Classic Albums: Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine

Author: Richard Cosgrove

Every now and again an album comes along that stops you dead in your tracks and make you sit up and pay attention, really pay attention to it. Although released in 1989, Nine Inch Nails' "Pretty Hate Machine" was such an album for me, arriving in my possession at just the right time to burrow under my skin and remain firmly lodged there to this day.

Up to this point, my two great musical loves had been 80s metal, bands like Iron Maiden, Metallica, Bon Jovi and the like, and in complete contrast the cold mechanical synthesised pop of Gary Numan, who's Replicas album (under the Tubeway Army name) had the distinction of being the first long player that I spent my own money on. As I lowered the needle onto the "Pretty Hate Machine" vinyl that my brother had insisted that I listen to, little was I to know that my two musical worlds were about to collide head on.

"Head Like A Hole's" intro of electronic clicks and huge, crisp drums began to bleed from my speakers and I let the synthesised bass line wash over me. In stark contrast to the good time rock anthems and Numan's paranoid android musings, here suddenly was someone who was speaking my language. Trent Reznor was angry, and not just a little annoyed, but reallypissed off at the world and feeling like no-one understood just what he was feeling. "I'd rather die than give you control," he screamed over buzzsaw guitars and I knew exactly where he was coming from. As a teenager it was almost mandatory to be pissed off at work, school, your parents, the world in general, but here at last was a voice to articulate those feelings.

"Head Like A Hole" sequed into "Terrible Lie" and Reznor asked "Hey God, why are you doing this to me?" over a huge lurching riff, underpinned by a doom-laden teeth-rattling bassline and sparse, repetitive keyboards. If "Head Like A Hole" was a rant against the world, then "Terrible Lie" turned the spotlight inwards, articulating feelings of insecurity and despair. "Don't take it away from me, I need something to hold on to," Trent pleaded, a theme continued over the hip-hop breaks of "Down In It", in which he mused "I used to be somebody". If Aerosmith and Run DMC had been hailed as pioneers in fusing rock and rap, then here was the unsavoury cousin of that union, all big beats and distorted guitars presided over by Reznor's sneering almost spoken vocals.

"Sanctified" is up next, a hypnotic drum and bass riff on the one hand numbing us, but on the other assaulting us aurally with the occasional electronic squelch before plunging us down into darkness with "Something I Can Never Have's" repetitive piano line, feeling the despair seeping into our souls as Trent mourns the loss of himself, becoming "a fading fucking reminder of who I used to be". This is one of those songs that when listened to after a bottle of red wine can chill the marrow in your bones and take you to a dark place that you might not want to be, but which is at the same time very comforting.

Side two of Pretty Hate Machine kicks off with the cold, abrasive "Kinda I Want To". "I know it's not the right thing, and I know it's not the good thing, but kinda I want to," Trent implores, and it's a sentiment that we can all identify with, having been there at some point in our lives. The break in this song is nothing short of awesome, all distorted guitars and huge drums, creating a sense of musical bedlam which leads headlong into the next track, Sin, an almost anti-disco song that has all of the drive and energy of a dance tune, but is shot through with sneering attitude and abrasive synth stabs.

"That's What I Get" continues the theme of rejection and isolation, a throbbing yet subtle bassline providing the canvas for Trent's revelation that his apparent betrayal by the subject of this song "maybe didn't mean that much, but it meant everything to me." From here we're into "The Only Time", where he returns to the themes of "Kinda I Want To", telling us "I'm drunk, but right now I'm so in love with you, and I don't want to think too much about what we should or shouldn't do."

How better to end an album detailing such dark emotions and rejection than with a final desperate plea for some kind of payback. On "Ringfinger", Reznor's acceptance that "if I was twice the man I could be, I'd still be half of what you need" brings him to ask for a simple request to "do something for me", that something being to "sever flesh and bone, and offer it to me". The song progresses into a cacophany of beats, screeching guitars and repetitive basslines before finally lurching to and end in a wail of white noise, leaving the listener alone to contemplate the darker areas within themselves.

Pretty Hate Machine is an album that once heard in the right (or wrong) frame of mind, will stay with you and is strangely uplifting despite the crushing desparation of many of the lyrics. A modern classic for the disenfranchised generation.