Okay, so I am about ten years late but I have jsut “discovered” Nine Inch Nails. What albums of theirs should I buy? Which songs should I seek out?
I only really liked the first album ‘Pretty Hate Machine’ and the ‘Broken’ EP after that. The rest of the stuff is OK, but didn’t grab me.
NiN is one of those bands I like hearing on the radio, but have never actually bought any of their cds. Like Tool, Alice in Chains and Radiohead.
Anyway, IMHO their best song is " The Perfect Drug" followed by " Closer" and " Head Like A Hole." YMMV
I won’t claim to be an expert, but I do own all of the major studio albums, so I’ll summarize here. To begin with, all of their albums take multiple listen-throughs to really enjoy. Trent likes to challenge the listener with tough time signatures, which is unusual in beat-based music (where 4/4 is practically gospel).
Pretty Hate Machine - Today it sounds clichéed and poppy; when I was a freshman in high school, this was cutting edge sh*t, and it ruled, and Trent was singing about my angst and my agony and my acne. Ringfinger, Down In It, and of course the “pop single” from that album, Head Like a Hole are great. The whole album is a pleasure. BONUS: you can sing “Head Like a Hole” over Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughtta Know” if you adjust the key and tempo slightly. Something I Can Never Have is the only hint on this album that Trent can do “quiet” songs, but it’s more than enough.
Broken - I really only liked Happiness in Slavery from this album, but I will admit that my copy got seriously scratched up about two months after I bought it, and I haven’t really listened to it the whole way through more than six or seven times. I need to get another copy.
The Downward Spiral - My favorite album by NIN. Less poppy that PHM, it contains some incredibly haunting melodies. If you know the single, Closer, then you’ve heard the album’s “theme”: that piano melody at the end of the song is repeated in places, repackaged, but it’s new every time. The album is incredibly bitter–I believe that one of Trent’s close friends killed himself while Trent was making the album, and it definitely colors the production. Chris Vrenna’s drumming, especially during the explosive bridge of the otherwise-quiet Hey Piggy and for the duration of the furious March of the Pigs, is stellar. The album also contains Hurt, which the late Johnny Cash covered. Opinions are fierce and varied on which version is “better”; I like them both. The Becoming is one of my favorite songs on the album: its changing dynamics, the looped monster-movie screams, the awesome staggered rhythm, and the chaotic chant at the end (“It WON’T give UP it WANTS me dead / GOD DAMN this noise / inSIDE my HEAD”). I can’t recommend this album enough, but you might want to get Pretty Hate Machine first and “build” up to this. I compare this to Radiohead’s OK Computer in terms of how challenging it is to the listener. I know I sound like a total music snob, but this album is really rewarding if you give it a chance.
The Fragile - A double-disc, including lots of instrumental pieces. I found it to be more accessible than Downward Spiral, but by then I’d been listening to tDS for five years. The style of the Fragile is most similar to the previous album, but no tracks really stand out in my mind by title (partially because the titles are vague, not repeats of lines in the chorus, and Trent tends to sing this album very quietly, even when the music is loud). This is definitely an album to listen to the whole way through. I’d compare this to classical music: the album doesn’t have “tracks” so much as “movements”. There aren’t very many tracks with clear verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure, but there is a structure, and you can groove to it (this is not the disorganized noodling of a half-hour Grateful Dead jam). This is my second-favorite, but it’s mood music that I reserve for long quiet weekends or nights in the dead of winter, so I don’t get to listen to it as often as I ought to. I think in time it could surpass Downward Spiral as my favorite.
To sum up: Downward Spiral is their best album and has amazing tracks throughout, but Pretty Hate Machine is the easiest to listen to and has the “catchiest” songs. I say start with PHM, then get tDS if you really liked it, and decide what else you want from there.
Oh, and I shouldn’t have to warn you if you’ve heard Closer, but Trent is not afraid of the F-word. Or any other words. He says what he feels, and lot of the time, what he feels is not pleasant. The music is amazing; the lyrics are occasionally brilliant. Enjoy!
The Downward Spiral pretty much set the standard for industrial metal as a genre, so I’d have to recommend that one.
My favorite is “Broken”, just because it’s short enough that it never has a chance to get old. It’s like a 30 minute blast of anger with one small break in the middle that acts more as a two minute reprieve that is just the calm before the next storm. Classic, straight-through.
I also love “Downward Spiral” a lot - good theme, very cohesive and many excellent songs.
However, if I had to recommend just one … hmmmm … “Broken” if you like the hard stuff. “Downward Spiral” if you want a more varied approach. “Pretty Hate Machine” if you want a really accessible, but dated, experience.
Choosing my favorite NIN album or song would be like choosing my favorite child. I would recommend Spiral as the first one to try. If you like the harder stuff, I’d go with Broken (and/or Fixed) next, or if you prefer the more “mellow” stuff I’d go to Fragile next. Jurph summed up PHM perfectly, it is cliched and poppy, but has a big place in my heart (I was in HS when it came out too.)
I’ve heard rumors of a new album this year. If so I’ll be one very happy camper. Five years is long enough, Trent!!!
