Nine Inch Nails -Pretty Hate Machine

Some artists are defined by musical movements and some albums are considered cornerstones to musical movements, but rarely is it the other way around.  Nine Inch Nails’ debut album Pretty Hate Machine is one of those rare exceptions that does both.  The industrial musical genre would be nonexistent without this 1989 groundbreaking release.  Trent Reznor, the soul member of NIN, literally forged a new sound that has since been oft imitated, but rarely matched.  Think new-wave pop meets metal with catchy riffs.  Opening with an intense assault on the sense, “Head Like A Hole” quickly establishes the entire theme of the album.  Angry, aggressive, and unforgiving.  Synths turned heavy and lyrics go dark.  With “god money” the lead on the verses and “bow down before the one you serve, you’re going to get what you deserve” repeated in the choruses, Reznor holds nothing back lyrically.  The drum machine tempo is perfectly timed to match the lyrics and the guitar is the right kind of pissed off during the chorus.  Following the opener is the very accusatory and self questioning “Terrible Lie.”  Haunting and repetitious beats are the backdrop for the “hey god?” questioning throughout the song.  Between verses the synths create a sense of schizophrenia and confusion, while verses bring back the clarity.  As it was back when I first heard this album in ’89, “Terrible Lie” is still one of my favorite songs from Pretty Hate Machine.  Even today, you can hear new elements to the layers of this song with each listen.  The almost danceable “Down In It” and mostly spoken word hide the self loathing underlining the lyrics.  “What I used to think was me is just a fading memory” sum up the idea of a person just falling “down in it.”  The ‘it’ in question being the machine that is life.  Ordered perfectly, “Sanctified” follows with it’s bass driven verses.  Once you arrive at the choruses, the guitar and effects literally sound like blades slicing through your soul.  As the lyrics insinuate, you find yourself totally submissive to the sounds just before the complete bottoming out from the next song the music fades into.  “Something I Can Never Have” is one of the most hauntingly honest and raw songs ever recorded by Reznor.  Mostly piano and synths, the words are lost and longing for love and release.  During the chorus, drum machine effects begin to build to climaxes, and then gone with nothing but the piano left in their wake.  The vocals have an almost whispered in a room filled with echoes quality adding to the emptiness.  Working the listener like a pro, “Kinda I Want To” brings you back from the edge of despair to another near danceable beat.  Very sexual in both sound and lyric, as the rhythm builds.  Once the words have given in to temptation, the guitars and computer effects completely take over.  Again, showing almost near perfect sequencing, “Sin” follows with it’s price-to-pay for giving in lyrics.  A more intense rhythm with its Depeche Mode sounding influence, there is more submissiveness driving this song.  Less abandoning hope and more giving in while you try not to find yourself wanting to move to the commanding beat.  More regret is served up in “That’s What I Get.”  Lots of catchy effects turn into very subtle sounds during the verses while gaining moment building to the choruses.  Reznor shows an uncanny understanding of how to construct a song the invokes so many different emotion in the duration of just one song, much less an entire album.  Another of my favorites, “The Only Time” has the funkiest bass on the whole album, while still maintaining a sense of darkness.  Another sexual song about totally giving in, it also has some of the more unforgettable lyrics.  “The devil wants to fuck me in the back of his car, nothing quite like the feel of something new” sticks with you long before he wrote “Closer.”  Closing the album is a song about bringing it all together, “Ringfinger.”  After the emotional ride of the previous nine songs, “Ringfinger” is all about total commitment.  The synths bounce back and forth from speaker to speaker while words like “severe flesh and bone, offer it to me” fill the spaces of sound and it all comes together in a complete guitar, synth, drum machine collision.  Then it just ends.  As the listener, you are both spent and craving more.  If you have a copy of the remastered version, you get a nearly unrecognizable cover of Queen’s “Get Down Make Love.”  That is a good thing, too, because Reznor’s reimagining of this song is very layered and sexual.  The birth of a genre and an album that still holds up maybe even better today than it did when it first came out, Pretty Hate Machine is required listening for any music lover.