Pretty Hate Machine

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Pretty Hate Machine

Studio album by Nine Inch Nails
Released	October 20, 1989
Recorded	Right Track, Cleveland; Blackwing & Roundhouse, London; Unique, New York City; Synchro Sound, Boston
Genre	Industrial, EBM
Length	48:42
Label	TVT Records
Producer(s)	Trent Reznor, Flood, Adrian Sherwood, Keith LeBlanc, John Fryer
All Music Guide link Q link
Nine Inch Nails chronology
	Pretty Hate Machine (1989)	Broken (1992)

Pretty Hate Machine (also known as Halo 2) is an album by Nine Inch Nails released in 1989. Pretty Hate Machine is the second official Nine Inch Nails release and the band's first major release.

Working nights at Right Track Studio as a handyman and toilet cleaner, Trent Reznor used studio "down time" to record and develop his own music. Playing most of the keyboards, drum machines, guitars, and samplers himself, he recorded a demo.

Teaming up with manager John A. Malm, Jr. they sent the demo to various record labels. Reznor received serious offers from many of them. He signed a deal with TVT Records who, until then, were known mainly for releasing novelty and television jingle records.

Pretty Hate Machine was then recorded in various studios around the world with Reznor collaborating with some of his most idolized producers - Flood, Keith LeBlanc, Adrian Sherwood and John Fryer.

The album was released on October 20, 1989 and was a critical success. It received radio airplay for the singles "Down in It", "Head Like a Hole" and "Sin". The album also gained popularity through word-of-mouth and developed an underground following. Reznor quickly hired a band for touring with The Jesus and Mary Chain, including guitarist and future Filter frontman Richard Patrick. NIN's live set was notorious for louder, more aggressive versions of the studio songs, and also for destroying their instruments at the end. Reznor preferred using the heel of his boots to strip the keys from expensive keyboards.

Since the album was released, a recording known as Purest Feeling surfaced. This bootleg album contains the original demo recordings of most of the tracks found on PHM, as well as a couple that were not used ("Purest Feeling" and "Maybe Just Once").

The entire album was covered by a string quartet in 2005 as The String Quartet Tribute to Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine, arranged by Eric Gorfain.

Pretty Hate Machine went out of print through TVT Records, but was reissued by Rykodisc Records on November 22, 2005 with slight changes in the packaging. Reznor had expressed an interest in creating a "deluxe edition" with surround sound remastering and new/rare remixes, similar to the re-release of The Downward Spiral. Rykodisc liked the idea, but not enough to pay Reznor to do so [1].

1 Releases
2 Track listing
3 Personnel
4 Chart positions
- 4.1 Album
- 4.2 Singles
5 Miscellanea
6 External links

[edit] Releases

TVT Records TVT 2610-1 - 12" Vinyl
TVT Records TVT 2610-2 - CD

[edit] Track listing

"Head Like a Hole" – 4:59
"Terrible Lie" – 4:38
"Down in It" – 3:46
"Sanctified" – 5:48
"Something I Can Never Have" – 5:54
"Kinda I Want To" – 4:33
"Sin" – 4:06
"That's What I Get" – 4:30
"The Only Time" – 4:47
"Ringfinger" – 5:40

[edit] Personnel

Trent Reznor – Arranger, Programming, Producer, Engineer, Digital Editing, Mixing
Doug d'Angelis – Engineer
Tony Dawsey – Mastering
Flood – Programming, Producer, Engineer
John Fryer – Producer, Engineer, Mixing
Kennan Keating – Engineer
Keith LeBlanc – Producer, Engineer, Remixing, Mixing
Richard Patrick – Guitar
Ken Quartarone – Engineer
Adrian Sherwood – Producer, Engineer, Mixing
Jeffrey Silverthorne – Photography
Gary Talpas – Cover Design
Chris Vrenna – Programming, Digital Editing

[edit] Chart positions

[edit] Album

1990   Pretty Hate Machine     The Billboard 200                      75

[edit] Singles

1989    Down in It              Hot Dance Music/Club Play              16
1989    Down in It              Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales     20
1989    Down in It              Modern Rock Tracks                     16
1990    Head Like a Hole        Hot Dance Music/Club Play              17
1990    Head Like a Hole        Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales     34
1990    Head Like a Hole        Modern Rock Tracks                     28
1990    Sin                     Hot Dance Music/Club Play              10
1990    Sin                     Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales     13

[edit] Miscellanea

Some of the lyrics featured in the booklet are not found on the album. It is believed that Trent Reznor printed the full lyrics so that they would retain their meanings.
The bands listed in the liner notes (Prince, Jane's Addiction and Public Enemy, amongst others) were all sampled on the album; parts of Prince's "Alphabet St." and Jane's Addiction's "Had a Dad" are prominently heard in "Ringfinger", while other samples were either edited or distored to be unrecognizable (such as the intro to "Kinda I Want To".)