Skippy X
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Nine Inch Nailshere's a brief history of Nine Inch Nails for the uniniated....
Nine Inch Nails' debut 1989 album Pretty Hate Machine spawned the alternative/industrial metal anthem Head Like A Hole, alternative club anthem Sin & the haunting classic Something I Can Never Have.
N.I.N. is essentially one guy, Trent Reznor, who hires assorted musicians for studio & tour work. most of the lyrics on Pretty Hate Machine are to do with Trent's failed relationships or just being exploited by other people (at the time the label he was on was trying to make him more pop, but he was determined to go metal)
here's N.I.N's debut single Down In It as performed at Woodstock '94 (check out how Trent up sets the security at the 2 minute 30 seconds mark!)
two years later, the follow-up Broken was released; a mini-album featuring very angry sounding songs, including Happiness In Slavery (earning itself a reputation as the video featured a guy being ripped to bits by a chair!), adam ant cover version Physical & Wish - which won a Grammy Award for best video (in fact, the first time a Grammy was awarded to a track featuring the lyric "fist f**k")
Gave Up from Broken (this video is 1994-1995 ish, the guy with the lip ring on backing vocals is upcoming star mr. Marilyn Manson)
1994 saw N.I.N's next full length album The Downward Spiral. again spawning a few memorable singles, including (again controversial lyric) Closer. as well as the marvellous bleak track Hurt, covered by Johnny Cash just before his death. 1994 also saw N.I.N. play the Woodstock anniversary show, where they gave a blistering performance whilst caked head to toe in mud (apparently had a mud fight just before going on stage)!
here's Johnny Cash's version of Hurt:
1994 Trent produced & selected tracks for the Oliver Stone movie Natural Born Killers. this was a success. so David Lynch hired Trent to do the same for his (very peculiar) film Lost Highway. Trent again assembled an eclectic selection of music, including his own Perfect Drug; mixing various musical styles including drum n bass!!
the long awaited 1999 album The Fragile had a few cool tracks, but was a let-down compared to earlier works.
2005's album was better, a healthy looking Reznor provided [With Teeth], though nowhere near as good as his earlier work it did include the single The Hand That Feeds allowing for a live performance on UK's kids' music show CD:UK:
always a bit controversial, 2007 Trent gave us another album, Year Zero. featuring anti-war songs such as Capital G (as in G for George Bush) having opening lyrics as "i pushed a button & elected him to office... he pushed a button & it dropped a bomb..."
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