The Depths · All albums

Pretty Hate Machine

Nine Inch Nails · 1989

• Scores: Noise 2, Unease 2, Complexity 2 (each 1 to 5)
• Genre: Industrial, Rock, Industrial rock
• Mood: bitter, angsty, brooding
• Sound: synth-pop, industrial, sampled drums, danceable beats, shouted vocals, programmed rhythms

Pretty Hate Machine is a synth-driven album made largely by one person. Trent Reznor played most of the keyboards, drum machines, guitars and samplers himself in 1989, recording at studios in Cleveland, London, Boston and New York, after using downtime at The Right Track in Cleveland, where he worked as a handyman and engineer, to record his demo. Instead of real drums he used samples from his record collection, played Public Enemy loops backwards and modulated them in Turbosynth, and turned a distorted woodblock into the sound at the end of “Terrible Lie”. It blends electronic, industrial and rock, and unlike many industrial acts it uses riffs and verse-chorus structures instead of repetitive electronic beats. Reznor cited Depeche Mode’s Black Celebration, and wanted to add humanity and aggression to electronic music.

Track list

1. Head Like a Hole (4:59)
2. Terrible Lie (4:38)
3. Down in It (3:46)
4. Sanctified (5:47)
5. Something I Can Never Have (5:54)
6. Kinda I Want To (4:33)
7. Sin (4:06)
8. That’s What I Get (4:30)
9. The Only Time (4:47)
10. Ringfinger (5:42)