Happiness in Slavery

Infobox Single
Name = Happiness in Slavery
Artist = Nine Inch Nails
from Album = Broken


Released = November 1992
Format = Promotional 12"
Recorded = 1992
Genre = Industrial rock Industrial metal
Length = 5 min 21 s
Label = TVT Records/Interscope
Producer = Trent Reznor, Flood
Chart position =

• #13 (US Modern Rock)

Reviews = ???
Last single = "Sin" (1990)
This single = "Happiness in Slavery" (1992)
Next single = "Wish" (1993) |

"Happiness in Slavery" is a song by the American act Nine Inch Nails. The song takes its title and refrain from Jean Paulhan's preface to "The Story of O" [ [http://lightheadedbooks.blogspot.com/2008/08/negating-o.html "Negating O"] ] . 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.Fact|date=December 2007

The video was almost universally banned once released.Fact|date=May 2008 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. It can also be viewed on the popular video uploading and sharing website YouTube; although on said website it is flagged and requires a person to create an account confirming they are 18 years of age or over before it can be viewed.

Reznor commented that the video was not created for shock value,cite news
title = Revolution No. Nine
author = Mark Blackwell
work = huH
date = February 1995
accessdate = 2007-12-27] but that "these were the most appropriate visuals for the song." [cite news
title = Reznor Nails Down Extreme Clip
author = Deborah Russell
work = Billboard
date = December 1992
accessdate = 2007-12-27] It had to do with his artistic freedom at the time after his fallout with TVT Records.

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

External links

* " [http://nincollector.com/archive/releases/halo_05/halo05.htm Happiness in Slavery] " promos at NIN Collector
* " [http://www.ninwiki.com/Happiness_In_Slavery Happiness in Slavery] " at the NinWiki