Nine Inch Nails & Children

[martin_b]

Thank you for sharing that, that is beyond adorable .

Heh, you should see him when he is dancing with me and my wife (on my arms). It's pretty funny. I will try to record him and post a video here. :-)

....

I remember when this topic came up years ago, although I didn't post, and the consensus swung very much the other way. I think it's kind of a different question now though, since so much of the NIN material released in the last half-decade is instrumentals and songs with no overtly objectionable content-- doesn't HM only have one song that contains a swear word? I think it was a lot easier to have a gut reaction of "No way!" when With_Teeth was the most recent album released.

I hope I can have kids some time over the next few years, and I honestly don't know what tack to take with this. I have no issue with the poppier NIN songs like EDIETS, but songs with dark themes and cursing I would probably skip, just to keep the kid from parroting back the lyrics. I realize there's a whole deeper debate about whether exposing kids to dark themes at a young age, with proper explanation, is actually more helpful to their development than shielding them from it (or whether vapid, bubblegum pop is actually more insidiously harmful to impressionable children in a different way) but I'm not addressing that right now-- I just wouldn't want the kid singing Closer in the supermarket ^^;;

Well, you got me wrong. :-) My son will become a Polish native speaker, so he does not understand at this moment what TR lyrics mean. But he really enjoy BMWAG, Closer and Reptile because these songs have a very clear beat (rythm). This means that he considers these songs only in a category of "oooowwww yeah, this song is very fast so I will work out my father's arms once again!".

And starting from a week ago or so, he demands to play the video stream from "Made In America Festival" everyday when there is a time for a nap... Seriously! When "1,000,000" is going to be played, he sleeps and I put him to his bed. The best part is that his "adventure with NIN" started when I played the CBH for the first time. I told him that "now we will listen a mister from USA" and he remembered that those songs are sung by "a mister". And this "adventure" was really unexpected.

PS. There is also one additional thing: when we play around with DUPLO bricks, everytime when he overhears a song that he knows and likes ("Meat Your Master" or "The Line Begins To Blur" or any other NIN song) he says "I likes that" (yes I used the "likes" form intentionally here :-) and start to dance.

[hani]

when I was a little boy, I listened to everything my mom was listening to (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, The Prodigy) and I always loved it. never felt violated by it, and I still love those bands and this music.

[ericy210]

NIN yes, heroin no. At least until puberty.

[KarenLeslie]

Well, you got me wrong. :-) My son will become a Polish native speaker, so he does not understand at this moment what TR lyrics mean. But he really enjoy BMWAG, Closer and Reptile because these songs have a very clear beat (rythm). This means that he considers these songs only in a category of "oooowwww yeah, this song is very fast so I will work out my father's arms once again!".

I get that he doesn't understand the words so he's not being disturbed by the song. I just can't get past the idea that you probably shouldn't play a song about rape at gunpoint to small children on general principal.

Also? Whenever someone says "My parents let me do X when I was younger, and I turned out fine!" I am deeply suspicious. How do you know?

[martin_b]

I get that he doesn't understand the words so he's not being disturbed by the song. I just can't get past the idea that you probably shouldn't play a song about rape at gunpoint to small children on general principal.

Also? Whenever someone says "My parents let me do X when I was younger, and I turned out fine!" I am deeply suspicious. How do you know?

You are probably right. However BMWAG was Player about 2 or 3 times in general while COA, CBH and the rest of HM songs are played over and over everyday.

[Tyson]

Also? Whenever someone says "My parents let me do X when I was younger, and I turned out fine!" I am deeply suspicious. How do you know?

I grew into someone who understands perfectly the differences between right and wrong, when things are appropriate and inappropriate to say or do. I'm courteous and well mannered, especially in the presence of elders etc. Why? Because my mother played an active role in teaching me how to behave properly.

Furthermore, I'm a law abiding citizen, never assaulted, murdered or raped anyone. Never had to talk myself out of doing any of those things etc. and I don't have any mental disorders.

By the time I listened to TDS I had already seen my share of horror/slasher movies and so forth, and knew that Jason Voorhees was a BAD GUY and not an anti-hero. I also knew that TDS wasn't about a guy you wanted to be. It was about what happens to you when you do all the screwed up stuff your parents tell you not to do.

You know, one example of me doing something and getting reprimanded, when I was young I got really obsessed with WWF and Hulk Hogan. I started emulating his wrestling moves, and my mom said, "No more watching wrestling for a while" sat me down and explained why I couldn't just run around doing wrestling moves on other kids. Because of that, as an adult, I know that resorting to physical violence is something you only do to protect yourself in the real world.

