In the midst of all the Trent Reznor bashing that's been going on of late, I'd like to point out that the man has done some revolutionary things that we ought not to overlook. For instance, he stood up to the Israelis, tried to unite the Arabs under one banner, and steered the Egyptian nation down a middle road governed by neither of the superpowers.

Oh wait, my bad. I was thinking of Gamal Abdel Nasser; I always get the two of them confused.

I gotta hand it to the Rez. Next to Depeche Mode's "Violator" and Enigma's debut, Trent probably had more people humping to his album than anybody else back in the heady days of the late 80's/early 90's. Taking industrial music out of the hands of the heroin junkies and Europeans was a job that someone had to do, and who better than a boy from Pennsylvania with a passion for wearing fishnet stockings?

Other better and more NIN-obsessed writers have already covered this album and every excruciating detail of Trent's history and anatomy, so I'll not even try to compete. I'll just let you know where I stand on the stuff, since that's what Epinions is paying me the mucho dinero to do.

We all know that industrial music went from being an avant-garde thing in the 70's (pioneered by the likes of Kraftwerk and Throbbing Gristle, two bands that couldn't be more different) to a noisy, abrasive nightmare in the 80's (thanks to people like Skinny Puppy, Front 242, and Kris Kristofferson). The band that seemed to be on the verge of really making the genre fashionable was Ministry, and had Nine Inch Nails never appeared on the scene, Al Jourgensen would've had a helluva lot more money for smack.

What Trent did was steal the sexuality of Depeche Mode, pilch the anger from Ministry, and combine the two into a compelling and mainstream industrial product that really got its stroll on in the early 90's dance-club scene, which called for a darker and more aggressive god to serve (he also, in my opinion, completely ripped off the look of Skinny Puppy's Nivek Ogre). Well, they got what they deserved- a top-notch musician/producer/songwriter guy who, behind the wall of dissonant angst and painstaking programming, is really a post-modern pop star. Oh yes- behind all the noise, fuzz, clicking, and what have you, Trent is just rewriting the same old songs that have served us well for fifty years. But, I might add, he used to do it better.

If you read the credits of "Pretty Hate Machine", you will discover that Nine Inch Nails started out as a sole proprietorship. Even though legendary producer Flood helped out with the recording process, Trent was the entire band back then. He wrote, played, arranged, and screamed every single note (well, except for whatever it was that Richard Patrick did at the end of "Sanctified"). I imagine that the situation is still that way, but I wouldn't really know- Trent lost me after "The Downward Spiral", when he apparently also lost his muse.

"Head Like A Hole" did to Trent Reznor's career what the Big Mac did for McDonald's. It's the first thing I remember hearing (or seeing, since my initial exposure to the song was the strange video that had Trent looking like a white Rastafarian from the set of "Mad Max"). It is a big disco/metal/industrial swirl that he'll forever live in the shadow of, and seems to be an attack on the things that "god money" will make a person do. There are a million little things going on in the mix, but one is most likely to walk away from the track with an inability to forget the chorus. On a side note, Trent apparently hates capital letters. Look at the lyric sheet if you don't believe me.

Keeping the Pretty Hit Machine rolling is "Terrible Lie", which may or may not refer to the "babies slide down rainbows" fib that parents peddle to their young 'uns. The chord progressions are super simple but still appealing, and Trent's knack for elementary lyric writing is not yet a cause for concern (that is one of my greatest grievances with "The Fragile"). God owes the man an apology, which he'll likely never get. On a positive note, he does lose his ignorance, security, and pride by the end of the song, which could cause him to become a happier person.

Or maybe not. What "Down In It" suggests to me is that Trent either was wallowing in (or, more likely, pretending to wallow in) narcotic addiction. It's a great song, kind of an industrial-strength hip-hop thang with some nasally white boy rap action. I would caution anyone against putting the needle in their eye, however; when aspiring to become a heroin addict, one should start by inserting the syringe into their arm first. Don't listen to Trent.

One song that does not get mentioned often enough is "Sanctified", a dark, sexy piece that sounds like Enigma auditioning a slap bass player. Trent proves that he's polite enough to wait for an invitation; he'll only "come inside" if she tells him to. The "she" in question has lips he never should've kissed, as well as a working knowledge of the nicer neighborhoods in Hades.

