Del.icio.usNine Inch Nails
Fact Sheet
| Musical genre: | Rock |
| Country | USA |
| Years active | 1989- |
The founder of the band, Trent Reznor, is its principal member and does most of the work on Nine Inch Nails albums; when the band plays live he is joined by a full line-up which has rotated considerably since the band's formation, though Reznor maintains most of the creative control.
Their first album, Pretty Hate Machine (1989), largely consisting of studio versions of demo recordings, went triple platinum in the US. It produced the singles "Head Like A Hole," "Down In It" and "Sin." Music videos were made for "Head Like A Hole", "Sin" and "Down In It".
The second major Nine Inch Nails release was Broken (1992), an EP of six tracks and two "hidden" tracks. The song "Wish" won a Grammy in the "metal" category. Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson of Coil directed a music video for "Happiness In Slavery" which was universally banned due to its graphic content; the video depicts performance artist Bob Flanagan strapping himself to a machine that subsequently rapes and kills him. A full length video entitled Broken - The Movie was also made by Sleazy, but has not seen an official release. Reznor has stated in interviews that "It makes 'Happiness In Slavery' look like a Disney movie"; depictions of torture, mutilation, and staged snuff film-like imagery accompany many of the songs. Some copies of the video can be found on fan sites and file sharing systems. An album of remixes from Broken, entitled Fixed, was officially released.
The second full album, The Downward Spiral, was released in 1994 and went quadruple platinum. It helped the band to much greater prominence, especially through the second single from the album, "Closer." The first single from the album was "March of the Pigs". Music videos were made for both singles, with the video for "Closer" being edited for MTV. The album's final track, "Hurt", would be quite successful when covered by Johnny Cash in 2003. Like Broken, The Downward Spiral produced several remix albums, including Further Down the Spiral and remix EPs based on "Closer" and "March of the Pigs". The Downward Spiral powerfully evokes images of both aggressive and depressive states. Some fans consider it to be Reznor's finest work. Reznor has publicly stated that he has suffered from depression, and has been reported as suffering from bipolar disorder. Considerably different versions of this album were released in the UK and the US.
The track "The Perfect Drug" recorded and included on the Lost Highway soundtrack spawned the release of a 5 mix EP The Perfect Drug Versions.
There was a long gap before the release of the next album, the double disc release The Fragile (1999). It produced three singles, one released in the US ("The Day The World Went Away"), one in the UK ("We're In This Together") and one in Japan and Australia ("Into The Void"). Like the previous two albums, it was followed by a remix album, entitled Things Falling Apart. Music videos for "We're In This Together" and "Starfuckers Inc." were aired in the US. A live album of the following "Fragility" tour was released in 2002.
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, a list of 150 songs circulated on the Internet, purported to be from radio conglomerate Clear Channel Communications to its subsidiaries, with the recommendation that these songs be pulled from airplay (it was later revealed that the list was originally the work of a few specific station program directors, was not an official Clear Channel missive, and changed over time as it was redistributed). NIN's "Head Like a Hole" was on the list.
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