Potpourri: Nine Inch Nails
"I wanna feel you from the inside"... highlights and underrated gems off the band that has charted its own path since 1989.
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Potpourri, aka a medley. This post will not detail every single release / production credit and talk about them in the detail that the songs deserve. Rather, my aim is to sample songs that have fallen under the radar, are noteworthy, or simply songs I like that I hope you will enjoy too. It’s not a best of, God forbid. And there is no Closer on here — please just listen to it anyway, if you haven’t.
A day after Kurt Cobain’s untimely death in 1994, a distressed user posted the observation on a Google group called alt.music.nin that Cobain’s passing was a month after the release of The Downward Spiral, a peculiar concept album about suicide that was the breakthrough of the equally peculiar Nine Inch Nails. A low-hanging fruit if Wai Cheng ever saw one:
It almost is shockingly appropriate that the NIN title Track "the Downward Spiral" describes exactly how Kurt Cobain commited [sic] suicide...1
The fact that Cobain had plenty of issues before the release of The Downward Spiral notwithstanding — thus this post being bogus — there are still a couple observations to be drawn from the post. To think of Nine Inch Nails when the topic is about Nirvana does make it clear that, as far as the “alternative” movement went in the early 90s, both were at its vanguard. And Nine Inch Nails is a project that has dealt with dark subject matter since its debut in 1989, with frontman/producer/multi-instrumentalist Trent Reznor’s pen best known for its unadorned, vulnerable detailing of depression, despair, frustration, rage, even suicidal ideation, derealization, and depersonalization. The equally in-your-face vocal presentation are underscored with drums that crack like a whip, nasty guitars, and a chorus so guttural it could double as a war cry — it leads one to think that this is all that Nine Inch Nails, or NIN for short, is about. But Nine Inch Nails wasn’t just a band for angry teenage boys. They weren’t even industrial — Reznor even rejected the label2. NIN could be sentimental, romantic, life-affirming; NIN could be rather poppy if Reznor wanted to be (he often was); and despite speaking against gangsta rap and its aged nature3, Reznor sampled (even remixed!4) like a hip hop producer. His immense talent as producer and composer would lead him to winning Grammys for both Best Metal Performance in 1992 and Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media in 2013. And what to say of the iconic story of the sample that a young Black man bought, leading Lil Nas X to superstardom and Trent Reznor indirectly5 to his first Billboard #1? To think that sample was part of a throwaway 4 CD album of drafts!
In 1995’s Clueless, Travis says that “The way I feel about Rolling Stones is the way my children are gonna feel about Nine Inch Nails.” Across 30+ years (!), releases dubbed “Halos”6, two side projects (one of which eventually became the main project), a protégé with a nasty fallout7, a great many releases, even if you think you don’t know Nine Inch Nails, you’ve likely heard them before: Halsey’s latest album was produced by them, and Old Town Road was unavoidable. Final Destination features a song off The Fragile that features the movie name; to Lara Croft, they are “easy listening”8; and Brie Larson sports a NIN shirt in one scene of Captain Marvel. NIN’s influence and impact reached groups such as Linkin Park and Deftones and reaches all the way to today: Billie Eilish and Tyler, the Creator were creepy at the start of their careers because Trent Reznor was creepy first. Among all this, Closer is living its second life in the world of TikTok; safe to say the kids don’t feel any different about Nine Inch Nails than the teens of 1994.
Nine Inch Nails, from 1989 to 2016, was Mercer, Pa.-born Trent Reznor, and is, per the first press release in 1989, an artistic platform through which reznor’s myriad of emotions become threateningly palpable rhythms and dark, ominous melodies9. This is a man who won a Grammy with the lyrics fist fuck and an Oscar for scoring a Pixar film almost thirty years later, described as “more like three-inch nails”10 by Courntey Love. Welcome to the dark, sad, and emotional world of Nine Inch Nails.
