Continuing my list of best debut albums (with quite a few caveats)…
Nine Inch Nails – Pretty Hate Machine (1989)
You know an album is great when you love it despite it being in a genre you otherwise don’t like. That was true of Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as well as the debuts by Sade and Violent Femmes. And it’s definitely true of Nine Inch Nails’ Pretty Hate Machine.
This is an industrial rock album featuring aggressive electronic beats and discordant soundscapes. Trent Reznor (the one-man band behind NIN) snarls out his angry, lovesick lyrics like a man possessed and pissed off about it.
It’s also a total blast, with hook-heavy songs that stick in your head while they hit you in the gut. Tracks such as ‘Head Like a Hole,’ ‘Terrible Lie,’ ‘Down In It,’ and ‘The Only Time’ would work just as well stripped of their genre trappings and served up as pop songs. Miley Cyrus and Black Mirror proved that point when they reimagined ‘Head Like a Hole’ as a Top 40 hit called ‘On a Roll’ in the hilarious episode ‘Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too.’
Listening to Pretty Hate Machine the other day, it struck me that I hear albums a lot differently now than I did as a 20-year-old. A few decades of music fandom (not to mention 15 years of this blog) have opened my ears to influences I wasn’t aware of in my youth.
On this listen I really latched on to the New Wave/synth-pop elements, the way the verses of a song like ‘Ringfinger’ would have fit neatly on a Depeche Mode album. Apparently those strains were much discussed in contemporary reviews of Pretty Hate Machine, while I just grooved to something that sounded like nothing I’d heard before.
I didn’t follow Nine Inch Nails beyond this album (sophomore release The Downward Spiral didn’t grab me like this one and I jumped off the train) and I’m curious if I’d latch on to any of Reznor’s other releases. I find it funny that he is now a two-time Oscar winner who won his second trophy for scoring a Pixar film, though I suppose the cinematic nature of this album should have prepared me for that.
Well, you’ve got me workin’ so hard lately
Workin’ my hands until they bleed
If I was twice the man I could be
I’d still be half of what you need
Still you lead me and I follow
Anything you ask, you know I’ll do
This one act of consecration
Is what I ask of you
[Chorus]
(Ringfinger) Promise carved in stone
Deeper than the sea
(Ringfinger) Sever flesh and bone
And offer it to me
[Verse 2]
Well, you just leave me nailed here
Hanging like Jesus on this cross
I’m just dying for your sins
And aiding to the cause
[Chorus]
(Ringfinger) Promise carved in stone
Deeper than the sea
(Ringfinger) Sever flesh and bone
And offer it to me
[Verse 3]
Wrap my eyes in bandages
Confessions I see through
I get everything I want
When I get part of you
[Chorus]
(Ringfinger) Promise carved in stone
Is deeper than the sea
(Ringfinger) Sever flesh and bone
And offer it to me!
(Ringfinger) A promise carved in stone
Deeper than the sea
(Ringfinger) Devil’s flesh and bone
Do something for me
Meet Me In Montauk 
This may be the cream of the industrial electro rock, but it still does nothing for me.