Published Thursday, Jan. 21, 1999 The Mercer native has achieved popular and critical claim for his industrial rock music, and now he's considered a full-fledged celebrity, subject to trash-pickers and idol worshipers.
But if you're looking for any dirt on Reznor, there's nothing new in the book. In fact, Reznor doesn't come off as dumb, just as coldly calculating in presenting an image of excess.
Reznor actually tells a lot about this book, and the nature of celebrity, in what the authors attribute to him as his "dumbest quote": "I'm allowed to look stupid. And I want to."
But it's not exactly dumb -- or stupid -- that the name of his band, Nine Inch Nails, doesn't mean anything. Or that he was booed off the stage by 65,000 Guns N' Roses fans. Or that his dog leapt to its death from a third-floor balcony during a concert.
It certainly is not dumb that he jumped to a lower-level hotel balcony to escape Courtney Love, who reportedly had a crush on him. That's the smartest move any man can make.
It was dumb that he mistakenly bloodied the face of an employee while trying to fight his way off stage.
It was insensitive that he rented the Los Angeles house in which the Manson family murdered actress Sharon Tate, and called it "Le Pig," a reference to "pig" being scrawled on the walls in blood by the Manson killers.
But Reznor thrives on pushing people's buttons. He thinks rock 'n' roll should break taboos and promotes others who think the same, such as Marilyn Manson. Many other rockers, from Rupaul to Van Halen, function the same way. So instead of this book knocking Reznor down a few notches, it feeds his image.
The nature of the book is partly at fault. It seems the author's research consisted of reading rock star tell-all biographies and autobiographies, filing interviews from magazines such as Rolling Stone and People, and clipping the people columns of newspapers. If you've paid any attention to any of the 88 musicians and groups who warrant an entry, you've heard these stories before.
The book is mostly a run down on arrests, sexploits, drinking stories, drug abuse and potty predicaments.
The authors comes off as dumb by giving Spinal Tap an entry, when the band itself was a parody of dumb rock stars.
I wouldn't exactly call stories of attempted and successful suicides dumb, nor institutionalizations in mental hospitals, yet many are detailed in the book. Shall we laugh at mental illness today?
So who are the real dumb ones? Us, the fans, who embrace these idiots. We gobble up albums by musicians who practice misogyny and exhibit violent and self-destructive behavior. We buy so-called music magazines that spend more time detailing a band's road behavior than exploring its music.
Rock fans do the dumbest things.