Head Like A Hole
released on Pretty Hate Machine (Halo 2), October 20, 1989; as single (Halo 3) on March 22, 1990; re-issued November 22, 2005
God money, I’d do anything for you… Head Like A Hole is a stylish blend of both synth-pop and rock, although its guitars in the chorus do lean the song more into rock territory than other tracks on Pretty Hate Machine (Down In It has Reznor rap for the first and last time). It’s a muscular, forceful track that features a catchy double chorus, an excellent bridge, and an impassionate vocal decrying a “you” but asking the “you” to bow down before the one they serve. (My favorite moment is the gnarl in the second pre-chorus: nnnno you can’t take it!) What the song is really about? A rebellion towards the small town he grew up in, or the world at large? A general anticapitalist, anarchist rally? Who knows! It’s a common thread for Nine Inch Nails to favor emotions over narrative and the feeling in question — vivid frustration neatly packaged in an incredibly catchy song clocking in at 115 bpm — is unmistakable. Head Like A Hole would enjoy heavy rotation on initial release, much to the initial chagrin11 of Reznor, who wrote the song in about fifteen minutes, and enduring popularity long after. It’s also one of NIN’s most covered songs by artists as varied as Devo, AFI, as well as one by Korn and Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington12 that never saw the light of day. And who could forget the pop reinvention On A Roll, performed by Miley Cyrus on Black Mirror’s sixth season, turning it to a full pop jam13.
Last
released on Broken (Halo 5), September 22, 1992
As the story goes, Reznor's first label TVT did not like Pretty Hate Machine. From the moment that Reznor presented the album, rather than demos Purest Feeling, TVT declared it an abortion14. Pretty Hate Machine would go on to be the very opposite of that, but also meant the start of Reznor and TVT’s beef. Broken is the first of many fuck-yous to the label; produced by Flood and Reznor, forget synthpop, this is completely metal, most of it claustrophobic, violent, and vicious. Of this short, brief punch of an EP, Last doesn’t rush with the same speed as Wish does, nor does it bombard as much as Happiness in Slavery. Instead, the interplay of the guitar in the verse, the galloping pre-chorus and the instrumental before it goes to this isn’t meant to last over and over make it for the most accessible song of the release. Even at the weirdest (and this was far from the weirdest NIN would get), there is always something to hold onto when listening to a NIN record: in this case, a noticeable pop structure of verses, catchy choruses, and a bridge, always cleanly separated. Plus, Wish might have “fist fuck”, but Last features the lyrics my heart is a whore, which might as well be the Nine Inch Nails lyric considering past and future songs. The TVT partnership wasn’t meant to last (neither would be the Interscope deal that comes afterward, but that’s not in the 90s) and Last is one very nasty taunt.
Self Destruction, Part Two
released on Further Down The Spiral (Halo 10), June 1, 1995
The opener of NIN’s sophomore record The Downward Spiral starts off with a sample of the movie THX 1138, and with its lyrics describing a peculiar brain demon of the unnamed protagonist, Mr Self Destruct is manic and unhinged, a perfect introduction to The Downward Spiral: a far, far darker world than either Broken or Pretty Hate Machine. But J.G Thirlwell’s remix Self Destruction, Part Two off Further Down The Spiral takes the manic energy a step further. The song’s opening is now matched with clanking machines, a guitar that travels from one ear to the next, paired with a guttural wall of bass. An entire minute longer than the original, Self Destruction, Part Two adds an instrumental section that keeps the momentum going, blissfully eschews the extremes of quiet and loud of the original and adds the sample to the instrumental breaks rather than the start. In the meantime, all of the thrashing electric guitars, breakneck drums, and arresting vocal performance are there, and so is the whispered and I control you that haunts like an intrusive thought. If Mr Self Destruct is an introduction, Self Destruction, Part Two is a declaration of evil.
Dead Souls
released as soundtrack contribution to The Crow on March 29, 1994; re-released on The Downward Spiral’s deluxe edition (Halo 8 DE) on November 23, 2004
British group Joy Division, one of the formative names in the post punk movement, made music that both musically and lyrically sounded like the equivalent of a dark, dusty attic of a house on a busy street that never catches fresh air — case in point, one of their catchiest riffs has the vibe of an air siren blaring about15. The Atmosphere b-side Dead Souls would go on to live a second life some fourteen years after its release, and compared to the original, Reznor sounds quiet, as though he can tell there’s no someone in the first verse to help him, just himself. It makes the plea in the chorus — they keep calling me, keep on calling me — all the more desperate. The song is slower and the drums are mixed louder, less a whip crack of lightning compared to the original and more the ominous foreboding of thunder. Although soon Reznor approaches the usual loud territory in the chorus — leading to screams at the climax — it’s not quite the same as the frantic energy of anything else by Nine Inch Nails. Up until this point, an average Nine Inch Nails song either meant the protagonist faced their demons head on or the protagonist became the demon. If it wasn’t anger, it was about sex or the desire thereof. But Dead Souls is a song of somebody haunted, removed, with lyrics making copious usage of similes. It revels in its darkness and doesn’t immediately reject it; hard to do so when the darkness is a fog, rather than the sticky, wet mud of The Downward Spiral. And through it all, Reznor constructs his very own dusty attic.
