A Silver (and Pearl, and Coral) AnNINversary

Come on. Anyone who knows anything about me had to know I was going to do this eventually.

Also, a note before we begin, Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, Kate Bush’s The Sensual World, and New Order’s Technique also have 35-year anniversaries this year, but when the old gods allow the calendar to align so the three best albums by your favorite band all have milestones at once, you can’t pass that up.

For those who I haven’t told the story to: I “discovered” Nine Inch Nails quite by accident, listening to the local Baltimore rock radio station while driving home from a bored, late night run to the local video store (remember those?). Generally, I avoided that station because it was filled with the kind of bland post-grunge knock offs that were very much popular in the mid-2000s, but in which I had no musical interest. But after 8:00 PM, the station shuffled off its corporate facade and played whatever that night’s DJ felt like. Sometimes that was classic rock, my preference at the time, my off-school hours consumed with reading as much as possible about Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and The Who as possible, as if they were figures of mythology.

However, this particular night, in the exact five minutes I was in the car from my childhood home to the video store, in some sort of cosmic message, the DJ played “Closer,” by far Nine Inch Nails’ most famous and popular song, though one I had to that point, ten whole years after its original release, never heard. I had only ever known of Nine Inch Nails by the logo, then and to this day an omnipresent image of pure graphic design perfection the likes of which MICA graduates decades over would have immolated themselves to create. The name of the band, and the precise sterility of the logo led me to believe it was one of those bands, a loud, harsh noise wall full of screamed, unintelligible vocals that I would never access and never understand.

But, without having heard any Nine Inch Nails song before, having never seen an image of Trent Reznor, or gazed upon the album art, I knew this sound—the technical, computerized, relentless bass drum and bursts of static in the place of snares; the insect-like ticking of synths and scratched-and-clawed guitars—I knew this was Nine Inch Nails.

In that moment I instantly became obsessed with a band that, at that point, hadn’t released anything in over five years, who many people thought was simply done, and whose frontman and main creative force a small number thought (incorrectly, obviously) secretly died of a drug overdose—another in a long line of 90’s icons gone too soon with only a small, near-perfect discography to remember them by. So, like I had with Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and The Who, I began ingesting every bit of information about Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor I could find: every release including out-of-print singles, every press clipping, every magazine article, every interview, every bootleg concert video. I annoyed people to the point of eye-rolling rejection by talking about them in every conversation. In the panopticon of artists housed in my mind, this harsh, noisy, yet infinitely complex pop band cloaked in industrial sound effects and guitar distortion, moved to the primary place.

A combination of pure chance and the mathematics of time mean that the only three major releases (sorry Broken, Fixed, and Further Down the Spiral) that were available to me at the time of my “discovery,” all have major milestone anniversaries this year. And so their discussion can no longer be avoided, nor would I want to avoid it, as these are some of my favorite albums ever recorded.

The Fragile

Nine Inch Nails

Industrial Rock | 1999

Five years after his magnum opus, The Downward Spiral, Trent Reznor and company finally released perhaps the most anticipated junior effort in rock history. But while most were hoping for TDS2, what we received was an art-rock masterwork that destroyed all expectations of what Nine Inch Nails was, or would ever be.

The Fragile was highly complex, intricate, looooong, and… polished? What was this 90’s sheen? This production was that of lesser bands like Stabbing Westward or Filter. The music videos might as well have CG bubbles and reflective surfaces.

But while that could certainly be a surface understanding of industrial rock in the 90’s, what was actually happening was that Reznor was becoming something else entirely.

Fueled by drugs and perfectionism, what became The Fragile was not an attempt to mainstream NIN’s sound, but instead a reaction to it. “So, this is how the world is going? Well, then I’ll just fuck them up here!” Reznor seems to be saying. He can, like his idol, David Bowie, mimic the sounds of the times, then bend them to his will to make something wholly new.

Somewhat Damaged

Perhaps the most epic opening in NIN’s catalog, “Somewhat Damaged” is also a perfect showcase of the I-know-it’s-obivous-but-you-didn’t-think-of-it pop styling of Reznor. The song opens with a guitar hitting four notes in sequence on one guitar string (yep, it really is that easy). The complexity comes in making the song 6/8, leaving the 5 and 6 empty, then repeating the pattern only three times instead of four, giving the illusion of a much more mathematically complicated tune.

