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Nine Inch Nails
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Nine Inch Nails is the project of Trent Reznor, begun in 1988 in Cleveland. Reznor, born in 1965 in New Castle, Pennsylvania, worked there as an assistant engineer and cleaner in a recording studio and was allowed to record his own demos in the quiet hours. For almost thirty years he was the only permanent member; in 2016 Atticus Ross joined. Nine Inch Nails brought industrial, the music of machines, distortion and rage, from the underground to the mainstream.
Music and breakthrough
The debut Pretty Hate Machine (1989) was released on the small label TVT, with Flood as co-producer. It became one of the first records from an independent label to go platinum. Head Like a Hole is a danceable industrial track with harsh guitars on top. In 1991 the band joined the first Lollapalooza tour. Reznor recorded The Downward Spiral (1994) in a house in Los Angeles that he converted into a studio. The album opens with Mr. Self Destruct, includes Closer and Hurt, and entered at number 2 on the Billboard 200.
Influence
Johnny Cash recorded Hurt in 2002, and so the song reached a very different audience. With Atticus Ross, Reznor also makes film music; for The Social Network (2010) they won an Oscar. The instrumental album Ghosts I–IV (2008) was released under a Creative Commons licence. Ten years later the Dutch producer YoungKio built a beat on a banjo sample from 34 Ghosts IV, and that beat became Lil Nas X's Old Town Road. In 2020 Nine Inch Nails was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Listening
Mr. Self Destruct · Nine Inch Nails, 1994Apple Music ↗
Head Like a Hole · Nine Inch Nails, 1989Apple Music ↗
Discography
Studio albums
- 1989Pretty Hate Machine
- 1994The Downward Spiral
- 1996Quake (soundtrack)
- 1999Fragile
- 2005With Teeth
- 2007Year Zero
- 2008Ghosts I–IV
- 2008The Slip
- 2013Hesitation Marks
- 2018Bad Witch
- 2020Ghosts V: Together
- 2020Ghosts VI: Locusts
- 2025TRON: Ares: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (soundtrack)
In School of Rock
The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.
- Mixtape 7: The 1980sNL Reader
- Mixtape 13: From Cassette to CloudNL Reader
- The Dream Factory: Film Reel 5NL Reader
Mentioned in other articles
- Industrial Genre
In the late 1980s Nine Inch Nails, with Pretty Hate Machine (1989) and The Downward Spiral (1994), brought industrial to rock and the charts.
- Industrial and electronic texture scores Genre
Trent Reznor, founder of the industrial band Nine Inch Nails, and Atticus Ross began their collaboration with the director David Fincher in 2010 on The Social Network, for which they won an Oscar.