Ten Miles High
released on: 1) The Fragile (Halo 14) vinyl, September 21th, 1999; 2) Things Falling Apart (Halo 16), November 21, 2000; 3) as instrumental version on The Fragile: Deviations 1 (Halo 30), December 23, 2016
One of the most rewarding aspects of Nine Inch Nails is their extensive vault. Almost every song by Nine Inch Nails is available on streaming services sans Deep16, The Fragile b-side The New Flesh, and archival release The Fragile Deviations 1. One song besides The Downward Spiral that features so many versions is 10 Miles High. In the creation of the CD versions, the song was cut out of the original tracklist of The Fragile, but then appeared as an “alternate” tracklist on the vinyl version17, thus extending the outro of The Mark Has Been Made and keeping the flawless transitions of the double album intact. The song later reappeared on Things Falling Apart18 as a remix, remaining the only version available on streaming platforms; and, finally, on Fragile: Deviations 1, in its instrumental version named Hello, Everything Is Not OK19. Both in the vinyl version that also appears in the 2017 Definitive Version of The Fragile and the remix, arpeggios and twinkling pianos tentatively open the song. Soon, they are broken by a jagged vocal declaring I’m getting closer / all the time. Guitars reminiscent of an alarm siren lend the song an overall urgency, a sped up exorcism or maybe the free fall to the deepest pits of hell. A futile attempt regardless: midway through a quiet guitar the song, buried deep in the mix on the right channel of stereo, we hear Reznor say: my nightmare’s everywhere but inside. Despite making it ten miles20 high, in the end, you can neither escape your lies nor yourself. The song arrives to the same conclusion, at least in the original, in which a warped oscillator is paired with a singular guitar in the bridge, and at the final twenty seconds, all instruments stop except for multiple Reznors chanting: tear it all down, tear it all down, tear it all— The remix version by Keith Hillebrandt keeps it largely similar to the original, except that the guitar of the bridge is moved towards the end, turning to a coda rather than a moment of quiet: game over. And still: tear it all down, tear it all down. The song is arena rock if the arena was the vast nothing of the deepest parts of the Reznor’s psyche and the rock was the only tool that worked against a mental demon.
Most of The Fragile doesn’t hide its bleak soundscape — least of all its second half, which details the descent back downward until the fittingly titled finish Ripe (With Decay) — but 10 Miles High marks the point where self-loathing turns from despair to aggression, followed by the eventual neediness (Please) and arrogance (Starfuckers, Inc.). It’s not the bleakest song on the record, but one of its hardest. Reznor said that 10 Miles High had three different sets of lyrics and choruses. Perhaps straightforward arena rock was the goal for Hello, Everything is Not OK, the instrumental of which made it on the aforementioned Deviations and The Fragile (Instrumentals and Outtakes), only available on Apple Music. The guitar that only appeared on the bridge (or the ending, depending) now makes up the entire verse. Audience cheers and chants of ho! ho! are added to the mix. As the drum comes to a skittering halt, indeterminate voices ask questions, overlap one another, until finally, the drumstick drops to the ground. Real life turned hell, or hell turned to real life? The nightmare is everywhere but inside. And with each listen, on each version, the aggression, the haughtiness all follow the nightmare, and the final realization returns with renewed vigor.
