Pretty Hate Machine  by Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails were formed in Cleveland in 1988 and the following year they recorded and presented their first album. Pretty Hate Machine is an album which, at the time of its release, made an impression as its sound was pioneering for its time, combining dance elements, guitar rock outbursts, rhythmic patterns that had not been heard before, and generally seemed to push music beyond the pop & rock clichés of that era.

Behind all this effort was the producer, singer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Trent Reznor. Trent Reznor worked as an engineer and gofer at Right Track Studio in Cleveland. When he found the studio's equipment and instruments free - mainly at night - he experimented with his own musical ideas. This is how Pretty Hate Machine started to come together, an album that became a landmark for industrial music. Nine Inch Nails were fortunate to have producers like Flood and Adrian Sherwood, who were familiar with electronic sound, help them produce their first album.

Initially, the album had moderate success in the U.S., reaching No. 75 on the Billboard. As time passed and the sonic changes of the 1990s reshaped the pop & rock music landscape, Pretty Hate Machine went triple platinum in the U.S., while in the United Kingdom the record went gold. When Reznor realized the growing success of his album, he hired some musicians and started touring, taking advantage of every opportunity for live performances of his compositions. This led Nine Inch Nails to open for other bands. NIN played alongside the Jesus And Mary Chain, and in Europe, they accompanied Guns 'n' Roses for a while (!)