 Over the course of 2019, here at Ginger Nuts of Horror and as part of the ongoing ‘Devil’s Music’ project, I’ll be leading on a retrospective of the musical career of Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails. And what better place to start than at the beginning? Pretty Hate Machine was released from TVT Records on October 20th 1989, and would serve to be a tumultuous beginning to what was often a dark and rocky start to things for Nine Inch Nails. Despite its success – being the first independently released album to be certified platinum – Reznor fell out with TVT records, whom he believed were impinging upon his creative freedom. None of that stopped this album achieving incredible success, with an 80’s inspired synth feeling that would rarely be replicated again for the band. In fact in listening to every NIN album it’s telling just how different this one feels – it might sound reductive to say it as the only album the band released in the 80s, but much if it still feels really 80s. The follow-up EP, Broken, almost sounds like it could have been made by an entirely different band and is suffused with a bleakness and rage that’s rarely found here. It’s easy to see why Pretty Hate Machine made an impression on release, as it captures some of the best of the synth-pop and industrial music of the 80s with a slightly angstier, uneasier edge. Launching with a track like Head Like a Hole doesn’t hurt – it’s a real statement opener that has remained a live staple of the band over the years, and is likely the band’s most covered song to date. My other standout track on a personal level is Something I Can Never Have, a much more melancholic and softer track that feels like a significantly better fit with much more of the band’s later work. By paring back so much of the electronic sound and zooming in on a key piano ‘riff’, this one leaps out a mile stylistically as well as in bottling a slightly different mood to many of the other tracks. It’s stunningly reproduced on Still, even more pared down than this already sparse original. There are plenty of other great tracks on this one too – at its best Pretty Hate Machine has a wonderful energy to it, best epitomised by songs such as Terrible Lie, Sin and That’s What I Get. Sin of course comes with a notorious music video, not even played at the time due to some of its adult content and only emerging into the public eye far later on. With that said, there are a few tracks that rather blend into one for me, and Sanctified, The Only Time and Ringfinger are not songs that live especially long in the memory. However I think the album as a whole is a rewarding and powerful experience, but looking back with thirty years of perspective I’d say this was very much a starting point for significantly better to come. You could argue this was a process of the very strong 80’s sound being ‘exorcised’ from the band, and while elements of that would remain in later releases I feel like this is the one album that doesn’t sound very current when you listen to it in 2019. Many people in their artistic bents seem to lean towards the early work of a band, author or filmmaker, and I often go the opposite way – which is also the case here. Pretty Hate Machine is a very fine album in its own right, and would provide the foundation and stepping stone for the mega-successes of albums like The Downward Spiral and The Fragile. It’s not my favourite, but it is an album I turn to when I feel like I need some retro, synth-driven industrial tracks in my life. Strangely enough, I’m probably more of a fan of many of these songs performed live – the opening salve of Terrible Lie and Sin on All That Could Have Been is incredible, and maybe it’s just a matter that and added musical maturity has leaked into the more recent renditions. Next time around we’ll be leaping a few years forward to look at 1992’s Broken EP.   Comments are closed.
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