“Sin” & “Reptile”
as performed on Woodstock, August 13, 1994, and released on And All That Could Have Been (Halo 17), January 22, 2002
Sin, a b-side of Pretty Hate Machine, is a synthpop song with teeth. In its original, the sampled “sha” (likely from Paid in Full by Erik B & Rakim) give the song an itchy feel, while drums rattle as if chained. The original song is spirited, but same thing can be said about all the Pretty Hate Machine songs, plus Sin ends up sandwiched between two superior songs21. In the live version of Sin, though, the drums are finally freed, and there’s guitars in the mix and the keyboard notes at the start lend the song a jungle-like feel. Reznor’s gnarl here sounds far better live than the first-take feel of the studio recording. The bridge is undescored by loud “arghs!” and, in the Woodstock performance, ends with a “WAKE UP MOTHERFUCKERS!”22 Of note is the quote taken from Clive Barker’s short story “In the Hills, the Cities”, in which a gay man becomes part of a giant human construct after said human construct kills his lover23: the “stale incense, old sweat, and lies” that originally meant to describe the church becomes the anger hurled at the lover, possibly something sado-masochistic even. The lover ruined something irreplaceable in the protagonist’s mind, but are the only one that can take in “the extent of my sin” (Sound familiar?) — this is pure aggression and a highlight live.
Similar things can be said of Reptile. Where in Closer and Sin, sex is the catharsis, in Reptile the inverse happens. Featuring lyrics that just about drip with condescension with whoever this woman is, a strange fax machine running in the production over and over, and a soundscape utterly dark and mechanical, the studio version is one of the bleakest spots of the record and a signal to the end that is to come. It’s a very intense moment in the album already, but the live version of And All That Could Have Been turns it up a notch, with the mixing of the instruments pressing on the ears to the sides, rather than a spread-out, industral world that smells in the album. The guitars and drums sound so unbelievably gnarly live, and Reznor provides some excellent vocals both in chorus and the adlibs throughout. Whether you enjoy Reptile in album format more or live (it consistently ranks high in top 20 offerings), the entrancing song with its depersonalized, absolutely objectified is brilliant in the same way watching a pimple pop: suddenly the pus is all there, yellow-white and utterly gross, but coming from you.
When Thursday frontman Geoff Rickly came onto the Nine Inch Nails episode of podcast Bandsplain24, he recalled how big a fan of Nine Inch Nails he is and was in his youth; his memorabilia includes various piano keys and guitar strands that Trent Reznor, at some point in the show, has destroyed. "It was just one of those shows,” Reznor told NME Magazine in 199125 when asked about the smashed guitars. This was at the very first Lollapalooza. Three years later, the legendary Woodstock ‘94 performance features the whole band in mud, various mic stands hurled at an equally mud-caked group of fans, mics tossed aside with reckless abandon, and closer Head Like A Hole ends with Reznor throwing the entire guitar to the crowd. A lot of those shows! NIN as a live band is an interesting case — besides the damages on instrument and equipment, and numerous letters and even poems by fans26, Reznor would handpick members per tour and really wasn’t a fan of touring. More importantly, though, Nine Inch Nails wasn’t an analogue band. NIN was a project that started out on a studio, very much sounded like it, and would go on to sound even more digital, which reflected on the songs. But it didn’t mean they had to lose their visceral feeling live. Of the albums available on streaming, there’s the aforementioned Woodstock performance27 and And All That Could Have Been, taken from the Fragility v2.0 tour (promoting The Fragile between April - June 2000). At their best, the live recordings are kinetic and ear-filling in a way the originals are not.
And All That Could Have Been
released on the And All That Could Have Been (Halo 17) companion EP Still, January 22, 2002
When Nine Inch Nails wasn’t angry, horny, hurt, or a permutation thereof, the project was often sad. While Something I Can Never Have is the prototype to a lot of sad NIN songs to come — songs that were open, personal, and intensely vulnerable — and Hurt got immortalized by Johnny Cash, And All That Could Have Been feels somehow more devastating. It’s the chorus that stomps in its quiet way, the vocal performance that sounds so utterly defeated, and the way the guitar comes crashing in, midway through the song, that envelops both earbuds. If it sounds shoegaze-esque, it might be because mixer Alan Moulder has also been responsible for mixing My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless. The long, instrumental break is no longer the attic of Dead Souls and not the myopic worldview that both The Fragile and Pretty Hate Machine offered — it’s the free fall to a long abyss. When Reznor sings Gone, fading, it sounds like it. It feels like it. The Fragile, the outtake of which is And All That Could Have Been, marked the lowest point in Reznor’s life, marred by the loss of his grandmother and drug abuse, a time ruled by fear and addiction28. By the time this song was released in 2002, Reznor was in rehab. The goal was to figure himself out.
