Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails (NIN for short, though the second "N" is flipped on album cover art) was formed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1988 as an industrial rock band.

History

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. The music video for "Happiness In Slavery" 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 but has not seen an official release. Reznor has stated in interviews that "It makes 'Happiness In Slavery' look like a Disney movie"; generally poor-quality copies of the video can be found on fan sites and file sharing systems as MPEGs. 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.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, radio conglomerate Clear Channel Communications sent out of a list of 150 songs that were recommended to be pulled from airplay. NIN's "Head Like a Hole" was on the list.

NIN's albums

Each Nine Inch Nails release is given a matrix number using the form: Halo x, where x is a positive integer. Many independent and new wave records follow similar numbering schemes. The currently releases are as follows:

Halo	Year	Title	Other information
1	1989	Down in It
2	1989	Pretty Hate Machine
3	1990	Head Like a Hole
4	1990	Sin
5	1992	Broken	EP
6	1992	Fixed
7	1994	March of the Pigs
8	1994	The Downward Spiral
9	1994	Closer
10	1995	Further Down the Spiral	US release
10 v2	1995	Further Down the Spiral	UK release
11	1997	The Perfect Drug Versions
12	1997	Closure	double video set
13	1999	The Day the World Went Away
14	1999	The Fragile
15	1999	We're in This Together / Into the Void	both labelled Halo 15
16	2000	Things Falling Apart
17	2002	And All That Could Have Been	double album includes Still
18	2004	bleedthrough	Scheduled to be released in mid-2004 or the end of the year

And All That Could Have Been was both a live single and double album. There was also a concert video on VHS and DVD of it. The double album version includes Still bonus disc, which is also available separately.

A new album, said to be titled Bleedthrough has been recorded and is currently is some stage of development. Release date has been push backed from early to mid to late 2004. Given Nine Inch Nails' history, more delays are plausible. Interveiws with Reznor say that it is being produced by Rick Rubin, and that it will feature no instrumentals (the first NIN album since Pretty Hate Machine to have none)

(Halos 13 and 15 are now out of print, some CDs including Pretty Hate Machine are now difficult to get due to Nine Inch Nails conflict with their label Interscope Records)

Other NIN works

The most famous NIN moment is probably their disastrous, mudsoaked performance at Woodstock 1994.

Reznor also recorded the background music for the id software computer game Quake, released in 1996, but this is not considered a canonical Nine Inch Nails release. Reznor was also put in charge of compiling the soundtrack to the film Natural Born Killers. Some of the tracks on the soundtrack to the David Lynch film Lost Highway are credited to Reznor alone, in addition to it featuring the Nine Inch Nails track "The Perfect Drug." Reznor also contributed the track "Deep" to the soundtrack for the movie Tomb Raider. Though not included on the soundtrack album, Closer (precursor) from the Closer to God EP was used for the opening credits of the movie Se7en.

Trent has collaborated with such artists as Tori Amos, adding backing vocals to "Past the Mission" from Under the Pink. He has also worked with David Bowie, Pigface, Marilyn Manson, The Neptunes, 1000 Homo DJs, and Peter Gabriel. TapeWorm is Reznor's own collaborative band, with a rather enigmatic line-up, tentatively featuring Danny Lohner and Maynard James Keenan of Tool. The general audience has yet to hear any official release from the band, outside of a live performance of a single TapeWorm song (Vacant) which A Perfect Circle has arranged for its own 2001 live tour, to the initial irritation of Trent Reznor.

Non-NIN albums that Trent Reznor has also appeared on

• 1000 Homo DJ's
  • Supernaut EP vocals are distorted (1990)
• David Bowie
  • I'm Afraid of Americans (1997)
  • Best of Bowie (2002)
  • Best of Bowie (Bonus CD) (2002)
  • Best of Bowie (DVD) (2003)
• KMFDM
  • Light (1994)
• Meat Beat Manifesto
  • Pro.File, Vol. 1: Remix Collection (2002)
• The Orb
  • Auntie Aubrey's Excursions Beyond the Call of Duty, Pt. 2 (2001)
• Pigface
  • Gub (1993)
• Soundtracks
  • Natural Born Killers (1994)
  • The Crow (1994)
  • Lost Highway (1997)
  • Tomb Raider (2001)
• Various Artists
  • Woodstock 94 (1994)
  • Oliver Stone Connection (1998)
  • Triple J Hottest 100, Vol. 5 (1998)
  • Sanctuary (1998)
  • Art of Darkness (1998)
  • Industrial Strength Machine Music: Framework of Industrial Rock 1978-1995 (1999)
  • Shockwave (1999)
  • Electric Ballroom Presents: Full Tilt, Vol. 3 (2001)
  • Remix Album, Vol. 2 (2002)
  • Triple J Hottest 100, Vol. 2
  • Hot Wired Monstertrux

Nine Inch Nails Members

• Trent Reznor - Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards, Programming

Supporting live bands

Fragility 1.0 & 2.0 Tours: 1999 - 2001

• Charlie Clouser - Keyboards, Theremin
• Jerome Dillon - Drums
• Robin Finck - Guitars
• Danny Lohner - Bass

Self Destruct Tours: 1994 - 1996

• Robin Finck - Guitars
• Danny Lohner - Bass
• Chris Vrenna - Drums
• James Woolley - Keyboards

Hate 1990 Tour

• Richard Patrick - Guitars
• Jeff Ward - Drums
• James Woolley - Keyboards

External links and references

• nin.com - Official site
• nincollector.com - archive of official releases
• seething-animosity - archive of bootleg & other releases
• nine inch nails trading forum
• The NIN Hotline - nine inch nails news and information archive
• All Music Guide entry for Nine Inch Nails
• Article referring to Reznor as suffering from bipolar disorder