Like I said. I know the difference between right and wrong and when things are appropriate and inappropriate to say or do. And I know that BMWAG is a fucked up song even in the context of a fictional narrative. So... am I fine? I'd say so. I'm not perfect, but I definitely have a moral compass that's very well calibrated.

[Halo Infinity]

I knew I forgot to post this video here. Somebody could send this to Trent. I wonder how he'd react to this now that he's a father.



@johnbron - That's you, right?

[johnbron]

I knew I forgot to post this video here. Somebody could send this to Trent. I wonder how he'd react to this now that he's a father.



@johnbron - That's you, right?

Yep. It's just hard to believe that was eight years ago. I'll have to make an update with us all jumping on the bed to Satellite.

[Khrz]

"Meat Your Master"

Ooooh, kinky !

[eversonpoe]

Yep. It's just hard to believe that was eight years ago. I'll have to make an update with us all jumping on the bed to Satellite.

oh my god, that video is so fucking cute.

also, you kinda look like steven wilson

[Halo Infinity]

My opinion on 11 and 12 year olds not being too young to listen to Nine Inch Nails remains the same. Those ages seem to be the youngest ages most people first starting getting into music. I could still see why 8 and under would be considered too young by lots though, or even 9 or 10. But even 9 and 10 don't look too young for me. But of course that still depends on the child as every child is different.

As far as getting into NIN early on, to me, 11 to 12 seems like the perfect time to get into NIN. That's only a mere one to two years before becoming a teenager anyway. I also noticed that there were some fans that were 11 to 12 in 1989 that actually became fans between 1989 to 1991. But of course, they were all teenagers by 1991. So it's not like they had a long way before becoming a 13 year old NIN fan by then.

As for some of the music videos and NIN videos in general, they're clearly R-rated and X-rated, but I only meant to discuss the music alone, and none of the videos, but I can still understand/accept that it comes with it anyway. Just because you let an 11 year old or a 12 year old listen to Broken doesn't mean that you have to show them the Broken movie, or let them know about it. (Not that you have to lie about it either, but you don't have to bring it up.)

[OSLIN]

My son is two and loves Me, I'm Not. He sings,"Heeeeeey, not". It makes me smile. He is only two so I rarely let him listen to NIN, I use discretion when it comes to the "darker" elements of NIN. He's never heard anything off of Broken or TDS... yet.

[DirtyLittleHeart]

I just couldn't resist. It's sort of amusing... now that there really IS a song called Everything. The horror... oh Everything... the horror.

I wrote that post a while back...my now 16 yo daughter and I saw them Monday night in Raleigh. Frigging awesome. She's ruined for any other band now.

[nin5in]

My 7 year old loves "Head Like a Hole". She screams out "I rather die than give you control".

[Charmingly Miserable]

I play select NIN songs for my 6 year old daughter. She loves Everything which was slightly annoying but then she'll ask me to play Kiss or Queen which even more annoying for me. I remember playing Year Zero (especially The Great Destroyer) a lot when I was pregnant with my daughter and she would rock out inside of me. I don't think Closer would be appropriate for her. Having said that, one of the reasons I find my daughter so amazing is that she has her own (generally) interesting taste in music; she'll listen to Tom Jones, Culture Club, Kiss (ugh) then to Purity Ring. So, having a little bit of NIN in her musical repertoire is good for her as long as its not the more "rougher" NIN songs.

[martin_b]

My 7 year old loves "Head Like a Hole". She screams out "I rather die than give you control".

My son screams out only the "HOLEEEE" and "DIEEEEEEEEEEEEE" phrases (because he is not English native speaker). :-)

[Charmingly Miserable]

Now that I've told my 6 year old that I saw NIN this past week and seen the merch and videos from the show, she is all about NIN. High five, Victoria.

[doucette]

i started listening to nin around 11 or 12 years old. ever since my little sister had a mp3 player around age 7 or 8, she's came to me usually once a year, asking to put new music on it. when she was that young, any nin i uploaded was along the lines of the still album, and the other quieter nin tracks from various albums. i knew she likely wouldn't enjoy the more aggressive songs at that age, and that also allowed me to avoid anything with especially vulgar lyrics. over the years, i slowly weaned her onto more nin (at her request). she's now 11, with the uncensored version of closer, only, etc, on her ipod. i still don't have anything like mr. self destruct or somewhat damaged uploaded, because i know that doesn't really appeal to her.

i wanted to give her the chance to listen to nin at a young age, because both my brother and i grew up listening to them, and the music grew incredibly precious to us. it helped both my brother and i through our parents divorce, serious medical issues i had as a teenager, etc. if she hadn't liked the music, then that's fine, but i wanted her to at least be exposed to the band the same way i was - if she connected with it, then awesome, she knows where to find me if she'd like more.

she still listens to the typical female teen music (taylor swift and ed sheeran), but she recently became her teacher's favourite student after he heard her listening to hesitation marks in class. i take a bit of pride in that, aha.

