Pretty Hate Machine

Once upon a time there was a period of my life where my CD player had three albums in it, Pearl Jam’s Ten, Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes, and Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine. The latter seemed to summarize everything that I was feeling at the time. Trent Reznor knew me (but I was not naïve enough to think that I knew the man). As a result Nine Inch Nails, and especially Pretty Hate Machine had a large and presumably key part in my development; a fact that I still respect today.

A world without faith the world that Pretty Hate Machine inhabits it is unromantic, hopeless, and guilt-ridden this album’s influence has allowed it to break down a person and suck out all the good thoughts. It is like a trip into one of those Meth Project commercials: a pit of despair, hatred. Still this is not the work of a disturbed mind, but one of logic and rational thinking. The end result is not an album that says that life is shit, but discusses the reasons about why life is shit. Therein is the absolute genius of the album.

For example in Terrible Lie religion is not just false, but instead it is a means of control. The inferred lie is not God, or religion, but instead the need for faith in someone’s life for a balanced and happy life. In this “I want so much to believe” infers that showing faith is easy, but actual belief is much more difficult. The other half of this terrible lie is that people are generally unhappy because most don’t believe and are just as distraught. The song Sin questions the use of having good things when just a taste causes one to corrupt themselves and sin, and thus fall from grace. Head like a hole is the same thing but focused on money. Logic then dictates that good things and pleasure only exist for to deny, life is just a cruel joke.

Sanctified is just awe inspiring, it slowly builds from a low ambient beat until a nice synth beat with a little noise thrown in, it then fades to the light piano of Something That I Can Never Have. As a teenager assumed that these were about drugs (or cutting), but now that seems to be only a part of the truth. These two songs are the most powerful on the album in that they evoke the most emotional response. Each discusses about something that frees one from sin, or placing these sins out of mind; and the other talks about how easy it is to be sanctified but it isn’t something that can be done. Even almost twenty years later I find these songs hauntingly beautiful.

Kinda I Want To and Sin continues the theme further by discussing a life of sin where one takes what they want, but only to be slammed down for partaking in the enjoyment of life. Free thought has given reason and control but Sin takes away that free thought. What kind of choice is it when if we make the unpopular choice we get banished; this is equivalent to making a choice with a gun against the head. In this case it is God who is holding the gun.

The eighth and ninth tracks are the two tracks I have paid the least attention to; not because they are bad songs; but instead they are very above average songs on a perfect album. Both are almost oddballs and don’t necessary fit the theme of the rest of the album. That’s what I Get is a great song about a painful loss when the outcome was never in doubt. A great song many moons ago when getting out of a horrible relationship; “To think I was so naïve, maybe it didn’t mean that much, but it meant everything to me…”

My favorite song on the album is, and always has been, Ringfinger. The obvious interpretation of this is about marriage, but this is just an analogy of the entire theme of the album. Faith requires a true commitment that is one sided, one party has to make a promise (“sever flesh and bone”); but throughout the song there is nothing that the other party gives in return. The line “I get everything I want when I get part of you,” implies a pact with the Devil, but what is the difference if that same part is offered to the other side?

Going back to the first track on the album Head Like a Hole is a perfect fist to the face about what was going to happen in the 90s for music. The excessive and hedonistic music movement in the late 80s (hair metal being the most prominent example) could never create a song that is really minimalist and rails against the excesses in the music industry (which continue still today). This is the only song where Trent seems angry, a possible reflection against a corruption of music in popular culture. As we shall see Trent continually fights the interference of the record companies; recording Broken in secret and eventually going independent.

In the end Trent is advocating a life alternate to the faith and controls that religion places on us, but also warns that there is a price to pay (namely guilt). Either solution is better than to be stuck in the middle as one who only pretends to have faith or one who denies that these life questions plague us all. I don’t believe at any time Trent comes to a conclusion that there is no God, but instead decides that we don’t (or can’t) know God and this is akin to only guessing what the rules are.

Musically I think Trent achieved everything that he wanted to. Those who were into industrial and noise music (myself included) always talked about Trent as a sell-out, or a poser; but the reality is that we all had every Nine Inch Nails album. There was no target audience for Pretty Hate Machine because it was a highly successful music experiment that was to spawn a new audience.

I love this album as much as I did eighteen years ago. After almost twenty years this album has been the boogyman of pop culture, straying on the edge of it tempting people away towards an alternative that many have heard about but fewer have experienced.