. (Could be a reach but I think my husband has a similar reddish shirt to the one Trent is wearing in the performance shot?)





*Many years later I would learn that my parents dislike of NIN comes from a combination of anti Pearl Jam statements made by Trent in the 90s and the general unease of having your child say he’s really into the “I want to fuck you like an animal” band (Although I think the Pearl Jam stuff is the more horrifying in their eyes tbh)