The Decathlon: The Evolution Of Nine Inch Nails

With Nine Inch Nails' eighth studio album (I know, that seems like an awfully low number considering the twenty-eight official "halo" releases, but it's true) set to drop next week, I figure now is as good a time as any to look back on the tumultuous and exciting career of the man known as Trent Reznor and his most recognizable brand (and, apparently, also as good a time as any to go for excruciatingly long sentences).

Over the course of Nine Inch Nails' career arc, Reznor has seen the highest of highs and lowest of lows. The ten videos selected do more than just plow through nearly a quarter century of a visionary musician's resumé; they chronicle the soaring best and crushing worst of the man's very life.

Enjoy!


HEAD LIKE A HOLE (1989)
Sure, I could have gone with Down In It as the representative from NIN's now universally hailed debut Pretty Hate Machine, as it was the first ever Nine Inch Nails single; but you really can't argue with the one that got everyone's attention. If Down In It was the harbinger of what fans could expect from Pretty Hate Machine, then Head Like A Hole was the harbinger of an entire decade of trailblazing and controversy.

WISH (1992)
Happiness In Slavery got all of the press for the incendiary industro-metal EP Broken, what with its virtually unairable video; I've always been fond of that song, but I feel its controversy overshadows just how good an effort the EP as a whole is. Following the slow-building noisescape Pinion, Wish takes everything you knew about NIN up to that point, strips it naked, clamps it to a machine and turns it into hamburger. The whole thing (including bonus tracks) was over in just over a half hour, and had fans wondering what the hell would happen if this intensity was maintained over the course of a full album. They wouldn't have to wait long...

HURT (1994)
The Downward Spiral is one of those albums you listen and listen and listen to, until it gets to the point you're no longer hearing it but rather feeling it. As a whole it's disturbing, violent, unhinged; attack after attack until your senses are numb and you're near submission. And then, the album ends with this, and you're done for.

BURN (1994)
Who better to produce the soundtrack for Natural Born Killers than Trent Reznor? The film plays like the unstable amalgam of The Downward Spiral and Broken put to screen, a thrilling nightmare that finds your buttons and proceeds to smash them with hammer fists. Burn, the original song Reznor penned for the movie, captures the film in a way that should have made him an Oscar winner about fifteen years earlier than he did.

THE PERFECT DRUG (1997)
***Sorry, the awesomeballs video for this track is not on YouTube. Thanks UMG***
After challenging the morals of America alongside protegé Marilyn Manson (who by this time scared the shit out of parents everywhere and made Reznor's alleged offenses look like love taps), Reznor decided it was time to switch things up a bit. Dialing down the metal in favor of trip-hop and electronica elements, The Perfect Drug was as big a shock for its sonic sea change than Happiness In Slavery was for its gruesome video.

THE FRAGILE (1999)
Fairweather fans were underwhelmed by the long-gestating follow up to The Downward Spiral and, when The Fragile finally came out, a lot of changes had taken place. There was still plenty of vitriol, but the spacious double album had ample room for Trent to stretch his legs, so to speak. A carefully constructed, adventurous and, at times, transcendent statement by a man who was closer to death than any of us had realized at the time.

THE HAND THAT FEEDS (2005)
If the wait between The Downward Spiral and The Fragile was hard on fans, the six years between it and With Teeth were downright torturous. Rather than a simple exercise in procrastination, however, the elapsed time was necessary for Reznor to overcome his addictions. The man who emerged on the other side wasn't seething enough for some fans' liking and, while everyone's entitled to their opinion, I'm convinced that some would rather Reznor had died and become a rock deity than survive and those people are dumb as rocks.

SURVIVALISM (2007)
The only thing more surprising than the short wait between With Teeth and Year Zero was the sudden stylistic shift that came with it; personal accounts cast aside in favor of scathing social commentaries and cautionary tales for a world on the brink of collapse, Year Zero stands alone in the NIN catalogue as an album with a world-minded message and a concept worth digging into. I hope the TV series is still in the works.

1,000,000 (2008)
Trent Reznor played a lot of web savvy tricks in the years leading up to 2008's The Slip, but none quite as savvy or shocking as The Slip itself. Released mere weeks after Ghosts I-IV, the double album instrumental album that due to smart marketing probably netted Reznor more money than all of his previous albums combined, The Slip suddenly existed on May 5, 2008. With only (what most assumed at the time was a one-off single) Discipline previously known, all of a sudden there was a whole new album, for free no less, ready and waiting. If it's an experiment Reznor never makes again, he'll always have cool points for trying it.

CAME BACK HAUNTED (2013)
Pulling back somewhat on the noise that permeated much of the previous three albums, Hesitation Marks finds NIN in a more polished, stadium-ready form. It won't be everybody's idea of a comeback, but it's honest at least. Five years removed from NIN-related expectations, Reznor has had a chance to step back, take stock, and enjoy life for a while. And, with a beautiful family and scores of fans welcoming Nine Inch Nails back with open arms, it's a miracle every song on Hesitation Marks doesn't sound as upbeat and cheerful as hater-baiting Everything.

Thanks for checking this out, and don't forget to snag a copy of Hesitation Marks when it drops September 3 on Columbia.