Up next is "Something I Can Never Have", which some of you may know from the "Natural Born Killers" soundtrack. A spooky piano line floats in with a more peaceful one on top, and Trent softly moans about wanting some chick. If he had a heart, he feels that it would probably be gray, but that would work out on the financial end. Red ones equal higher insurance rates.

So far, every song has been a five-star affair. "Kinda I Want To" is the first of the album's approximately two throw-aways (the second being "Ringfinger"). Sure, it's catchy, but we already know that he likes to do things that aren't healthy, moral, or sane. The middle part sounds like it was lifted from "Down In It", and I basically find the track to be somewhat disposable.

Not so with "Sin". This driving wall of rhythmic synths is one of my favorite NIN hymns, regardless of Trent's insistence on "gets" having an apostrophe. Rezzy wants whoever it was that left "stale incense, old sweat, and lies lies lies" laying around his place to take in the extent of his sin.

The moody, low-key "That's What I Get" is charming and neat, heart-broken little boy lyrics and simple keyboard finger exercises notwithstanding. Here, we have a girl teaching him to kiss, only to turn around and become the neighborhood booty call. Trent Reznor must have dated some real sperm banks back in the day. You know, back before he and the guys in Marilyn Manson started tongue kissing in the studio and throwing lunchmeat at and urinating on naked deaf girls backstage (see Manson's autobiography for details).

A little industrial funk is to be had on "The Only Time", where the funniest, most light-hearted lyrics await your discovery. This time around, instead of Trent getting fu*ked over by a girl, he has the Devil trying to "know" him in the back of a car. Ouch. In what must surely be a warning to all potential suitors for the hand of Trent, he informs us that his "moral standing is lying down" and feels that there's "nothing quite like the feel of something new". Ladies, this man is NOT perfect husband material for ya.

And then we have my least favorite of all the songs on this album. "Ringfinger", from a lyrical standpoint, plays out like a male-narrated "She Works Hard For The Money" with a Yakuza slant. In other words, Trent just breaks his balls for baby, and even allows her to string him up like Jesus of Nazareth. What does he expect in return? An occasional Hallmark card? The girl's hand in marriage? Nope- he would just like for her to cut her finger off and give it up to him. How ya like that? Musically, by the way, it swings between early 80's Depeche Mode cheese to a dark chorus, with a record-scratching dancey outro to wrap things up.

So what makes NIN's debut album such a classic? Well, Trent manages to give industrial music a human face with his scratchy, strained vocal style and slightly trite lyrics. While some of the stuff on here is a tad disturbing, it really had nothing on such electronically-minded peers as Skinny Puppy or Ministry, both of which could sometimes be downright ugly. Trent comes across more as a slighted, brooding college boy than a trembling junkie/serial killer.

"Pretty Hate Machine" is the only NIN release that isn't dominated by monumental waves of distorted fuzz. It's also, in its melancholy way, his most accessible. Sure, he may dwell upon the severing of digits and the untrustworthy nature of women (his sentiment, not mine), but Trent's serious drug, murder, and suicide explorations were still a few years down the road. It was something amazingly different for its time, and showed the music-buying public that industrial music need not be a flight down a darkened corridor with robotic man-eating ghouls in tow.

I remember, at this point, NIN being more of a fave amongst gloomy high school girls than delinquent young white men. The sexuality is a little less brutal on this album, and the violence is mostly figurative. Of course, all that would change by the second release, the explosive "Broken" EP, when Nine Inch Nails became a black-clad smash-'em-up unit that had cut its live performance teeth as part of the Lollapalooza festival (a friend of mine saw NIN open for Peter Murphy back then, and said they blew the old bat-boy away). It was shrewd of Trent to enter the scene in a reasonably subdued manner, then turn around and unleash Hell upon us after establishing his name.

If you don't already own "Pretty Hate Machine", it's probably because you simply don't like NIN. However, in the off chance that you've never heard of it, then please, I implore you, pick this up and see where the greatness of pop and industrial intersect.

Recommended: Yes