Nine Inch Nails - Closer

Nine Inch Nails: Closer (Uncensored) (1994) from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.


After watching the new Trent Reznor project How to Destroy Angels, I had to post this video.

Closer is Nine Inch Nails most well-known song and probably the most well-known video. Even though both the song and the video were censored, it was on heavy rotation on MTV in the mid-90s.

How Nine Inch Nails made it to the mainstream is still a mystery to me. The 90s was not a good time for electronic music. The glitz and glam and the plastic, colorful shallowness of the 80s was being rejected. The rough singer-songerwriter and the garage band were kings of the 90s as grunge exploded. Perhaps thats how Nine Inch Nails made it into hearts of angry teens of the 90s.

Whether you like their aesthetic or not, Nine Inch Nails kept synths alive in the 90s. The only other electronic music going on was the techno/house/electronica raver scene, but that music never really made it to the mainstream. While that era of electronic was important, most of it was repetitive and formulaic, with some notable exceptions (Aphex Twin is one).

This video is reinterpretation of the stop-motion short film, Street of Crocodiles, inspired by the art work of Joel-Peter Witkin. Check them out and you can see what I am talking about.

How to Destroy Angels - The Space in Between

This video caught my eye earlier today. Its a little gothy and unsettling but its a pretty great video with convincing special effects that don't in the way.

The song starts off slow and then the vocals come in. I thought, "there is something vaguely familiar about this music," but I couldn't place it. As the video goes on, there are morbid scenes of two people bludgeoned to death and one of them singing. After a couple minutes, I recognize what the song reminds me of, Nine Inch Nails.

Part of me thought, "hey its another goth/industrial through back band trying to be Nine Inch Nails, but at least there isn't a white guy poorly rapping in the background." (ala Evanescence)

The other part of me though, "wow, they guys do Nine Inch Nails really well." The songs sounds like it could have come from the golden era of Nine Inch Nails, off of Downward Spiral or even The Fragile. Those were two albums that got me through years of teenager anger and depression. I wore out and re-purchased the Downward Spiral CD three different times.

So, I finish the video and check out the bands website. Yeah, well in case you haven't guessed already...its Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails and his wife is singing.

After a few listens I just had to dig out Downward Spiral and listen to it again. Last year I bought the vinyl version of the Downward Spiral for more money than I wanted to admit spending. I listened it once and thought, "why did I spend so much money on a record I probably will listen to once and put away." [you get to hear a lot my thoughts in the post today]

This was a turning point for me in the realm of buying vinyl. In my late twenties, I don't find myself listening to Nine Inch Nails as much as my late teens, but Downward Spiral is still a vital album to my musical identity. Downward Spiral was on my list of albums that are important to me and I felt obligated to buy it. It was at that point I realized that I was truly turning into a vinyl collector, and I was ok with that.

Well I am glad to know my fears about never listening to the album again were unfounded. A year later I have found a time in my life that I just need to listen to Downward Spiral and it was just sitting there waiting for me.