Now is perhaps a good time to mention that Nine Inch Nails is actually a very online band29. Besides having an official Discord on which both Reznor and Atticus Ross (the other official member of Nine Inch Nails since 2016) are active, fans had the chance to remix 2005 single Only online30; the rollout of fifth album Year Zero included USB sticks that were strewn around the bathrooms during band shows31, as well as a game; Ghosts I-IV was released as torrents on ThePirateBay; inspired by Radiohead, Saul Williams’ The Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust!, for which Reznor produced, featured a pay-what-you-can system with a minimum fee of $5 on the Nine Inch Nails website. Trent Reznor was also on various forums32, replying to fans in a dry, slightly sarcastic manner. Web 2.0 was a time where the Internet didn’t feel like five websites and a never-ending sludge of “the algorithm”, but a place of genuine possibility. As we head into the second and third decades of Nine Inch Nails with a sober Reznor, the idea of possibility comes forward not only in promotion, but also in the music.
Sunspots
released on With Teeth (Halo 19) May 3, 2005
Thus far, when a woman was involved in the lyrics, she’s either a whore, somebody who hurt Reznor, or the one who will save him. It doesn’t have to be sex — The Fragile’s title track details a female character that shines so brightly that he has to protect her despite his own status, and on La Mer, a female vocal speaks in Creole French over a Debussy-inspired piano about nothing stopping her now. Still, the evidence could make one say that Reznor is a misogynist, which, even in the ‘90s, Reznor has vehemently refuted33. Though NIN has plenty romantic songs and lines (Something I Can Never Have, We’re In This Together), Sunspots boasts a killer bassline, a chorus that recalls To Here Knows When34 (once again, the Alan Moulder production credit pops up) and lyrics straight out of the textbook of both Alex Kapranos35 and Alex Turner. Reznor has often been magnetic in his songs, but it was due to his unguarded, visceral emotions, the immediacy of his delivery. Here, on a song that's mostly about the mortifying ordeal of being self-aware, he's something else: charismatic. She’s not here to save him from whatever he’s going through. She’s here, she is hot, and he’s sorry for what he’s going through. He’ll be with her for a moment; right now, it’s time to stare at the sun, and thus, turn a blind eye to himself and his past. We’re gonna burn what we were left of the ground / Fuck in the fire and we’ll spread the ashes around to a vocal and bassline like this makes both fire and the ashes quite enticing.
Lights In The Sky
released on The Slip (Halo 27), May 5, 2008
Year Zero and The Slip were created with specific constraints: Year Zero was created during the Live: With Teeth tour, while The Slip was created with the goal of finishing a song the day it started36. The results are often compelling, but not perfected, so it comes as no surprise neither record ranks high with fans. Of these two records, major highlight Lights in the Sky employs a piano with a reverb and a serious sense of doom. Following a she that is “mostly gone,” likely in the process of dying, Reznor’s vocal performance is tender and reverent, as he promises to keep by her side as the lights in the sky have arrived. It serves as a stark contrast to the electronic soundscape of either record. There is no dramatic chorus here, no wild changes, only a sober goodbye. As Lights in the Sky segue to the instrumental Corona Radiata, a seven-minute long ambient eulogy, it feels like a very private moment the listener is privy to and becomes one with.
Copy of A
released on Hesitation Marks (Halo 28), August 30, 2013
Over the years, Nine Inch Nails’ songs got parodied and referenced by figures as varied as Weird Al Yankovic and Kermit the Frog, but perhaps none of them come as close as THIS IS A TRENT REZNOR SONG, on which Freddy Scott references Closer, The Hand That Feeds, and We’re In This Together’s music videos and lays down the basic structure of a Trent Reznor song: verse with lower-register vocals, weird guitars, odd percussions, a singalong chorus that is usually noisy, a second verse that has Reznor sing louder, chorus again and a piano as a finish so it sounds like a haunted house. “It’s still going on / But it’s very awesome,” goes the chorus. Of course, the gag here is that the song is not original, but from Copy Of A, making the affair both slyly meta (title aside, the original lyrics feature the lyrics “Everything I’ve said, I’ve said before”) and utterly fanboyish. It’s an excellent choice: Copy Of A is an archetypical Nine Inch Nails song if it was frozen solid at 0 Kelvin37, spellbinding with its repetitive words and quasi-dance vibe.