As the verses go on (there is no chorus), more and more texture, instruments, dirt, and noise get layered and layered, until we reach peak Reznor: an uncountable number of tracks running over top of each other, creating one of the head-banging-est songs of his career.

The Day the World Went Away

This, the first single from The Fragile album cycle, came as the first shock to those waiting for a TDS sequel. Slow-paced, but deliberate, “The Day the World Went Away” takes more influence from shoegaze than anything resembling industrial. Reznor is nearly cooing the vocals, which resemble an Emily Dickinson poem, never raising his voice above a soft recitation. The ending explodes with much the same energy as the opening, but still very much in the “fill every available space with sound” camp. The reverb is so thick you can cut it with a knife, while somewhere, way back in the mix, is the hard, metallic sound of an acoustic guitar being strummed a little too hard. It’s utter brilliance.

We’re In This Together

One of the longest songs in the NIN catalog is also probably the band’s most pop-friendly. An obvious choice for a promotional single, “We’re In This Together” is loud arena rock, littered with just enough industrial sound effects to give the fans what they want, and a lyrical composition that is essentially inoffensive, and, maybe, inspirational? The chorus is backed by what would become the signature NIN guitar sound: ten-million layers at once, yet an easily defined chord progression that’s unmistakable as guitars. It was a new “invention” for NIN at the time (TDS’ guitars, while layered, were very discrete from one another), one that really helped mark The Fragile as a totally separate and fresh project from TDS.

The Fragile

“We’re In This Together”s quiet piano and synth drone blend immediately into this, the title track. These are the kind of “inspirational” lyrics we were used to from Reznor, where they seem okay, but on further inspection are incredibly dark, to the point of nihilism. The message of “I’ll stick with you no matter what” becomes less Love Story and more A Rose for Emily as the insect noises and detuned guitars come in, before ending the track with an explosion of rock splendor.

No You Don’t

This song goes hard as fuck. I can’t describe it better than that. There’s “Last” from NIN’s Broken EP, then this. It’s the most metal NIN gets on the album, and apart from maybe one or two tracks later in his career, is the most fist-pumping-ly, goat-throwing-ly, mad-wicked rager Reznor has made since.

There’s not more to this breakdown. This song fucking rules and you should listen to it right now.

Into the Void

The single and music video that never was, “Into the Void” is as close as The Fragile comes to “Closer”s four-on-the-floor danceability, but now featuring cleaner, more introspectively self-hating lyrics. It’s the most fun you’ve ever had while staring into…well, you get it. This is existentialism as party drug. Get on that dance floor and embrace thoughts of annihilation.

Where Is Everybody?

This track kicks off with the first appearance of that synth-aided bass sound that would be in every NIN-adjacent thing in the late 90’s and 2000’s (the Lost Highway soundtrack, the non-album single “Deep”—which you can’t find on any streaming service by the way, etc.). But the real draw here is the vocal delivery. “Where Is Everybody?” features some of Reznor’s most complex rhyme schemes and syllable counting, mixed with their production of layered vocal tracks, shows off as a kind of verbal acrobatics. The man may not have the best voice, but goddamn can he use it to maximum effect.

Underneath It All

The last track that features vocals is a frenetic mix of electronic drums, heavily distorted guitars, and industrial sound effects. The lyrics are a mantra that repeats on a loop as the layers build and build behind them. By the time we reach the track’s conclusion, it feels like the ragged, diseased version of the Hallelujah Chorus that only Nine Inch Nails could create, the perfect “end” to a perfect album.

Instrumentals

It would be neglectful of me to write about The Fragile without mentioning its many instrumental tracks. Nine Inch Nails has dabbled in the instrumental in every major release since Broken (other than With Teeth for some reason), but here, they are not an aside, but a feature. While some, like “The Frail” or “Complication” act as pre-/suffix to larger, more well know tracks (“The Wretched” and “Starfuckers, Inc.,” respectively), others, like “Just Like You Imagined,” “The Mark Has Been Made,” and album closer “Ripe (With Decay),” are massive works of their own, lauded even outside of the music realm. “Just Like You Imagined” has been used in many, many film trailers, and “The Mark Has Been Made” was essentially the entire score to Tony Scott’s remake of Man on Fire. These are not just interludes or segues, they are standalone works of their own, and an amazing glimpse into the kind of Oscar-winning film score composer Reznor would later become.

