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

‘They’re Really Close To My Body’: A Hagiography of Nine Inch Nails and their resident mystic Robin Finck ‘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 warning: Many of the hyperlinks in this essay go to live videos, which feature a strobe light. I was 10 years old when The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails was released in 1994, and I listened to it more than any other record for the next six years, when everything I knew about myself was disintegrating and becoming unknowable. It lives in my blood memory, the soundtrack to the most formative part of my life. When I think of that time, my memories resonate with those songs, I can’t imagine myself without them, who I would have been. Since then, twenty-five years, I regularly go through periods where the only thing I listen to for ... Read full article.