Music
Alberta politicians take inspiration from Nine Inch Nails for new shirts
by Richard Howard
June 26, 2015
The tradition of politicians pandering to potential voters is as old as time. It’s understandable, then, that actions out of the norm for the average politician are treated with some skepticism. However, I firmly believe that the Alberta based team of Premier Rachel Notley, Edmonton mayor Don Iveson and Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi was just being awesome as hell when they unveiled t-shirts printed to highlight their partnership. Adopting the slogan ‘Building Alberta Together,’ they placed their names above said slogan and their initials above that. Yeah. Notley, Iveson, Nenshi. NIN. And litigation be damned, those initials were printed in a carbon copy of the iconic Nine Inch Nails logo.
I was sure this north of the border NIN crew would be lauded as a witty and cooperative bunch, but shows how much I know. With many Albertans freaking out in fear of the NDP government messing up their oil industry, a good chunk of the response consisted of requests for the three to stop jerking around and assurances that Trent Reznor was going to sue their collective ass. Tough crowd. Personally, I think it’s bad ass that these two relatively young mayors (side note: Iveson is only 36 years old. What am I doing with my life??) are injecting some fun into the serious realm of politics – and showing some great taste in music to boot. The fifty-one year old Notley has already displayed her own generation-correct rock cred (if not quite the same level of musical taste) with her Notley Crue t-shirts. And to all those who thought the whole gag was weak, Nenshi had a pretty sharp comeback.