Much of the criticism of this album (it is hard to find now, but I promise you, Pitchfork, no amount of SEO scrubbing will remove the stain of that original 2.0/10 you gave it) surrounds the album’s high-school level understanding of philosophy. And looking back at it now (i.e., while I’m not…in high school), yeah, that tracks. But that’s also an incredibly surface-level and, frankly, hypocritical engagement with the album when you had Lou Bega and Rob Thomas just roaming free across the music landscape at the same time.

It also completely ignores the music and songwriting, both of which were major changes and advancements to NIN’s style. The production, while it is shinier, is also way more complicated. No one would ever say TDS is sophomoric, but the writing style and overall delivery of the two albums could not be more different: dirty vs. sleek, violent vs. centered, harsh noise vs. constructive sound.

I love Nine Inch Nails, and, as stated in the introduction, I love these three albums. But The Fragile I love the very most.

The Downward Spiral

Nine Inch Nails

Industrial Rock | 1994

This is obviously the big one. The Downward Spiral is by a wide margin Nine Inch Nails’ most popular, best selling, and most critically acclaimed release. Even in retrospective, it receives even more glowing praise than it did 30 years ago. It was the first experience with music this dark and heavy for many in 1994, drawn in by the club-beat of “Closer,” they were compelled to hear more, much like I was some 10 years later. And when they listened, and I mean really listened, it gave them everything.

Trent Reznor’s bizarre, depressing concept album about someone actively choosing to ruin their life took him nearly five years to write and record, often in secret without the knowledge of his original label, TVT. So the sheer amount of sound he and co-producer Flood are able to jam into your earholes is utterly astonishing. I’ve been listening to this album on a regular basis for 20 years, and with really goddamn good headphones for about 15 of those, and I still, still hear snippets and fragments I’ve never heard before.

That’s the real selling point of Nine Inch Nails, but TDS specifically: it’s an audio engineer’s wet dream of an album. Or, their horrific, ceaseless nightmare of an album, depending on how many audio tracks they can mentally handle. And this is the brilliance of TDS from a listener’s perspective as well: the songwriting and production are so good you can’t help but listen and get hooked; then, as you notice the details, you have to listen again and again, wearing the grooves off vinyls and lasering skips into CDs. As the late, great David Bowie said about this album, “you listen to it, and it seems like, no matter how much you turn the knob, it’s too loud. But then, as you keep listening, no matter how much you turn the knob, it can never be loud enough.”

March of the Pigs

The shocking first single for the album cycle, “March of the Pigs” runs you through with its incessant, insane 29/8 time signature (a loop of three measures of 7/8 and one of 4/4) meted out by the loudest goddamn drums you’ve ever heard, backed by some of the weirdest goddamn sound effects. When the first verse kicks in, Trent’s max-volume yelling is overmatched by the cacophony of a wall of guitars. This is prime mosh pit fodder, or the soundtrack to a gauntlet. Its ceaseless oppression only abates to ask you a simple question: “doesn’t it make you feel better?”

Closer

This…this is the Nine Inch Nails song. The one everyone knows, and for good reason: it’s brilliant. The simple club beat is a chopped and rewound sample of Iggy Pop’s “Nightclubbing,” the piano outro is instantly ear-wormy, and the chorus of “I wanna fuck you like an animal” is just the right combination of sensual and disgusting to make it shocking to parents everywhere while still technically being radio-playable (with some…light censoring). But even here, at Trent Reznor’s most accessible, there’s more than enough sonic layers to take a decade or more to unravel, somehow stunningly complex in its simplicity. It’s the song Reznor points to to prove that, deep down, he’s just a pop star in Se7en’s clothing. That there’s a nearly four-minute dancefloor breakdown after the main song is over is just the cherry on top of this incredibly disturbing cake. Machine music at its very finest.

