"Happiness in Slavery" is a song by the American act Nine Inch Nails. It is available on the Broken EP and was also released as a 12" promotional single in November 1992.
Nine Inch Nails' performance of "Happiness in Slavery" at Woodstock '94, included on the concert's compilation album, won the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 1996.
Music video
The music video for "Happiness in Slavery" features performance artist Bob Flanagan entering a large room. He places a candle on an altar and ritualistically removes all of his clothing and washes himself before strapping himself into a machine with long robotic claws and other torture machinery that subsequently tear apart his skin and stimulate his genitalia. He screams and yells in pain and pleasure until he dies. The slave's body (Bob) is then lowered into a metallic container which spews out the shredded pieces of the body into a pool of worms. Meanwhile, Trent Reznor watches and screams the lyrics from behind a metal gate, which opens at the end of the video, leaving Reznor to enter the room, revealing he is next.
An urban legend claims that the torture footage is real, except for the final killing of Flanagan, but Flanagan's skin was not broken in the film, and the blood in the black and white video was a mixture of mashed bananas and chocolate syrup. Flanagan did often inflict extensive damage on his own body, partly to fight the pain of cystic fibrosis.citation needed
The video was almost universally banned once released.citation needed It was later included in Closure and the Broken Movie. It was featured on Too Much 4 Much, MuchMusic's showcase of videos banned from their regular programming.
Reznor commented that the video was not created for shock value,[1] but that "these were the most appropriate visuals for the song."[2] It had to do with his artistic freedom at the time after his fallout with TVT Records.[1]
Track listing for promotional single
- A1 – "Happiness in Slavery" (Fixed version) – 6:09
- A2 – "Happiness in Slavery" (Sherwood Slave remix) – 2:17
- B1 – "Happiness in Slavery" (PK Slavery remix) – 5:41
- B2 – "Happiness in Slavery" (Broken version) – 5:21
A promotional CD containing only the track as it appears on the Broken EP was also released during this same timeframe.
References
- ^ a b Mark Blackwell (February 1995). "Revolution No. Nine", huH. Retrieved on 2007-12-27.
- ^ Deborah Russell (December 1992). "Reznor Nails Down Extreme Clip", Billboard. Retrieved on 2007-12-27.
External links
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