Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine

Label: Island
Catologue Number: ILPS9973
Format: LP
Date: 1989
Style: Industrial / EBM / Synthpop
Rating: 5/10
Reviewer: Sidney James

Pretty Hate Machine was seen by many critics as a major breakthrough in rock music, with its blend of electronics and rock aesthetics. It also made Trent Reznor a household name and dragged Industrial music form its underground ghetto into the bright lights of the mainstream. Pretty Hate Machine may be seen by many as a radical step into new musical territories, however for those who know their musical history, Pretty Hate Machine was in the main a imitation of other less successful and innovative bands.

Musically Pretty Hate Machine is not a bad album. It’s combination of synthetic beats and bass with more obvious rock dynamics is extremely well executed by Mr Reznor. The problem for me is that I can too easily hear the influence of other bands in the majority of the tracks on the album. A criticism, which can be, levelled at many bands first releases and Nine Inch Nails like so many others fail to escape this trap.

The album begins with the alternative disco favourite ‘Head Like a Hole’ The song takes it's structure from the Al Jourgensen school of cyberpunk thrash. All slamming electronic beats and slashing guitars as Mr Reznor sings a hymn to domination and the work ethic. ‘Head Like a Hole’ transparently comes across as a Ministry/Revco hybrid with a side dish of extra-added angst added. It however lacks the dark humour and tongue in cheek attitude associated with Al Jourgensen and his band of merry delinquents. It however still rates as one of the classic early Nine Inch Nail tracks

The rest of the album consists of a mixed bag of down tempo synth ballads and more aggressive dance floor numbers. Down In It, Sin and Ringfinger are some of the other more up-tempo bass heavy tracks. All show a major influence of the Electronic Body Music style of the late 1980's popularised by the Wax Trax record label. The influence of bands like Nitzer Ebb, Front 242, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult and Skinny Puppy undercuts these tracks.

On ‘Sin’ the heavily sequenced bass lines could have been directly lifted form Nitzer Ebb's Belief album. Whilst ‘Down In it’ is merely a aggressive pop reworking of Skinny Puppy’s ‘Dig It’ a fact that Mr Reznor has fully acknowledged. ‘Ringfinger’ is helped along with a dollop of funk and a Jane’s Addiction sample and moves in a brisk agitated manner.

The other overriding influence for me is that of Depeche Mode many of the tracks recalling the dark synthpop of Black Celebration and Music For the Masses. Tracks like ‘Sanctified’ and ‘Terrible Lie’ take the Mode template and leads in down seedy back allies. Unlike The Mode, Nine Inch Nails dwell in the realms of angst and despair rather than the highlands of redemption that The Mode offer.

‘Something I can never have’ touches on a more reflective sound. The track is also more Gothic in its pronunciation, and offers a welcome rest bite from the over familiar electronic rhythm patterns and the air of disillusioned love that haunts the majority of the other tracks on the album.

Maybe it's because I can see these influence of other bands throughout Pretty Hate Machine, that it never had the impact on me as it did on other people. Trent Reznor may had made his name and moved Industrial music into the mainstream with Pretty Hate Machine but for me it was done by taking the elements of other bands music and reforming them into a more palatable form. The strange thing is unlike other bands Trent Reznor pushed the later Nine Inch Nails material into a less mainstream direct. The following albums saw Mr Reznor begin to create his own sound and identify and every album since Pretty Hate Machine has been a massive step forward in terms of originality and song writing.

Pretty Hate Machine was a sum of second hard parts ever so slightly remoulded into a more accessible form. The legacy of Pretty Hate Machine is one that saw many bands attempting to sound like Nine Inch Nails circa this album. A weird scenario where many acts ended up sounding like a pale imitation of a band that was initially shadowing the works of others. It’s only a shame that some of the bands that Mr Reznor was influenced by never received the critical and financial success that Nine Inch Nails have enjoyed.