The Becoming

“The Becoming” is an utterly insane song. Using a 13/4 time signature and backed by a sample from the most violent scene in Robot Jox, its looped piano line is somehow instantly listenable, and the hyper-processed drums give the entire song that grimy, industrial feel the scene was known for. But the end of the song is where the real brilliance lies: the weird time and ear-scratching noises cut out to reveal a pleasant 4/4 acoustic guitar strumming and a calm Trent singing something…off. Remember the “plot” of this album. When that then smash cuts back to the Eraserhead-style industrial wasteland form earlier, it’s twice as shocking, and its accompanying lyrical refrain: “It won’t give up / It wants me dead / Goddamn this noise inside my head,” is that much more distressing.

I Do Not Want This

To be honest, this is just being discussed for me. I love this song purely for the drum sequence. It’s so fantastically produced: the exact effects and filters Reznor and Flood use are just fascinating to me. And the timing of it, ever so slightly shifted to make the song’s overall 4/4 time sound way more complicated and just…wrong, like you can never clap or stomp at exactly the right moment. The effect of the soft-loud-soft-loud verse-chorus structure that was omnipresent and super popular in early 90’s rock thanks to Pixies and Nirvana is hyperdriven here, with the choruses being easily ten times louder and angrier.

Eraser

I won’t go into this one long other than to share my favorite bit of music trivia which is the “eraser” sounds and the ever-present, creepy, buzzing/humming noises are made by blowing into the reed and neck of a saxophone without the rest of the instrument attached. Fun right? That’s the brilliance of Nine Inch Nails, finding weird-ass ways to use instruments like a psychotic Pink Floyd. Plus, those floor toms when the song kicks in proper are something else. I’m honestly shocked they didn’t bang all the way through the skins on every beat. Peak production here.

Reptile

“Reptile” is by a wide margin the most “industrial” song on The Downward Spiral, mainly because of its many factory sound effects, courtesy of samples from engine room scenes in Leviathan. Add in the insect-like synth patterns and a really filthy production, and mix it with lyrics about “the blood of reptile just underneath her skin” and “Need to contaminate to alleviate this loneliness,” and this is the slimiest, most disgustingly brilliant song on the album. Reznor’s lyrical choices, and his decision to sing them in the clear, make it a fascinating choose-your-adventure form a allegory: is it about AIDS? Drug addiction? Being simultaneously attracted to and repulsed by an ex? Yes. It’s a slow, aggressive dissertation on the contemplation of the epiphany one has at rock bottom. But it does not provide any answers, those are for you alone to decide.

Hurt

If “Closer” is the Nine Inch Nails song, then this is the other one. Famously covered by Johnny Cash so well that people thought it was the other way around, “Hurt” is one of only two NIN ballads (that I can think of), and is both unfathomably sad, but also maybe the band’s most hopeful. Reflecting on utterly ruining his life and those of the people around him, the character of the album’s “plot,” as a stand in for Reznor himself, realizes that sometimes surviving is enough. As long as you have your life, you can still work to fix it. The other, darker option is faster, but it lasts forever. The track is riddled with faux record fuzz and pops, and the bending guitar uses tritones to imply the feeling of nausea. Reznor purposefully sings soft and low in the mix “to make sure you know it’s sincere,” as the hammering of distorted drums increases to the end. His last words “I will find a way” are almost whispered, and nearly obliterated by the crushingly loud blasts of gongs, electric guitars, and drone that last for the remainder. Eventually we are left with nothing, save the wind.

So yes, the “story,” as much as there is one, is incredibly dark, violent, and self-loathing, and songs like “Big Man With a Gun” and the title track are almost grotesquely off-putting. But it somehow grabs your attention, sadistically, like watching footage of a horrific disaster. There’s parts in there that speak to the darkest parts of ourselves, whether that’s our own self-hatred, or our hatred of others, and forces us to confront it. And in that moment we are given absolution, a catharsis. The Downward Spiral says “I will know these things and not judge you,” and in that moment you are purged of your sin. It’s only a moment, but that moment is the greatest release humanity has ever known.

The message, the songwriting, the insane production, the aggression, the oppressive noise; it’s all just so perfect—a perfect album.

