NINE INCH NAILS’ Pretty Hate Machine At 35: Out Of The Club & Into The Pit

Pretty Hate Machine is a bridge between two worlds — between the gothic post-punk discotheque of the 1980s and the gritty, chaotic most pit of the 1990s. One side still has the danceable beats that would have been familiar in the era of new wave, liberty-spiked hair, and safety-pin nose piercings. The other has the harsh and morose character that would typify industrial and alternative metal in the post-Cold War era, lined with smoke machines and chain-link fences.

It’s also a bridge between two stylistic worlds: electronic and guitar-driven music. Of course Nine Inch Nails wasn’t the only entity bringing these two dark realms together. Among Trent Reznor‘s contemporaries, KMFDM had made forays into heavy guitars on UAIOE (especially on “En Esch”) and Ministry had already breached the boundaries on 1988’s Land of Rape and Honey and continued to iterate on the style with The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste. But Pretty Hate Machine would set a course to break the sound fully into the mainstream, so that major music publications, rock radio, MTV, angry teenagers, and concerned parents would all know the name Nine Inch Nails.

On November 15, 1989, Reznor gave an interview in which he described the album’s title and driving inspirational force: 

“I had a huge list of names for the album and I ended up trashing almost all of them. Finally, I came up with Pretty Hate Machine. I thought it was a good way to describe the music as a whole, meaning ‘Machine-generated music’. It is electronic, which is derived from keyboards, which are machines. There is a lot of hate, anger and emotion in both the lyrics and music, the album is a ‘pretty hate machine.'”

Indeed, the album plays like a manifesto of grievances against authoritarianism (“Head Like A Hole”), former lovers (“Terrible Lie,” “That’s What I Get,” “Something I Can Never Have”), and life itself (“Down In It”). While some of the album’s 10 tracks have a primordial character in terms of the music and the words are noticeably stamped with Reznor‘s youthful perspective — the man only being 24 when the album was released — a few stand out for both sonic and lyrical excellence.

“Head Like A Hole” is definitely the album’s most well-known song. A staple of the band’s live shows (NIN becoming a “band” out of necessity after the album’s release so that Reznor could mount a tour in support), the track boasts infectious synths, heavier guitars, and anthemic lyrics that would blend well with the striking music video. The video presents the viewer with a mix of the band and montages of different footage in both black-and-white and color as well effects that give the video an unsettling and hypnotic effect. The video, much like the album, straddles the aesthetics of the 80s underground and the coming cultural shifts of the 90s. In this way, it’s both a representation of the various scenes Reznor resided in while also being a culmination of what came before it.

The song also holds up extremely well live, as I found when I saw NIN in Newark, NJ in 2013 with Metal Injection‘s fearless leaders Frank, Rob, and Greg. Funny, that was almost exactly 11 years ago today!

Two of the album’s heartbreak-oriented songs hold up especially well for displaying catchy electronic work and meaningful lyrics. “Terrible Lie” has an ominous character, evoking the feeling of childlike terror that often comes in the aftermath of severe heartbreak. This is especially true of the section where Reznor repeats “Don’t tear it away from me / I need someone to hold on to.” Likewise, “That’s What I Get” explores all manner of betrayal, backed up by irresistible synth work. The lyrics in this case probably read as a little adolescent, but keep in mind, dear reader, that you were 17 once too. And no one can deny being transported back to their first earth-shattering romantic loss at the 2:21 mark.

But the heaviest blow is reserved for track five, “Something I Can Never Have.” The song is a slow, plodding, atmospheric monument to grief and mourning that transcends its original creation. To this day, the song is a difficult listen for me, as it brings me back to a couple very distinct times in my life, coincidentally from my early 20s. The sad, somber lines match Reznor‘s lyrics: “Grey would be the color / If I had a heart.” For anyone who’s ever lost someone close to them or had something very special fall apart, I don’t have to explain these words to you:

“In this place it seems like such a shame / Though it all looks different now, I know it’s still the same / Everywhere I look you’re all I see / Just a fading fucking reminder of who I used to be”

However, listeners shouldn’t sleep on the rest of the album, especially if they’re looking to get down! “Down In It,” “Kinda I Want To,” “Sin” and “Ringfinger” would fit in nicely at a modern club’s “Goth Night” celebrations alongside Depeche Mode and New Order. Songs like these sit neatly in the vibe of a world where the Berlin Wall still stood and the internet was mostly the realm of tech-experts and early game developers. At the same time, their darker moments presage where Reznor would take listeners on The Downward Spiral years later — with “Head Like A Hole” being the signpost to 1992’s ultra-heavy Broken EP.

There’s a few songs that sound like prequels to ones that would come later in Reznor‘s career. “Ringfinger” feels like a preview of “Heresy,” “Sanctified” for “Ruiner,” and “Something I Can Never Have” sets the template for Reznor‘s sadder output like “Hurt,” “Right Where It Belongs,” and “Zero Sum.”

Of course, the lyrics on “The Only Time” and the semi-rapping on “Down In It” have some awkward and silly moments, but Reznor was coming from a genuine creative place. And that involves trying things and taking artistic risks, rather than a soulless exercise of “optimization” and market-tested perfection, buttressed by inhuman algorithms and superficial social media consensus. 

Although Pretty Hate Machine bears some signs of its creative birthday, it has successfully transcended the fate of some contemporaries to become known as a classic of the genre. Although it came out in 1989, it was a huge favorite of me and some of my friends growing up in the early-2000s, and continues to be an influential record for newer industrial acts spawning to this day.