[Halo Infinity]

Man, back in the day, this thread was skewed completely the other way.... now I'm on my own...

I just thought I'd bring up this post along with the point that it really is amazing just how skewed it became in under 10 years nonetheless. It seems more acceptable now than ever for some reason. I still thought that you had some very valid points though.

[Omega]

I started listening to NIN when I was 12 when they first came out in 89...sooo. LOL but I am old now and so I probably wouldn't have my kids listen to NIN if I had any. Maybe the clean ones. Older now! LOL.

[WorzelG]

I haven't been playing this latest album to my kids, I played Ghosts to my youngest who was born in 2008 when it came out. I've been listening to the album on the laptop with my sennheiser headphones and singing along to it, and suddenly my 5 year old starts singing the 'stretch across the sky' bit from All Time Low but just from hearing me sing it, he sounded in tune though so maybe I'm not quite as off-key as I think I am

[Calla lily]

My kids are 9 and 11. There are some NIN songs I don't think they should be listening to. It's not the curse words because they have already been exposed to that and are old enough to know not to repeat said words (at least when I'm around), it's the context of some of the songs. They are not emotionally ready for some of the songs, but if they were, I wouldn't have a problem with them listening, at least the 11 1/2 year old.

[Halo Infinity]

I would definitely agree with you. I can actually understand why most people would think that it's not a good idea for having children in grades 5 and under to listen to Nine Inch Nails. However, I still feel convinced that 6th graders are old enough to handle Pretty Hate Machine, Broken, The Downward Spiral, The Fragile, and With Teeth.

Ages 11 and 12 don't seem to be too young for that, and most parents seem to allow their kids to listen to whatever by the time they're 13+. There are obviously exceptions though, because I remember being in high school with other students that had parents that still didn't approve of their kids having CDs with profanities on them at the time.

(This was also like around 1996-2004, as I've also noticed other kids listening to all sorts of rock and rap back then, and hence the mention of CDs still being used regularly.)

[Calla lily]

I think I was a freshman in high school when I bought my first Metallica tape (I say tape because this was back '88). My mom wanted to listen to it and check out the lyrics. She didn't like it, but let me keep it, and then never questioned my music choices again, just told me to turn it down lol. And when 2 Live Crew's As Nasty As They Wanna Be came out, people freaked. That album makes Closer seem like a lullaby.

[ZeroSum]

I think that video of the dad and his girls jumping on the bed just made me want to have kids....

When I got into NIN, I was 16 years old. Year Zero had just come out. I didn't own any records prior to it other than a few Weird Al Yankovic albums. I grew up in a very rural farming community, my parents and everyone I knew only listened to country and Christian music. Anything else I knew of was often cast in a negative light- "devil worshipping rock n roll" and "violent, morally corrupt hip hop/rap." At that age of 16, I was in that prime angsty phase. I knew something was wrong and fucked up with the sheltered community I was growing up in. I didn't fit in at all, I saw the holes in their religion, I didn't agree with the popular political views, but I went along with it all begrudgingly because what else was I supposed to do? I knew nothing else other than this little voice inside my head telling me that they were all wrong- but that voice was quiet. Not enough to rouse me from being that average small town kid.

One day a cousin just told me to listen to Nine Inch Nails, and within the next couple of weeks, I bought a copy of Year Zero. I still remember the impact it had before I even listened to the music. The imagery on the inside of the album was incredibly profound to me in my situation- I'm speaking of that picture of the man holding the bible in one hand and a machine gun in the other. It represented the type of shit I had been thinking for years but never really could put the words to. It seems like a pretty simple case of symbolism nowadays, but back then it was world changing, eye opening. I was shaking as I put the disc into the stereo- it felt like what I was about to listen to would be so wrong in the eyes of all the overzealous Christians I knew, and it was scary to be breaking their rules like that. But I knew I agreed with what that image represented, so I cautiously headed down the rabbit hole that album opened up for me. The sounds, the lyrics, and the message were all so much different from anything I had ever heard before. There was no slow progression into the world of NIN for me, I just dove in head first. I remember listening to it straight through and not even moving, just sitting in my room and staring at the wall and thinking, holy fucking shit, what is this? It's weird, it's scary, it's noisy, it's disorienting, it's different- it's fucking awesome! I remember doing nothing the rest of the weekend except to Year Zero over and over and over, and look up everything I could about the ARG. I then slowly made my way through the back catalog... and had my mind blown over and over again. NIN woke me the fuck up. It made me get my shit together. It taught me to truly believe in something, to stand up for myself, to be fucking pissed about all the injustices I saw happening in certain establishments. And it taught me to appreciate and recognize beauty in a completely new way. It's weird how music about so much self destruction made me value myself so much more. I guess I just finally had a voice. And, it also taught me that I fucking love music. I've gotten into so many bands and seen so many shows now that it's kind of mind-boggling to think about. I love it.