The Background World
released on Add Violence (Halo 31), July 21, 2017
This far into anyone’s career — in Nine Inch Nails’ case, closing in to 30 years by the time The Trilogy started — the act either becomes a thing of legacy, crystallize to the same old tricks, or pivot someplace new. Lyrically speaking, besides Year Zero, Reznor only ever spoke of one perspective: himself. This time, the paranoia of earlier records was paired with the bleak, post-apocalyptic world sketched in Year Zero, introducing the world of The Trilogy: a simulation in which the protagonist realizes that humans are just microbes in a jar38. The clearest picture of this vision is the closer of middle EP Add Violence, an eleven-minute long song both dark and claustrophobic throughout its vocalized parts. Just when you think you know where this goes — be it in the piano chords, the way the synths stack up, the guitars in the mix, or the subdued vocals — The Background World goes a step further and loops the same eight bars over and over, adding a single beat of a break before it iterates once more, slightly more distorted. If The Downward Spiral cast the inner world of the protagonist as something made of metal, rust, dirt, and wires, then The Background World zooms out to reveal everything is made of that material. Pretty Hate Machine sounds positively juvenile compared to this song, The Fragile almost too short in its attempt to visualize a decaying world. Year Zero toyed with the aftermath of an apocalypse: The Background World is the apocalypse. The protagonist realizes that the world is a simulation, that there is no time moving forward or backward, just an endless slog of now. Are you sure, Trent Reznor sings, before another vocal adds, at the far back, this is what you want? It is utterly terrifying. There is no sexiness here, no prettiness; this is the hypnosis of watching a car break down, over and over, and pixelate into nothing. The Trilogy marks a rejuvenated Nine Inch Nails and The Background World is the new ace up their sleeve. This is no legacy act in any way.
The NIN catalogue can be daunting, and as much as my aim for this post was to sample, in the end, a starting point needs to be made. The chronological approach, in NIN’s case, can be incredibly rewarding — musical ideas get picked up again and refined to exhilarating new songs, as Ten Miles High proves — but if a 1989 synth-pop album does not grab your attention, perhaps The Trilogy will. Clocking in at a slim twenty-one minutes, the first EP Not The Actual Events is an excellent amalgamation of the industrial, abrasive sound that NIN made their name with, as well as the pitch-black dancefloor beats that earned them the pop label since the inception of the project39, and chock full of musical ideas. Add Violence is a little more analogue, but just as bristling. Bad Witch, the conclusion, adds saxophone to the mix, lets go of lyrics altogether at points, and seamlessly blends together to a meticulous musical experiment. If twenty-one minutes to half an hour is too long still, Closer, as mentioned, is the one song you need to have heard of (and seen! The music video is a marvel and cuts the song to an acceptable four minutes). After The Trilogy, though, the path returns back to the start: Pretty Hate Machine.
There is also an alternative path that one could attempt, one that doesn’t begin with the Nine Inch Nails moniker at all. It could, possibly, begin with the director David Fincher: be it 2010’s The Social Network, 2011’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, or the 2014 gaslight-gatekeep-girlboss progenitor Gone Girl. Hell, it might even involve 2020’s Mank, if you want to be in for a surprise. And then, eventually, you reach Soul, the Pixar film involving a Jazz musician who dies and has to go back to Earth. There’s an interesting sound there, if you listen to the afterlife scenes; this is pretty piano music, but does not resemble jazz. In fact, it’s almost too pristine…
The next Potpourri contains ghosts, How To Destroy Angels, production credits, and Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross. It is out sometime October. twitter | retrospring | ko-fi
retrieved from: https://groups.google.com/g/alt.music.nin/c/Yt-OtKN0ynQ?pli=1
among others, “Ego is Too Much A Thing,” Lorraine Ali, Alternative Press, January 1st 1993. Archived by The NIN Hotline.
“Nine Inch Nails – Trent Reznor hits college radio on the head with a tough, sharp solo album”, Robert L. Doerschuk, Keyboard Magazine, April 1990, archived by NIN Pages
Check out Trent Reznor’s remix of Victory by Diddy (feat. The Notorious B.I.G & Busta Rhymes)!
