29 May 2005

Rock bands with Integrity v.1

Nine Inch Nails
said on Friday it canceled plans to appear on next week's MTV Movie Awards after the network questioned the band's plans to perform in front of an image of President Bush.


The band was slated to perform "The Hand That Feeds," the first single from its latest album. A Los Angeles Times review called the song "a warning against blind acceptance of authority, including that of a president leading his nation to war."

"We were set to perform 'The Hand That Feeds' with an unmolested, straightforward image of George W. Bush as the backdrop. Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me," Nine Inch Nails' leader Trent Reznor said in a statement posted on the band's Web site.

MTV said in a statement: "While we respect Nine Inch Nails' point of view, we were uncomfortable with their performance being built around a partisan political statement. When we discussed our discomfort with the band, their choice was to unfortunately pull out of the Movie Awards."

MTV is owned by Viacom Inc., the corporate parent of broadcast network CBS.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

if any of the crappy country-western music hacks had any relevance on mtv, they would have let them do it.

Anonymous said...

actually, i think that NiN messed up here: they could have played the same song without bush-backdrop and unvieled Bush t-shirt or something

ScottB said...

Hmmm...a good point anonymous.

Anonymous said...

that sort of integrity is easier than, say, having some form of musical integrity. if that were the case they wouldn't have even been in any MTV situation in the first place. Priorities. How crucial is a 'band' so obviously preaching to the converted, anyway? tempest in a teaspoon.