Nine Inch Nails, “Closer” | Controversial Tunes 😈🎶

On the 36^th edition of Controversial Tunes (2021), we explore the controversy behind the song, “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails. 

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ring on the controversy, won’t you? Controversial Tunes 😈🎶 is a column that provides background information and insight into songs that raised eyebrows and totally stirred the pot.  The records that grace Controversial Tunes are old and new alike, with all genres of music welcome.  On the 36^th edition of Controversial Tunes, we explore the controversy behind the song, 🎵 “Closer” by 🎙 Nine Inch Nails.

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Theme & Lyrics ✍

“You let me violate you / You let me desecrate you / You let me penetrate you / You let me complicate you.” Violate? Desecrate? Penetrate? Complicate? Sheesh – it’s self-explanatory why 🎵 “Closer” (💿 The Downward Spiral, 1994)is dubbed as controversial, right? Clearly 🎙 Nine Inch Nails’ 🎙 Trent Reznor has constructed a character who is in an animalistic, lustful, and deviant state of mind. The first verse is a perfect example of a suspect mindset when it comes to sex. Sex, we find out, is only one component of “Closer,” even if Reznor asserts on the chorus: “I wanna fuck you like an animal / I wanna feel you from the inside.”  Yes, that’s thinking with the D for sure!

The first pre-chorus tells more than the overt sex references over the industrial-sounding backdrop.  Here, Reznor’s character is a broken man with no morals.  He ‘gives no fucks’ about the acts he’s going to commit sexually, because “I broke apart my insides” and “I’ve got no soul to sell.”  So, essentially, he didn’t sell his soul to the devil because he had none to begin with.  Savage! The sex is a way to cope to some extent (“Help me get away from myself”).  He suggests flaws can be ‘sexed away’, including isolation and absence of faith.  ‘You make me perfect / Help me become somebody else,” he sings on the second pre-chorus.  A key statement closes out the chorus: “My whole existence is flawed / You get me closer to God.” Woah! Of course, it’s hard to see Trent Reznor, as a spiritual being.

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Music Video 🎶📼

“Closer” the song is controversial – see the two paragraphs that precede for evidence! “Closer” the music video 🎶📼 is equally controversial!  Pardon my French, but there is a lot of weird shit going on.  A live monkey tied to a cross (WTF), a boar’s head, a naked woman, an eel (?), maggots, Trent licking what resembles a nipple… It’s something you just have to see for yourself.  Honestly, the music video is more bizarre than the song, which, you at least understand entails wild, sketchy sex as atonement for being a bad, broken person.  The video just raises more questions and amplifies the level of controversy.

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Final Thoughts 💭

Sure, “Closer” is a controversial – that’s obvious early on! That said, approach 30 years after it first appeared on 💿 The Downward Spiral, it still kicks some major ass.  It’s dark, but there’s a beauty and high level of musicianship behind this darkness.

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🎙 Nine Inch Nails • 💿 The Downward Spiral • 🏷 Interscope • 🗓 1994
Nine Inch Nails, “Closer”: Controversial Tunes 😈🎶 No. 36 [📷: Aidan Feddersen on Unsplash, Brent Faulkner, Interscope, The Musical Hype]

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