Diss tracks in the world of rock and metal are few and far between. But in 1999, an emotionally drained and angry Trent Reznor took the hook from an old 70s pop rock standard, the drum loop from one of his bandmates' side projects and a line from a Tori Amos song, wrote a set of lyrics aimed at Courtney Love, Billy Corgan, Michael Stipe, Fred Durst and every other individual he found worthy of his ire, and turned it all into one of Nine Inch Nails’ heaviest and most furious songs.
Reznor had struggled with the demands of becoming an instantly recognisable rock star in the aftermath of Nine Inch Nails’ massive 1994 breakthrough album, The Downward Spiral album.
"You start out thinking you can change the world,” he told Kerrang! In 2005. “But when cool people at clubs who wouldn't even talk to me were like, 'Whoah, he's got a platinum album, who's that guy?', it was strange. I realised that the guys who beat me up in high school were now in my audience.
"Money, fame, power - things I'd never had - those things are recipes for massive personality distortion. In my life I was standing on the edge of a cliff about to jump off because my brain wasn't working. After The Downward Spiral, I felt like I had to make the best record in the world, but my addictions meant my head was packed with cotton.”
Reznor had to go away for a long time to battle both addiction and depression. It took him five years to compete The Downward Spiral’s follow up, 1999’s superb double-album, The Fragile. During this time, he lost the grandmother who raised him, retreated into darker and darker recesses and admitted that he “avoided doing the record, because I’d forgotten that I like playing, making and listening to music”. He also found that many of his closest relationships had faded or soured in this period.
There was his brief relationship with Courtney Love, whose band Hole had opened for NIN in 1994, and the fling between the pair, which had gone south in very resentful terms when Love told Spin in 1995 that Reznor shouldn’t have called his band Nine Inch Nails “when you have a three-inch one.”
The seemingly mutual respect between himself and Tori Amos was also under scrutiny; the two had been openly complimentary about each other in the press for years, with Reznor even performing vocals on Amos’ song Past the Mission in 1994, but during a 1998 performance of the song Caught a Lite Sneeze, Amos sang the “I hurt myself today” line from NIN’s Hurt, adding “You never could, you never did, you’re full of shit.”.
There was then a story from an Amos fan, who was said to have asked Trent to sign a copy of her Under the Pink album at a NIN signing session, with Trent apparently turning his nose up at the idea, increasing speculation that there had been a falling out between the pair.
Most infamously of all, there was Reznor’s friendship with Marilyn Manson. Reznor produced Manson’s Antichrist Superstar album in 1996 before promptly taking the band on tour, where a falling out took place.
“With Manson, that line has been crossed,” Trent told Kerrang! in 1999 of his recollections of the tour. “He said some very ignorant, mean, malicious things. That friendship was a big fuck up for me, it fucked me up pretty good.”
With Manson, that line has been crossed. He said some very ignorant, mean, malicious things
Trent Reznor
All of this contributed to Reznor's general disgust and distain at celebrity culture. Thematically, that’s not something that gelled with the overarching narrative of what The Fragile would become, but when Reznor heard something from guitarist Charlie Clouser’s infamous Tapeworm project that was being recorded in his Nothing studio, it sparked something in him.
“I had a drum loop for a song that I was working on for Tapeworm and Trent really liked it,” Clouser told Metal Hammer in 2019. “He took it away and it became the genesis for the song Starfuckers, Inc., which is a far bigger deal, really.”
Reznor used Clouser’s loop and turned it into a raging, industrial metal banger, pointing fingers at celebs who “pout on the cover of a magazine” and “sit in the back of a limousine”. It also referenced the iconic chorus from Carly Simon’s 1972 hit You’re So Vain, another diss track of sorts.
The song worked, but Reznor was aware that it was something of a departure from the rest of The Fragile and almost shelved it for a future release.
“We almost didn’t put it on the album as it’s out of context of the seriousness of that album, but the record kinda needed the power of that track,” he said backstage at the Big Day Out Festival in 2000.
The title of Starfuckers, Inc. was originally widely attributed to a line in Tori Amos’ 1996 song Professional Widow - a song allegedly about Courtney Love ("Starfucker, just like my daddy"). It certainly seems plausible, but Reznor told Kerrang! in 2000 it was simply a song about “poking fun at that bloated sense of celebrity and inflated ego among this clique of royalty in America.”
Despite being one of the more instantaneous songs on The Fragile, Starfuckers Inc. was only picked to be released as a promotional single rather than being given a full radio release. It did come with a very pointed and infamous video, though.
In it, Reznor is seen writhing around in the back of a limousine with what appears to be a female companion while paparazzi try and snap him, before he arrives at a grotty-looking fairground and begins chucking baseballs at plates painted with the faces of Michael Stipe, Gene Simmons, Billy Corgan, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Fred Durst and Trent himself.
Every time I opened Rolling Stone there was a picture of Michael Stipe in his underpants
Trent Reznor
The NIN man then goes on to chuck the latest albums from Manson, Limp Bizkit and others in a toilet, before a very unflattering Courtney Love lookalike is dropped in a dunk tank. Finally, Reznor’s companion is revealed to be none other than, erm, Marilyn Manson, the two apparently having made up.
“I remember there was a time where every time I opened Rolling Stone there was a picture of Michael Stipe popping out in his underpants, then it was Billy Corgan everywhere," Reznor told MTV, explaining the famous targets in his video. He sneeringly added: “Look, I’m not gonna say Limp Bizkit sucks. You know it, I know it.”
In the years that followed, Starfuckers, Inc. became a highlight of NIN’s live shows and one of The Fragile era's most definitive songs. Reznor’s patched-up friendship with Manson didn’t last for long; by 2009, he was describing the since-disgraced rock star as a “dopey clown”. Meanwhile, his war of words with Courtney Love raged on and on. But nothing any of the parties threw at each other ever hit quite as hard as Starfuckers.
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