By Tiffany Lee Brown

I used to have guilty pleasures. Now they're all just pleasures.

Case in point: the foot-long swath of CD shelf devoted to the most scorned, least fashionable "band" imaginable, Nine Inch Nails. Come on over here. Look at all that stuff! There's the well-beaten copy of "Pretty Hate Machine" (my original, chewed-up cassette is long gone), the 23 mixes of "Down In It." Why two copies of "Broken"? Well, one of 'em has a hidden track; the other has a cute li'l mini-CD thrown in. Admittedly, things started petering out after that era - see, check out this other shelf, it's pretty obvious I'd crossed over to Elliott Smith by then - but the "Natural Born Killers" soundtrack is still there.

That blue one? Don't tell me you never heard "Fixed" - it kicks ass. Big fucked-up swirly skullfucky remixes of "Broken" songs. What's that next to it? Why, (blush) that's a doublewide video set. Two VHS tapes. I don't think I've ever watched all the videos - I don't even have a TV - but I still can't chuck 'em out. Yeah, I guess you're right: There is something sort of sick about all this. Which reminds me: I hadn't listened to NIN in a couple years, and ended up in a romantic interlude with someone who put on a live bootleg I hadn't heard before. Know what? It was fucking great mood music. Better than Barry White, any day.

I have foot-long swaths of shelf devoted to the Beatles, Bowie, Magnetic Fields, and the Divine Comedy. But they don't inspire the dismay, confusion and derision in visiting music geeks who decide to waste a half-hour poking around my CDs. No one of any hippitude admits to liking Nine Inch Nails. The techno-industrial contingent disowned Trent Reznor a decade ago; the angry geeky wannabe metallish teen boys with whom I thrashed around in pits at NIN and Ministry shows have grown up, and only the nerdiest or most lunkheaded still listen to that shit. Aging indie kids, Goths and hipsters might admit to having once liked NIN, but would they confess to still hanging onto a pile of CDs - even listening to a few of 'em now and then?

I kept my little collection under the rug for too long. I never hid NIN discs away, but I didn't exactly mention them in casual conversation either. They were a guilty pleasure, like my hidden stash of Ultravox and Depeche Mode vinyl was a dozen years ago. They were sekrit, like the knowledge that I possessed two books of Billy Joel sheet music when I was 11, so that I could sing along whilst playing the piano.

But that's the nicest thing about getting older. You stop giving a fuck what people think about you. Let me tell BarFly - let me tell the world! I HAVE NIN CDs galore! I HAVE PAT BENATAR and MEN WITHOUT HATS VINYL from back in the day! And some band named The Bzzz with a giant bee-butt on the cover!

So if you're just jonesing to hear Flood remixing Nine Inch Nails, come on by. I've got a new apartment, a new shelf upon which to park all those CDs. We're thinking of throwing a Retro-Early-'90s party as a housewarming; NIN will sure come in handy! See you there. Don't forget to wear your bondage bracelets.