Tag Archives: Nine Inch Nails

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Song of the Day #6,575: ‘Ringfinger’ – Nine Inch Nails

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.

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Song of the Day #5,046: ‘Hurt’ – Nine Inch Nails

Before he was a two-time Academy Award winner (for 2010’s The Social Network and 2020’s Soul), Trent Reznor melted brains and faces with his hardcore industrial music as the sole member of Nine Inch Nails.

The Downward Spiral, released in March of 1994, was NIN’s second full-length album, following the critical and commercial favorite Pretty Hate Machine.

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Song of the Day #4,241: ‘Head Like a Hole’ – Nine Inch Nails

Industrial rockers Nine Inch Nails (the brainchild of one-man band Trent Reznor) was first eligible for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. They were nominated that year and the following year, unsuccessfully, then missed the ballot for a few years before earning a spot in the 2020 class.

Reznor is no doubt a major influence on a genre of music I don’t much like, and his commercial and critical success — particularly in the 90s — makes him a no-brainer for the Rock Hall.

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Song of the Day #889: ‘Terrible Lie’ – Nine Inch Nails

This week’s Doubting Thomases (in the form of Monsters of Folk and U2) have been rather polite in their lashing out at a God they’re having difficulty believing in. Today’s artist goes in quite the other direction.

Nine Inch Nails released its debut, Pretty Hate Machine, in late 1989 and this furious, gaping wound of an album was a perfect antidote to the superficial decade it left behind. Front man Trent Reznor (actually, he’s the only member of the band) poured his anger and pain into ten industrial rock songs that tore a hole in your heart as well as your head.

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