Pretty Hate Machine

Nine Inch Nails

Electro-Industrial | 1989

The album that started it all. Nine Inch Nails debut, Pretty Hate Machine, was a breath of fresh air in an industrial music scene that was otherwise moving into two camps: industrial thrash metal (i.e., Ministry) and hyper-experimental noise (e.g., Coil, Prurient). This kind of…pop (yes, pop) rock mixed with anger and some sweet sound effects and sampling was kinda unheard of.

No, PHM wasn’t the main article of evidence that proved Reznor to be some kind of transcendental visionary. But it was the most popular and well-received version of the many appearing in the alternative music scene of the late 80’s and early 90’s. And that this weird, cheap gamble that TVT took was paying off with a platinum album release, massive critical success, and an (in)famous US tour supporting Janes Addiction that…they were paying for?! Dolla dolla bills, y’all.

What TVT seemed to miss, however, like all labels eventually do, is that the person creating this music valued the freedom and resources that let Reznor be able to record the Purest Feeling demo that largely became this album: nearly unlimited studio time (at the “expense” of also working in the studio as a janitor and occasional engineer) and nobody telling him, musically at least, what to do or when to do it.

With that freedom, the swirling gyre that was the state of experimental (and not-so-experimental) electronic music at the tail-end of the 80’s, and add a disaffected sad boy from the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania, and you get…

Head Like a Hole

The first song of Nine Inch Nails’ first album is also the most consistently played in live shows and is often the most referenced as an inspiration for later semi-industrial rock and metal acts. It’s also, on the face, the most aggressive and loud song on the album. After this, this ode to destroying capitalism that only a 20-something college dropout could pen, things get kind of contemplative. Or at the very least, moodier. So let’s take this perfect opener as a opportunity to headbang to our hearts’ content

Terrible Lie

For many years and many tours, “Terrible Lie” was NIN’s go-to opener (“Head Like a Hole” was always the closer). It’s significantly more brooding than the previous track, and also moves us more into the album’s overall aesthetic of slow burning fuses that lead to explosive endings. Much of the verse instrumentation is sparse, with just the barest of digitized beat going on, while the choruses dazzle with 80’s synths that mix the best of Atari and Vangelis. We also see our very first of what would become a NIN staple: the whispery, near-silent breakdown/bridge surrounded on either side by the loudest sounds you’ve ever heard.

Down In It

The first single ever released by NIN was his, self-admitted, best attempt at copying Skinny Puppy, then a monolith of the industrial scene. It does that particularly well: the beat is forward in the mix, the synths are overdriven and distorted, the vocals are kind of…cringey semi-rap with sickly references to traditional children’s songs (“I crossed my heart and hoped to die / But the needle was already in my eye;” “Rain rain go away / Come again some other day”). But it also does something Skinny Puppy could never do: make a genuinely listenable, catchy song out of it.

It’s very 80’s, very much a product of its time. When I first heard this song, probably about 15 year after it came out, I thought it was the corniest thing I had ever heard, like it was doing a pastiche spoof of 80’s music while actually being 80’s music. But now, after many, many relistens, both critical and purely for enjoyment, over the years and other albums from thousands of artists, and seeing it performed live in the most hardcore performance by NIN I’ve seen, I’ve grown a new appreciation for it. It’s just wonderful.

Sanctified

For the longest time, this was a dark horse for my favorite Nine Inch Nails song. “Sanctified” has this kind of dark, slinking aura to it, like a noir detective thriller placed in the cyberpunk universe (I think I just described Blade Runner, but this song isn’t like Blade Runner, just something like how you would also describe Blade Runner without it being Blade Runner. This is quite the tangent; I’m going to end this paranthet now).

The drum pattern is cool and almost island-inspired, ripped straight from a combination of Casio’s back catalog and a Duran Duran deep cut. The slight uptick of intensity with each iteration of the chorus, the barely noticeable key change on the last repetition of that chorus as Reznor reaches the upper limit of his register and volume, they make it a mesmerizing, hypnotizing listen I go back to again and again.

Sin

The third single from this album cycle (the only one with three official “Halo” singles, by the way) is also, personally, the best song on the album. Kicking it off right, the eerie “sha sha” sound effect flitting around your ears is a sample of Eric B. & Rakim’s “Paid In Full,” because if you don’t sample Eric B. & Rakim at least once then, are you even trying to be a real musician?

