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.
TRACKLIST
SIDE A
- Head Like A Hole
- Terrible Lie
- Down In It
- Sanctified
- Something I Can Never Have
SIDE B
- Kinda I Want To
- Sin
- That’s What I Get
- Only Time, The
- Ringfinger