Just to clarify, in case I came off as even remotely condescending about Pretty Hate Machine: the reason it sounds clichéed and poppy today is because the innovations in that album (like the air machine: all those spooky hisses and huffs!) gripped the imaginations of pretty much everyone back in 1992-93, and a lot of the electronic and industrial music produced in the years immediately following, especially anything synthesized, basically owes a large debt to Mr. Reznor.
There is still a lot of greatness in it, but just like Nirvana’s Nevermind and Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream, it sounds dated now, because people have taken the ideas in it and run with them.
Second BONUS factoid: Trent lives in an “old-money” neighborhood in New Orleans surrounded by little blue-haired ladies who are richer than he is. They love him because he throws lovely cocktail parties and is a gracious, cheerful, and well-mannered host.
Buy them all; there aren’t that many. The weakest, IMHO, is the last.
“Slave” from Broken might be my favorite song; or it might be “Reptile” from The Downward Spiral. Or “Closer,” one of the greatest pop constructions of all time.
Don’t forget the remixes: there are some phenomenal ones. J.G. Thirlwell’s remix of “Reptile” is an utterly unequaled piece of work.
Here’s a hint: All his discs are numbered, from Halo 1 to–where are we now? If memory serves, TDS was, what, Halo 8? (My license plate used to be Halo 99; not many people got it).
Sorry, meant to mentioin:
Prince is about the biggest influence on Pretty Hate Machine, to give you an idea, and Foetus/Thirlwell is about the biggest influence on most of the other stuff.
I used to find The Downward Spiral quite depressing and screwed up, so I sold it. There’s some good tracks but then there’s others that do nothing more that grate on you with their darkness.
Here is what Alternative Press had to say:
The latest release from Nine Inch Nails is titled “And All That Could Have Been”, halo number 17.
This came in three ‘versions’:
- a 16-track live disc (recorded when Trent was touring in support of The Fragile),
- a 9-track ‘deconstructed’ disc with spooky remixes of The Becoming, Something I Can Never Have, The Fragile, and several new tracks. Basically Trent singing and playing the piano on most of them, but they’re quite good. This was also titled “Still”
- a ‘Special Edition’ 2-disc set that combined the two discs above. I haven’t seen the special edition set in stores in some time, however. But if you can find it, I would highly recommend purchasing it.
Other remix discs:
“Further Down the Spiral”: Remixes of most of the tracks from “The Downward Spiral”. Nothing spectacular, but not bad either.
“Fixed”: Remixes of the “Broken” EP.
“Things Falling Apart”: Remixes of tracks from “The Fragile”, notably 3 new versions of Starfuckers Inc.
Other Media:
NIN produced a video/movie for the “Broken” EP. It was never ‘officially’ released to the public (apparently because Trent didn’t want to have to answer questions about it) but you can probably find it pretty easily online if you look in the proper places. I will caution you, however, that it is extremely graphic and gruesome.
“And All That Could Have Been” was also released as a 2-disc live DVD album, using concert footage from The Fragile tour. Excellent sound and video.
Shoulda had these in my other post, sorry 'bout that.
Yes, “The Downward Spiral” is Halo 8.
Trent has also done music and sound effects for several video and computer games, most notably Quake 3 and, of course, Halo.
I agree with what was said of The Downward Spiral. If you’re looking for the quintessential NIN experience, this is it IMHO. Pretty Hate Machine is good, but a little dated as mentioned.
If you want to get a feel for what NIN is like NOW, I reccomend And All That Could Have Been 2CD special edition. It throws in alot of NIN singles, but also has a soft lull in it that makes you wonder where your rage went. And the companion cd contains acoustic versions of about 10 songs. They are phenomenal to hear after blasting your ears with techno babble and thumping drums.
Yeah, I like NIN alot… 
For me it will always be “Pretty Hate Machine.” It’s an unrelenting blast of rage, terror, pain and despair. I admit that I’ve got a pretty bleak view of human existence, but I think PHM is what we’re all actually feeling all the time, we just lie to ourselves and cover it up. Listening to it is very cathartic for me whenever I’m stressed out or unhappy.
“Downward Spiral” is good and has several great tracks (esp. Closer), but it doesn’t have the punch that PHM does – there’s more despair and less rage, but the rage of PHM was always like a small beacon of hope – life is horrible and you’ll never accomplish anything, but maybe someday you can at least destroy something that’s worth destroying.
I haven’t heard The Fragile and it’s been a long time since I listened to Broken, so I don’t know about them.
Maybe PHM is the better record because it’s so much the product of a single vision. I remember hearing an anecdote that when Reznor made PHM (basically completely by himself) that it wasn’t that he was unwilling to have people help out on the album, but that he could only afford studio time in the middle of the night and that none of his friends were willing to lose sleep in order to participate.
–Cliffy
Who is “that person”?
“And All That Could Have Been” Live is the best album, period. I love the others, but a NIN live album is just incredible. It barely leaves my CD player.
The Downward Spiral is pretty much the best.
I like NIN’s sound, but Trent Reznor could be the worst lyricist alive. His lyrics are a barrage of overdramatics and cliches.
That facet of his personality is what he was referring to as “that person”.