“Offensive”: The song that made MTV ban Nine Inch Nails
For many artists cutting their teeth in the early 1980s, MTV was the only place they thought of success. Even if not every band seemed like the most authentic representation of pop, rock, or metal, it was always important to get the right video so that someone could reach every eyeball on the planet in those few minutes. While Nine Inch Nails did a great job at instilling a sense of unease whenever their videos were played, they were never exactly on glowing terms with the channel, either.
For artists like Trent Reznor, MTV wasn’t necessarily their friend. The channel’s whole concept sounded great as a means of creating a free artistic expression in a few minutes of film, but when Nine Inch Nails started releasing material, there were a lot more higher-ups who would rather throw on re-runs than have to endure the graphic material they were making half the time.
Broken was already a heavy listen for anyone who wanted to hear an album and keep all of their skin on their bones, but when ‘Closer’ came out, MTV practically banned the original version of the video for being too graphic. If you know anything about the way the adolescent mind works, though, Reznor’s decision to put a graphic saying that the images were unavailable in certain shots only made fans want to seek it out even more.
Although Reznor had grown to the point where he didn’t need any help from MTV by the 2000s, they were willing to have him back once songs like ‘The Hand That Feeds’ started blowing up the charts. If they were making a live broadcast, though Reznor was going to have some fun by bringing out a certain target when addressing a song whose subject was someone who didn’t think about others.
Given that it was the middle of the Iraq War, Reznor’s initial plan was to have a huge banner of George Bush’s face used in the background as the song played, but due to the divide in the country, MTV advised them to take the banner down once it came time for the show. So what did Reznor do instead? Not a goddamn thing.
After refusing to bring the banner down, Reznor released a statement saying that the channel refused to give them screentime, saying, “Nine Inch Nails will not be performing at the MTV Movie Awards as previously announced. We were set to perform ‘The Hand That Feeds’ with an unmolested, straightforward image of George W. Bush as the backdrop. Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me. See you on tour this fall when we return to play in America.”
Given that this was the peak of protest music in the 2000s, though, MTV couldn’t have avoided those problems if they tried. Green Day may not have put explicit Bush-bashing images in their lyrics or live show, but anyone who didn’t understand that Billie Joe Armstrong was talking about the president on American Idiot really needed to get their ears checked.
But looking at how Reznor would eventually start taking control of his music and move into the world of scoring, it was clear that he wasn’t going to go along with the program any longer. He had a model for what his music was going to be, and by this point, he had a fanbase that was solid enough to follow him on whatever crazy path he went down.
