Before Nine Inch Nails emerged at the tail end of the ’80s, industrial music was pretty much limited to bands like Ministry, Skinny Puppy, and other influential acts that had a dedicated audience. The genre was certainly not in the mainstream at all – that is, until Trent Reznor’s musical genius emerged with Pretty Hate Machine, the 1989 debut album from Nine Inch Nails. To say this album is influential is an understatement, let’s be honest here.
What Pretty Hate Machine brought to the table was essentially bringing together industrial and synthpop influences, and collating them into a framework of pop songwriting. Undoubtedly, this made industrial music much more palatable and accessible than the genre had ever been previously, and Reznor’s huge songwriting skills showed on songs like “Head Like A Hole” and the ridiculously catchy hip-hop influenced “Down In It”.
While not an instant success, the album slowly gained traction throughout multiple scenes, setting the stage for Nine Inch Nails to eventually become one of the biggest phenomena of the ’90s. PHM has much more in the way of synthpop influences than the later work Reznor popularized (Broken and The Downward Spiral would see seismic shifts in NIN’s sound), but it was PHM’s accessibility that showed industrial music could have something more than a cold, mechanical voice.
