Nine Inch Nails: Apocalypse Later

"This is a message from the U.S. Bureau of Morality, pursuant to statute 24-12-2, disclosure of surveillance.

"Citizen: By calling this number you and your family are implicitly pleading guilty to the consumption of anti-American media and have been flagged as potential militants. The United States Bureau of Morality has activated the tracking system imbedded in your personal media and initiated citizen surveillance.

"United States surveillance law gives us the right to search and seize information relating to subversive activities from your person, vehicle, workplace or home. Any attempt to hinder or prevent our investigation will be met with all necessary force. You are now part of the problem. Your re-education is about to begin. God Bless America."

1984? Actually, it's 2022.

And things are not good.

American democracy has devolved into a totalitarian regime presided over by a dictator dubbed "Capital G" (three guesses who that's supposed to be, though you should only need one). Violence and injustice rule.

Welcome to the future as imagined by Trent Reznor, the creative force driving Nine Inch Nails. His band's latest, Year Zero, presents a dystopian vision of the future. It's a concept album (complete with concept marketing such as the recorded phone message transcribed above) about a world in which the political and religious right have lost faith in democracy and embraced fascism instead. Appropriating religious language, the government demands utter subservience ... or else.

Reznor's searing, profane and at times prophetic indictment of our culture gives vent to his angst about a host of issues, from his contempt for the present presidential administration to consumerism, global warming and religious indoctrination. Nine Inch Nails' trademark industrial grind—equal parts rock, atmospheric electronica and horror-movie soundtrack—provides a haunting backdrop.

Welcome to His Nightmare
Year Zero narrates a country's descent into totalitarianism from multiple perspectives. "The Beginning of the End" paints a paranoid picture of people under the government's boot ("Down on your knees/... Watch what you think/They can read your mind"). The song's "man on the street" point of view illustrates the prevailing survival-of-the-fittest mindset ("You wait your turn/You'll be the last in line/... Get out of the way/'Cause I'm getting mine"). Similarly, "Survivalism" details the surrender of conviction that's needed to stay alive ("Lost our faith along the way/And found ourselves believing in your lies/... I got my propaganda/I got my revisionism/... All a part of this great nation").

The next several songs reveal the conflicted emotions of those in the government's employ. "The Good Soldier" finds a violence-numbed grunt struggling to believe his cause is just ("How can this be real?/I can barely feel/Anymore/I am trying to see/I am trying to believe/This is not where I should be"). Similar sentiments saturate "My Violent Heart" as a desensitized warrior describes how violence has damaged his soul ("You and I, we may look the same/But we are very far apart/There's bullet holes where my compassion used to be/And there is violence in my heart.")

Meanwhile, an anonymous insider on "Capital G" laments voting for someone who subsequently seized control of the government ("I pushed a button and elected him to office and/He pushed a button and I dropped the bomb").

Darkness Falls
Push further, and the album shifts again—this time to the government's hatchet men. Ominous allusions to torture permeate "Meet Your Master" ("Bow down in position/Against the polished steel/... You'll like the way this feels"). "The Greater Good" is an eerie, hypnotic track repeating words representing Big Brother's brainwashing omnipresence. Arguably the album's most problematic description of death comes on "The Great Destroyer," where an unhinged madman contemplates mass murder: "I hope they cannot see/The limitless potential living inside of me/To murder everything/... I am the great destroyer." (In the wake of recent school shootings, a line such as this one deserves special scrutiny, as someone on the brink of a similar rampage could conceivably be catalyzed by it.)

Getting all the way down to the bottom line, "The Good Soldier" reveals a government that has co-opted God-talk to justify its brutal ends; religiously fueled political ideology results in unflinching bloodshed ("Blood hardens in the sand/Cold metal in my hand/Hope you understand the way that things are gonna be/There's nowhere left to hide/'Cause God is on our side"). And on "God Given" an egomaniacal leader with a messiah complex demands the people's worship—shamelessly appropriating New Testament imagery in the process: "You'll see the light/And it burns so bright/Now we know we've been right/When his kingdom comes/And thy will be done/... We're the chosen ones." Elsewhere, blatant racism is another not-so-attractive characteristic attributed to the faithful.

An Unexpected Irony
All of this—along with an f-word and an s-word—sets up the album for one unexpected irony. Despite his contempt for Christianity (at least in its organized form), Reznor's story includes a bizarre twist that's ironically in sync with scriptural teaching.

Though he misses the mark regarding the source of an impending judgment, two songs nevertheless refer to a coming cataclysm caused by humankind's bloodthirsty ways. On "The Warning" unnamed but powerful onlookers ponder punishing humanity ("We've been watching you with all our eyes/... So much potential, or so we used to say/Your greed, self-importance and your arrogance/You p--- it all away/... Make amends/Or we will wipe this place clean"). Whether that judgment is in the form of humanity destroying itself or an alien race executing the task (as that song and one other perhaps allude to), the fact remains that the people of earth need to repent of their violent ways.

Reznor never actually uses the word. But repentance is the idea he's describing as he prophetically reminds us that there will be an accounting for our choices—especially as they concern the treatment of other people.

Sadly, before anyone listening to this album might get this far, he or she has to wade through a lot of darkness. In my review of Nine Inch Nails' 2005 album With Teeth, I quoted Dante's admonition, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." And that's still probably the most accurate warning one could slap on Year Zero. Equally applicable this time around is the motto of the Borg (an unrelenting alien race) in the Star Trek universe: " Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."

In Reznor's make-believe nightmare of the future, that assimilation takes place via a twisted blend of state-sponsored terrorism and government-run religion. And in case anyone misses the obvious connection between the two, the album's art offers a not-so-subtle reminder: one arm holding a Holy Bible while another holds a machine gun.

Suffice it to say, then, that Nine Inch Nails' vision of the future has some thought-provoking moments ... but more often than not it simply provokes.