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This 1989 debut would set the stage for an industrial revolution. Drawing from the metallic menace of bands like Skinny Puppy and Ministry, as well as the post-punk paranoia of Joy Division, Trent Reznor created a masterpiece, a well-oiled machine run on keyboards, drum machines, guitars and samples that, somewhat ironically, released a beast of raw emotion. The only things to remind us a human is behind this madness are those feverish howls and those lyrics of existential dread, all fed straight from the self-loathing depths of Reznor's boiling psyche. — Stephanie Benson Hear It Now!

Hear the monumental album and the seeds from which it grew with our NIN's Pretty Hate Machine & Its Influences playlist.

Nowadays Trent Reznor is suiting up and hobnobbing with A-list celebs as a newly cemented Oscar nominee for his outstanding work with Atticus Ross on the score for The Social Network. But over two decades ago he was just a prickly little synth geek living in Cleveland, hobnobbing with not much else than tools and cleaning supplies as a janitor for Right Track Studio. That studio is where he began to develop the sound of Nine Inch Nails. The rest is history.

Nine Inch Nails' 1989 debut would set the stage for an industrial revolution. Aside from help behind the boards, the creation of Pretty Hate Machine was mostly a one-man operation. And Trent Reznor made quite a masterpiece, a well-oiled machine run on keyboards, drum machines, guitars and samples that, somewhat ironically, released a beast of raw emotion. The only things to remind us a human is behind this madness are those feverish howls and those lyrics of existential dread, all fed straight from the self-loathing depths of Reznor's boiling psyche.

The album, however, is not without its myriad influences. The birth of industrial came well before Pretty Hate Machine. Reznor drew from the metallic menace of bands like Skinny Puppy, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire and Ministry, whose rigid clinks and clanks of synths were distant and dehumanizing, the music so frigid it seemed it could give off steam upon human touch — making it that much more compelling to the human ear.

Song: Leaving Hope
Album: Still
Artist: Nine Inch Nails
Selected by: Stephanie Benson
Date: May 30, 2008

Trent Reznor wrote "Leaving Hope" in the midst of battling a near-fatal drug addiction. Instead of channeling his agony into the familiar NIN machinist dissonance, he weaves delicate piano and soft static through an instrumental that sparkles, echoes and fades with just the subtlest hint of hopefulness. 

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