Each go-around of the song adds more layers on top of the already menacing, rapid-fire synth bass line. The “sha sha”s come back, the layers of distorted vocals used as samples, the massive amount of tracks consumed to fill out the walls of guitars. It all builds to a masterful din of noise and rage that only Nine Inch Nails could pull off.

The Only Time

Is it possible to make something sound sultry and nasty with just a Korg? Apparently the answer is yes, and “The Only Time” is the product. The song is simple enough from a structural standpoint, but Reznor’s presentation of it is masterful, with its mix-forward bass line and live drum breakdown after the second chorus. Reznor’s lyrics here are downright sexual, but the greatest of all, perhaps the greatest line he’s ever written occurs in the second verse: “I wanna wrap it up and swim in in until I drown / My moral standing is lying down.” The only appropriate reaction to that requires a Victorian fainting couch.

Ringfinger

Reznor can go on and on about his Bowie and Prince and Rush and esoteric industrial grindhouse influences, but “Ringfinger” is pure Eurythmics. The John Carpenter-esque chorus presentation can try to convince us it’s edgy all it wants, but that 808 four-on-the-floor with a bouncing synth rhythm backing is uncut 80’s new wave dance. Then, a massive guitar solo, one of the few in all of NIN’s career, much less this album, kicks off a dance floor banger that goes on for a full two minutes to end the album. If you told people this was a New Order 12-inch single no one would argue with you.

To be honest, this is the first time I’ve engaged with Pretty Hate Machine on a critical, academic level. Even when I was obsessing over NIN in the 2000’s, it just seemed like such an oddity. It didn’t have the grittiness and white hot fury of Broken or The Downward Spiral, or the insane level of hyper-detailed production and ultra-complex layering of The Fragile. It was like it was a fun side experiment to the real work. But looking back now, I’m finally able to appreciate it as its own body of work, especially as one nested in the industrial scene Reznor was working in and inspired by in late-80’s Cleveland.

I don’t think there’s a lot I can add to the conversation regarding Nine Inch Nails’ cultural or musical impact. Trent Reznor has reached the mountaintop. The holy-shit genius logo is so everlasting that people 1,000 years from now will see it in the ruins of our society they dig up and understand it means Nine Inch Nails. They might not know who that is or what it sounds like, but, like, toddlers recognize that logo. Rappers name drop NIN as inspiration for how they produce albums now. Their songs have been covered by indie darlings and long-standing stars alike. Trent Reznor’s won Grammys, Oscars, has multiple platinum records, and is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

So, I guess that means it’s silly, nostalgic purse-dumping time.

When I came across NIN that fateful night in the summer of 2004, just before the start of my senior year of high school, I was in an incredibly weird place in life (you know, like a 17-year-old is). But apart from all the standard teenager drama, I was a pretty lonely kid; I had lost a lot of friends (or at least people I thought were friends) over the course of my time in school, and the ones I had (still have, actually, they rock), weren’t in every class and didn’t live nearby.

To say that music speaks to you or saves your life is an enormous, eye-rolling cliche, so I won’t give NIN that much credit, but I will say that this particular brand of aggressive emotional release, combined with the ease of entry (their most popular song was a top 40 rock track and their most popular album was #2 on the charts originally, and then had a bunch of 10-year deluxe editions coming out), and the immediate ability to obsess and collect (those Halo numbers are like crack for completionists), hit me at exactly the right time to help me cope. So no, Trent Reznor didn’t save my life, or speak to me, but the music was there at exactly the right time, when listening to The Who’s Quadrophenia one more time would have driven me to a psychiatric ward.

And that’s why this calendar alignment is so fortuitous, I get to talk about (read: force you to read about) my all-time favorite band without seeming like I shoehorned them into a conversation about cars, or books, or the weather, or Christmas lights.

Oh and that reminds me, Nine Inch Nails’ tour for The Slip was called “Lights in the Sky” and… *my voice fades out as people walk away, exasperated that I am still talking about Nine Inch Nails, again*

Happy anninversaries, Trent. The albums are still perfect after all these years, and the work and dedication you put into them and every project since has brought you all the acclaim and recognition you deserve. And I read you’re ready to jump back into a Nine Inch Nails project again? To quote a contemporary of yours, spiral out, keep going.