NINE INCH NAILS AT 30: YEAR ZERO: SURVEILLANCE, SNOWDEN AND SURVIVALISM BY PETER RAY ALLISON

Year Zero is set in a world filled with religious fundamentalism, rampant nationalism and ubiquitous surveillance.  If you think this sounds familiar, then you are not the only one…

Year Zero, the fifth studio album by Nine Inch Nails, is also Trent Reznor’s most political album to date.  Written in 2006, Year Zero is based around a single concept; a dystopian vision of an America that may well become reality.

The title of the album stems from a term used to indicate regime change.  The idea behind Year Zero is that all culture within a society must be completely destroyed or discarded in order for a new revolutionary culture to replace it. All history of the nation is purged and replaced with a new government-approved version of events.

Survivalism, on the other hand, relates to the political movement of groups who actively prepare for states of emergency, including social or political disruption. The emphasis is on self-reliance, stockpiling supplies, and becoming self-sufficient.

There is an urban myth surrounding the Year Zero’s creation, in which Reznor, having completed rehab, began to take an interest in politics and the world around him, whereupon he became angry. Very angry.  With the result of that fury being Year Zero.

The truth is actually quite different, as Reznor started creating Year Zero during the With Teeth tour. However, this urban myth highlights Reznor’s growing political awareness.  In an interview with Wired magazine, Reznor stated “I'd been toying around with the idea of taking Nine Inch Nails out of being just a narrative about my own head and addressing something that had gotten higher up on the list of importance to me over the years, which has just been kind of what's happening in America and the direction we've taken as a country.”

The album of Year Zero is set in what was fifteen years in the future from when it was recorded (approximately 2020), where the world has reached breaking point – politically, spiritually and culturally.

We are presented with an America that has eroded the civil liberties of its population in the name of security, and witnessed the formation of a Bureau of Morality, a government organisation dedicated to preserving the so-called “American values”, whatever they may be.

As the chorus to Survivalism states; “I got my propaganda / I got revisionism / I got my violence in high-def ultra-realism / All a part of this great nation.”

What makes Year Zero particularly scary is its almost prophetic foretelling of a future we now find ourselves hurtling towards.  It was only in 2013, seven years after Year Zero was released, that Edward Snowden revealed the scope of America’s surveillance regime.  Anyone who had been listening to Year Zero would undoubtedly have experienced a cold shiver down their spines.

The Patriot Act in America has witnessed multiple abuses of the legislation.  Initially intended as an emergency measure, following the events of 9/11, to provide American citizens with greater security against terrorism, the Patriot Act has instead been used to invade the privacy of American citizens and to issue National Security Letters – requests to obtain private records from companies about their clients – without the previously required court order.

We are now under a constant barrage of fake news and “alternative facts”.  Even the Counselor to the President, Kellyanne Conway, defended a statement by the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer by explaining “You're saying it's a falsehood…  Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that.”

This litany of misinformation is starkly foretold in a single line from Survivalism; “Lost our faith along the way and found ourselves believing your lies.”

Meanwhile, a similar wave of nationalism seems to be spreading through many European nations.  There has been a resurgence of far-right parties in Sweden, Hungary, Italy, Germany and France.  Now compare this with how “The cocking of the rifles / The marching of the feet” in Suvivalism evokes images of Nazi rallies in 1940’s Germany.

It is not just America that this future could apply to.  In the UK there is the Investigatory Powers Act, derided by some as “the snooper’s charter”, which allows for one of the most comprehensive government-sanctioned surveillance in any democratic country.  In an article for Computer Weekly, Megan Goulding of the human rights organisation Liberty described the Investigatory Powers Act thus: “The government’s continuing approach of subjecting all of us to suspicionless surveillance with entirely inadequate privacy safeguards is incompatible with a free, rights-respecting democracy."​

The music video to Survivalism brings this theme of rapacious surveillance and government intervention to the fore.  Presented as a series of surveillance cameras hidden in the rooms of an apartment block, recording the activities of their owners in their most private moments, the music video flits between different rooms.  As the video continues, the surveillance cameras follow a government hit-squad as it infiltrates the building and storms one of the rooms, whilst the residents ignore the commotion.

More than just a fantastic single, Survivalism – and the entirety of Year Zero – is a chilling warning of a future that we might one day find ourselves inhabiting.  One where privacy and free speech has been sacrificed in order to protect our freedom.  But, in a world where your every word is recorded and analysed, could we ever be free?

To quote the final line of Survivalism; “You got your pacifism – I got survivalism.”

Peter Ray Allison is a writer and freelance journalist, specialising in science and technology.  He regularly covers security and government policy for Computer Weekly, and endlessly worries about the number of times his internet research will have been flagged by GCHQ…