So it's really difficult for me to imagine what it would be like to hear music like NIN as a kid. If I grew up jamming TDS and TF, chances are I'd still love them, but they would have a completely different meaning to me. Stuff like this is so strange to think about. If I have kids someday, and I catch them going through my old cds or something, I know I'd definitely have to sit down with them and get their thoughts about what they heard. Give them some context. All that good stuff. Hopefully I would have the composure to keep a huge fucking smile off of my face while giving this stern lecture, though.

[DigitalChaos]

My 3 year old loves to come up to me and go "H - H - HAUN - TED"

He has listened to most of the NIN catalog. I usually skip over Closer just because it's a bit... much. Everything else is a demonstration of context. There are words and ideas that are fine in context of a song, but not your classroom. So far so good!

[Frolick Shiawase]

Holy crap! I saw this topic and HAD to register and comment on this! (hi, everyone. I'm a lurker since a long time)
Well, you see, my experience with music was not subtle nor tame in any sense of the words. I hope you enjoy it, it is a kinda long read:

My mother used to listen to MCR, Black Sabbath, Metallica, and most importantly, Marilyn Manson. She owned lots of songs that were mainly downloaded and without context.
Y'see, I never feared this music, nor it waked up my killer instinct or something like that. I actually liked it. But my grandma was terrified about me listening to such "scary and satanic music"
I'll give her some credit, tho. Marilyn Manson has some... interesting music, to say the least.
Well, after my grandmother gave me a lecture about how the devil and corruption (Ah, catholic religion.) and I started fearing that music... The side effects were a fear of videogames, music, the color red and darkness that haunted me for two years or so, tho (that was when I was 5, more or less...)
When I was 9 (It was 2002), when Internet was a normal thing to have in a common house I had my first dosage of NIN: The Perfect Drug music video... I was awestruck at the images, the sound, the colors... the almost epileptic breakdown... My mother and I watched it together, and I can't remember what she commented exactly, but she noticed I got excited...

Enter the P2P downloading system... Soon enough, I stumbled into Closer. I had just learned my first English swear words, and naturally, as a kid I went on to download it, along with Head Like A Hole, Burn and, of course, The Perfect Drug.
I listened to the infamous Closer, and found out it was a good song, but I didn't love it as much as Burn or TPD. HLAH was "Meh."
I shared the PC with my mom, and she soon discovered I downloaded Closer. She then she asked me if I knew what it meant. I naturally said "no, I just know it's something bad, but I don't know much about the song"
She then tells me not to see the video or to sing it in public.
I could listen to Closer all I wanted, but she told me to wait until I was older to know about the meaning and all that.

Time went on, and I ended up.... completely normal.
Yeah, i think I can't really emit a judgement from a parent's point of view (My mother currently likes NIN to death. She secretely likes me buying the physical halos) but from a personal point of view, I think it's a matter of perspective.

If you educate your kids about what's right, what's wrong, when exposed to "dirty" material, they will learn how to automatically discern from what's acceptable to say or to do, and what isn't. In my case, my mother was always looking at what I heard, and explaining why a song is good or bad (She made me delete Te Quiero Puta from Rammstein, for example, while letting me listen to Closer)

That's my personal experience and opinion. I hope you enjoyed the read, and sorry for making it so long... I HAD to share this.

[Halo Infinity]

HLAH was "Meh."

What a fantastic and lovely read, and this certainly proves that there can be 9 year olds that can be ready for Nine Inch Nails. However, that was the only truly shocking thing about this. Most new fans tend eat Head Like A Hole right up, especially if they were introduced to the likes of The Perfect Drug and Closer first.

And well, hopefully Head Like A Hole and the rest of Pretty Hate Machine grew on you too.

[Frolick Shiawase]

And well, hopefully Head Like A Hole and the rest of Pretty Hate Machine grew on you too.

Yes, of course it did! Matter of fact, it was the second Halo I bought.

Personally, I like That's What I Get better than Head Like A Hole, but still, the whole of Pretty Hate Machine is something that has grown into me.

A curious thing was that I first started listening to the music for the music itself... Now, ten years later, the feelings and memories have grown into the songs... At first TWIG was just a song, and now it's a whole memory... It's fascinating for me, to tell the truth

[Halo Infinity]