Purity as an issue seems integral to the love of Nine Inch Nails. It just keeps coming up again and again in many forms and many places.
In Trent's lyrics, the word occurs frequently enough to indicate it's importance. "i am purified" (Sanctified, Pretty Hate Machine); "i gave you my Purity. my Purity you stole." (Sin, Pretty Hate Machine); "i am so impure" (Reptile, The Downward Spiral)... With NIN fans, purity is also an issue. I have seen web pages that subject the visitor to a quiz as a means of separating out the pure NIN fans from the impure poseurs and fashion victims as if the amount of knowledge could denote the degree of sincerity. I have also read that the older NIN fans, those who discovered the band earlier, look down on newer fans. I can understand both attitudes. NIN is the kind of band where one naturally looks to sincerity in both oneself and others. Mainstream commercialism, a seductive siren, threatens to corrupt anything real we ever manage to achieve. But the purer-than-thou syndrome makes me uncomfortable. It seems to move us towards the attitude that purity equals pain and even rigidity.
The ruthless drive to route out anything "impure" has even been turned against Trent. In his deeply searching, beautifully written essay, "Entertainment Through Pain: Sexual Chaos and Industrial Terror in the Music of Trent Reznor," Michael Heumann writes,
"At the same time, the so-called 'alternative' press often castigates Reznor, questioning 'whether the rage that fuels [his] sometimes venomous music is genuine, and whether he isn't just a tad too eager to be a rock star' (Hilburn 9). In short, while Reznor's cultural image is of a dangerous outlaw, the image perceived by other so-called 'outlaws' is of a figure borrowing the convenient tropes of alienation and suffering to procure a mass audience."
So we have fans questioning the purity of other fans, critics questioning the purity of the artist, himself, and, no doubt, all of us questioning our own purity. Where does the purity question have genuine validity and where is it a red herring? Do we have a right to question Trent's purity? It is any of our business? Or is it really only Trent's business? As the hippies would say, it's his karma. All I know is that when I listen to his songs I have an authentic experience. His songs open us a room within me where my demons dwell. His songs put me face to face with my own demons and that is enough for me. I think it should be enough for anyone. What do we really need to care about anyone else's purity or honesty? We know what we experience with anyone's art. We dislike sell-outs and commercialism because they bring an empty experience.
Yes, purity is important. But the true purity, the only one we can really judge, is our own in relation to a particular work. At bottom, it doesn't matter if "'Head Like a Hole,' [is] a song which employs many 'traditional' pop formulas, such as verse-chorus-verse song structures, heavy guitar riffs, and an anthematic (if cryptic) chorus." Is it truly a problem that "the song itself is wrapped in a package that is much more palatable for consumers than, say, the "deeply disturbing, very discomforting and psychologically traumatic" music of Skinny Puppy?" I believe it was George Bernard Shaw who quipped that the Englishman thinks he's being virtuous only when he's uncomfortable. (This isn't a criticism of Skinny Puppy, just the idea that they are better than NIN because they are less "palatable for consumers.") The alternative critics who complain of NIN's "palatability for consumers" hit me much the same way. Sure elitism is fun. I play that game, myself. But it is just a game after all -- a game of comparisons. One is purer than another. One truth is truer than another. What if all truth is a lie and all lies are the truth? Trent's lyrics seem to be asking that very question. At least for me. And, finally, I love Nine Inch Nails enough to want to devote this web page to them because of what they are to me.