Pretty Hate Machine - Nine Inch Nails

What hasn't already been said about Pretty Hate Machine, Trent Reznor's Industrial but accessible CD from 1989? I actually purchased this CD when it was released (as a cassette!) - and bought this particular one on eBay for a friend of mine who is just discovering Nine Inch Nails - I'm not a big fan of re-issues, so I insisted that it be on the original label, TVT, and not Rykodisc. For those of you who think that NIN's influence on music today began with The Downward Spiral, you need to own this - and get Broken, too, while you're collecting...there is not one bad song on PHM, it never gets tired and is as current today as it was 16 years ago. Get a copy. Now.

Nine Inch Nails: Trent Reznor (vocals, various instruments). Additional personnel includes: Richard Patrick (guitar); Chris Vrenna (drums). Although Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor became the poster boy for industrial rock in the early 1990s, his '89 debut, PRETTY HATE MACHINE, actually has a stronger foothold in '80s synth-pop. The guitar-heavy opener, "Head Like a Hole," is the most aggressive track on the album and proved to be the signature song for Reznor's initial breakthrough, but much of the disc sounds like Depeche Mode in a particularly bad mood. All of the tracks on PRETTY HATE MACHINE are based on synthesizer lines and programmed beats, with other elements--such as the distinctive bass on "Sanctified" and sampled explosions on "That's What I Get"--filling out the sound. Despite Reznor's morose lyrics, a number of HATE MACHINE's finest moments are energetic dance tunes, particularly "Down in It" and the surging "Sin." Oddly enough, Reznor's fiercer--and seemingly less accessible--subsequent work (the BROKEN EP and THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL) led directly to his mainstream success, but PRETTY HATE MACHINE reveals where the Nine Inch Nails aesthetic started out.

Track Listing
1. Head Like A Hole
2. Terrible Lie
3. Down In It
4. Sanctified
5. Something I Can Never Have
6. Kinda I Want To
7. Sin
8. That's What I Get
9. Only Time, The
10. Ringfinger