The beat, which comes from 34 Ghosts IV, was released under a Creative Commons license. It was rearranged and uploaded by YoungKio, who hadn’t heard of Nine Inch Nails before. As the song gained traction, Lil Nas X’s team asked for the sample to be cleared, which Trent Reznor granted; he and Atticus Ross are credited as songwriters and producers for Old Town Road. “I don’t feel it’s for me to step in there and pat myself on the back for that,” he told Rolling Stone in 2019 about the accolades Old Town Road received. (“Trent Reznor Breaks Silence on ‘Undeniably Hooky’ ‘Old Town Road’”, Kory Grow, October 2019. Link here)
There are also Ghosts, which are not covered at this time, and Seeds, which are compilation records.
Marilyn Manson.
Official Lara Croft Biography (Core Design), date unclear, retrieved from Raiding The Globe
TVT Records press release, October 1989, archived by NIN Hotline.
“Courtney Love VS Trent Reznor”, Massive, May 1999, archived by mrworld.tripod.com
King of Pain, Kerrang!, July 2005. Archived by NIN Hotline.
from "Head Like A Hole (Nine Inch Nails cover)”, Linkinpedia. The 2017 Kerrang interview is unfortunately not archived online.
In the episode Rachel, Jack, and Ashley Too that Miley Cyrus stars in as an AI star, she finishes the episode freed and doing what she likes best — rock music. Head Like A Hole is performed at the end in a straightforward manner, marking an interesting parallel to her current career. Also, her cover of Right Where I Belong as the Ashley O character got Reznor to tweet about it with the hilarious hashtag #goddamnitthisisactuallyprettygoodandidontknowwhoiamanymore.
For a comprehensive history of all the things Reznor alleged, see this r/hobbydrama thread. TVT CEO Steve Gottlieb has denied these allegations, which you can read about in this 2017 Billboard interview.
Disorder from Unknown Pleasures. The 1975’s Give Yourself A Try directly riffs off of it.
The 2001 soundtrack contribution to Lara Croft: Tomb Raider starring Angelina Jolie is not available on streaming. I bet Lara would find that song easy listening.
Because it’s too funny not to be mentioned: Pitchfork originally disliked both The Fragile and even more so Things Falling Apart, rating the latter a 0.4 score. The Fragile’s original 2.0 score was later updated to a 8.7 in its 2017 re-issue.
Hey, everything is not OK also appears as a line on 2013’s Hesitation Marks track “All Time Low”
16 kilometers in the metric system
Sin is preceeded by Kinda I Want To and succeeded by That’s What I Get.
A segue to the following song, March of the Pigs
"Nine Inch Nails,” February 2022, Bandsplain on Spotify (only available via the app)
"And a Bang Of The Gear”, Terry Staunton, September 1991, NME. Archived by The NIN Hotline.
Available on Youtube. I highly suggest you watch it to contextualize the auditory mess going on in the live album.
A lot of interviews during With Teeth’s press run mentions this. Here’s one.
NIN’s incredibly online status to this day also means the project boasts one of the best repositories of digital preservation, with many of the articles and reviews compiled by theninhotline.com and all releases detailed on nin.wiki (to which the main page nin.com links back to on the “Releases” tab).
“Nine Inch Nails Fans Given Unique Chance to Remix, Reinvent and Recreate New Single 'Only' via Web Site and Remix Programs”, Nine Inch Nails press release on June 2005, archived by The NIN Hotline.
Here’s one. He gets locked out by the mods at some point and has to log in with former drummer Chris Vrenna’s credentials (lol) The NIN website had a forum too, though that’s defunct now.
see Footnote 26.
A track of My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless.
Franz Ferdinand’s frontman. As an aside, Reznor had this of say to Franz Ferdinand’s debut record: “It doesn't speak to me on any level emotionally or purposefully. They're a band you're meant to think is cool because they're marketable.” (From “After riding the rock roller coaster down, Trent Reznor heads back up”, Kevin Johnson, October 2005, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Archived by ninhotline.)
See Footnote 24. The Slip is also notable for being the last album under Interscope. Prior its release, Ghosts I-IV was released by Reznor’s own label The Null Corporation. The album after this one, Hesitation Marks, was distributed by Columbia, and the releases that follow dubbed “The Trilogy” was distributed under Capitol Records.
Also known as absolute zero, this is the lowest limit of the thermodynamic temperature scale. It clocks in at -459F or -273C.
One early example can be found in “Black Celebration/Flash” by Robin Reinhardt on Spin Magazine, 1990, archived by ninhotline.