Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails
Atticus Ross (left) and Trent Reznor (right) performing in October 2018
Background information
Origin	Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Genres	Industrial rock industrial alternative rock electronic rock industrial metal ambient
Years active	1988–present
Labels	Nothing TVT Interscope Columbia Capitol The Null Corporation
Members	Trent Reznor Atticus Ross
Past member(s)	List of Nine Inch Nails band members
Website	nin.com

Nine Inch Nails (also known as NIN) is an industrial rock band. Trent Reznor writes all the band's music, and plays most of the music himself. He started the band in 1988 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Nine Inch Nails has been nominated for twelve Grammy Awards.

History

Pretty Hate Machine (1989-1991)

Pretty Hate Machine was Nine Inch Nails' first album. It came out in 1989. The songs "Down In It", "Head Like A Hole", and "Sin" became famous from the radio and MTV.

Broken and Fixed (1992-1993)

In 1992, Nine Inch Nails made an extended play (EP) called Broken. It had eight songs. The song "Wish" won a Grammy Award. Another album, called Fixed, has some of the same songs as Broken, but other musicians have changed the music and added new sounds. It was going to be one album (with eleven tracks, the eight tracks on Broken as tracks 1-8 and tracks 4-6 on Fixed as tracks 9-11), making it the second studio album and The Downward Spiral the third studio album, but decided to split it in half due to personal reasons and it was not the second studio album.

Nine Inch Nails played the first Lollapalooza tour with Jane's Addiction and other bands.

The Downward Spiral (1994-1996)

A new album called The Downward Spiral came out in 1994. It is the most popular and famous Nine Inch Nails album. Music stores have sold more than 4 million copies of The Downward Spiral all together. The songs "Closer", "March Of The Pigs", and "Hurt" were very popular on MTV and radio stations. Trent Reznor asked many other musicians to make remixes of the songs. The remixes were released on a new album called Further Down The Spiral.

In 1994, Nine Inch Nails played at the Woodstock '94 concert in New York. After that, they became one of the most famous bands in the world. For five years, there were no Nine Inch Nails albums or concerts. Many fans worried that the band they liked would stop making music forever.

Other works and The Fragile (1997-2001)

Finally, a new album came out in 1999. It was called The Fragile. It was the longest album Nine Inch Nails had ever made, and the music was very different from their other albums. It was going to release in late 1997 (and was also going to include "The Perfect Drug"), but got pushed back due to personal problems. "The Perfect Drug" was never put on the album. Many of the songs were only music with no words. Songs like that are called instrumentals. Writers who write about music wrote good things about The Fragile in many magazines and newspapers. People knew the music of Nine Inch Nails had changed, but many people thought it was better than before.

Even though many people liked the album, it took Trent Reznor another five years to make another one. This was due to Reznor drinking and becoming addicted to other drugs. He is now healthy. Trent also argued with his manager John Malm over how much money he should make. The court agreed with Trent and John is no longer Trent's manager.

With Teeth (2002-2006)

Nine Inch Nails' next album was called With Teeth. When the song "The Hand That Feeds" was first played on the radio, fans were very happy that Nine Inch Nails had come back. The second song on the album to be played on the radio is "Only" and the third is "Every Day Is Exactly The Same".

Year Zero, Ghosts I-IV and hiatus (2007-2010)

Year Zero came out on April 17, 2007. Before it came out, there was a game that people could play. You could find clues to discover more about the story. That kind of game is called an Alternate Reality Game. Only one single came out. That song is called "Survivalism".

On March 2, 2008, the albums Ghosts I-IV (1 to 4) came out. It was made of 4 small albums: Ghosts 1, 2, 3 and 4. All the songs on these albums were instrumentals. The first album was free to download from the website, or available cheaply to download. This was new in the way that music is sold, because usually music is sold for lots of money, and the money is given to many people, most who did not make the music, but helped give money to the people who did, or sent the music to shops to be sold, or made adverts for it.

After two months since the release of Ghosts I-IV, a new album came out called The Slip [1] on May 5, 2008. The Slip was released in three formats for free.

Hesitation Marks (2011-present)

Hesitation Marks (2013) was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album at the 2014 Grammy Awards.

Band

Trent Reznor makes almost all of the music for Nine Inch Nails. He is the only member.

When Nine Inch Nails plays at concerts, other musicians are also part of the band. The musicians who play in Nine Inch Nails are not always the same. Now, Trent Reznor sings and plays some instruments, Robin Finck plays the guitar, Justin Meldal-Johnsen plays the bass guitar, and Ilan Rubin plays the drums.

Discography

See the main article: Nine Inch Nails discography

• 1989: Pretty Hate Machine
• 1994: The Downward Spiral
• 1999: The Fragile
• 2005: With Teeth
• 2007: Year Zero
• 2008: Ghosts I–IV
• 2008: The Slip
• 2013: Hesitation Marks
• 2018: Bad Witch
• 2020: Ghosts V: Together
• 2020: Ghosts VI: Locusts