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They're Close to My Body: A Hagiography of Nine Inch Nails and Robin Finck (2020)

‘We possess nothing in this world other than the power to say “I”. This is what we must yield up to God.’ — Simone Weil   ‘God break down the door You won’t find the answers here Not the ones you came looking for.’ — Nine Inch Nails   Photosensitivity…

During the record-industry crisis brought on by the internet – the one that made many artists turn into assholes whining about their bank accounts – Reznor released a new record, not as a pay-what-you-want download, but for free, saying, ‘This one is on me.’ When NIN won the Webby award for it, Trent’s entire speech was, ‘Wait. When I see young goths and punks sitting in piles of each other outside drugstores, smoking their clove cigarettes in their Dr. Martens and writing lyrics on their fragile skin in ballpoint pen, I will always smile and nod and want to lean over and tell them to try to stay romantic about all that acrimony for as long as they can, because the romance of it is what will help the most. He gets his guitar to sound like a rusty zipper being opened and closed (‘ Discipline ’), or a big-toothed saw scraping to life (the verse of ‘ Letting You ’), or a deranged voice howling through a wire (take your pick, but the live version of ‘31 Ghosts IV’ is a good one).

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