''Pretty Hate Machine'' is the debut studio album by American

industrial rock Industrial rock is a fusion genre that fuses industrial music and rock music. It initially originated in the 1970s, and drew influence from early experimental and industrial acts such as Cromagnon, Throbbing Gristle, Einstürzende Neubauten ...

band Nine Inch Nails, released by

TVT Records TVT Records (Tee-Vee Tunes) was an American record label founded by Steve Gottlieb. Over the course of its 24-year history, the label released 25 Gold, Platinum and Multi-Platinum releases. Its roster included Nine Inch Nails, Ja Rule, Lil Jon, ...

on October 20, 1989. Production of the record was handled by NIN frontman

Trent Reznor Michael Trent Reznor (born May 17, 1965) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and composer. He serves as the lead vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and principal songwriter of the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, wh ...

and English producer

Flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

, among other contributors. The album features a heavily

synth A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

-driven electronic sound blended with industrial and rock elements. Much like the band's later work, the album's lyrics contain themes of

angst Angst is fear or anxiety ('' anguish'' is its Latinate equivalent, and the words ''anxious'' and ''anxiety'' are of similar origin). The dictionary definition for angst is a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity. Etymology The word ...

betrayal Betrayal is the breaking or violation of a presumptive contract, trust, or confidence that produces moral and psychological conflict within a relationship amongst individuals, between organizations or between individuals and organizations. ...

, and

lovesickness Lovesickness refers to an affliction that can produce negative feelings when deeply in love, during the absence of a loved one or when love is unrequited. The term "lovesickness" is rarely used in modern medicine and psychology, though new rese ...

. The record was promoted with the singles " Down in It", "

Head Like a Hole "Head Like a Hole" is a song by the American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, released as the second single from the group's debut album, '' Pretty Hate Machine''. Although one of the more rock-oriented tracks on the album, many elements ...

", and "

Sin In a religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered immoral, selfish, s ...

", as well as the accompanying tour. A remastered edition was released in 2010. Although the record was successful, reaching No. 75 in the US and receiving highly favorable reviews from critics, Reznor (the band's only official member until 2016) feuded with TVT over promotion of the album, which led him to eventually sign with Interscope Records. ''Pretty Hate Machine'' was later certified triple-platinum by RIAA, becoming one of the first independently released albums to do so, and was included on several lists of the best releases of the 1980s. In 2020, ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'' ranked ''Pretty Hate Machine'' at number 453 on its " 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list.

Background

While working nights as a

handyman A handyman, also known as a fixer, handyperson or handyworker, is a person skilled at a wide range of repairs, typically around the home. These tasks include trade skills, repair work, maintenance work, are both interior and exterior, and are so ...

and

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

at the Right Track Studio in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, Reznor used studio "down-time" to record and develop his own music. Playing most of the keyboards, drum machines,

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

s, and samplers himself, he recorded a demo. The sequencing was done on a

Macintosh Plus The Macintosh Plus computer is the third model in the Macintosh line, introduced on January 16, 1986, two years after the original Macintosh and a little more than a year after the Macintosh 512K, with a price tag of US$2,599. As an evolutiona ...

. Reznor mainly used an

E-mu Emax The Emax was a line of samplers, developed, manufactured, and sold by E-mu Systems from 1986 to 1995. Sold alongside their more expensive Emulator II and III samplers, the Emax line was conceived after the release of the Akai S-612 and Sequen ...

, Prophet VS,

Oberheim Xpander The Oberheim Xpander () is an analog synthesizer launched by Oberheim in 1984 and discontinued in 1988. It is essentially a keyboardless, six-voice version of the Matrix-12 (released a year later, in 1985). Utilizing Oberheim's Matrix Modulation ...

, and Minimoog as synthesizers. With the help of manager

John Malm Jr. John A. Malm Jr. is the former manager of Trent Reznor and his band Nine Inch Nails. He was also a co-founder, along with Reznor, of Nothing Records. Early career and collaboration with Trent Reznor Malm grew up in Cleveland and completed a deg ...

, he sent the demo to various

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...

s. Reznor received contract offers from many of the labels, but eventually signed with

, who were known mainly for releasing

novelty Novelty (derived from Latin word ''novus'' for "new") is the quality of being new, or following from that, of being striking, original or unusual. Novelty may be the shared experience of a new cultural phenomenon or the subjective perception of an ...

and television

jingle A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meaning that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually ...

records. ''Pretty Hate Machine'' was recorded in various studios with Reznor collaborating with some of his most idolized producers:

, Keith LeBlanc,

Adrian Sherwood Adrian Maxwell Sherwood (born 20 January 1958, London, England) is an English record producer specialising in the genre of dub music. He has created a distinctive production style based on the application of dub effects and dub mixing techniques ...

, and John Fryer. Much like his recorded demo, Reznor refused to record the album with a conventional band, recording ''Pretty Hate Machine'' mostly by himself. "A lot of it sounds immature to me now," he stated in 1991 of the recordings that were then two years old. "At first it totally sucked. I became completely withdrawn. I couldn't function in society very well. And the LP became a product of that. It's quite small scale, introverted, claustrophobic – that's the feel I went for." Reznor discussed the recording and touring of ''Pretty Hate Machine'' in the April 1990 issue of ''Keyboard''. He used an

because it produced a high-end buzzing noise when transposing down sounds. Rough and first takes of vocals and guitar were used to contrast the quantized drums and bass. Reznor hated the factory sounds of the Emax but had not transferred anything from his old

Emulator In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use pe ...

, and used samples from his record collection for all the drum sounds. He initially expected to use real drum sounds when recording the album, but in the end he and the producers merely equalized his drum samples. After the album was released, a recording known as ''Purest Feeling'' surfaced. The

bootleg album A bootleg recording is an sound recording, audio or video recording of a performance not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. Making and distributing such recordings is known as ''bootlegging''. Recordings may be ...

contains early demo recordings of many of the tracks featured on ''Pretty Hate Machine'', as well as a couple that were not used ("Purest Feeling", "Maybe Just Once", and an instrumental introduction to "Sanctified" called "Slate").

Music and lyrics

"I wasn't proud of a lot of the things I was saying," Reznor recalled, "but I said to myself, 'Well, no one's going to hear this stuff anyway.' ... The record is honest and that's where its power came from." Unlike the industrial music of Nine Inch Nails' contemporaries, ''Pretty Hate Machine'' displays catchy riffs and verse-chorus song structures rather than repetitive electronic beats. Reznor's lyrics express adolescent angst and feelings of betrayal by lovers, society, or God. Themes of despair are collocated with lovesick sentiments. ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to ...

''s Tom Breihan categorized it as a synth-pop album that was shaped by industrial music's "nascent new-wave period rather than its subsequent styles." According to Breihan, the beats were muscular, but not in the vein of

metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad music genre, genre of Punk Music, punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde s ...

, and that the most rock-inspired song on the album was "

". Journalist

Jon Pareles Jon Pareles (born October 25, 1953) is an American journalist who is the chief popular music critic in the arts section of ''The New York Times''.electro-rock or

, using drum machines, computerized synthesizer riffs and obviously processed sounds to detail, and usually denounce, an artificial world." Tom Popson of the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...

'' called it a dance album partly characterized by industrial dance's aggressive sound: "Reznor's electronics-plus-guitar LP also carries a brighter techno-pop element that might remind some of Depeche Mode. Things occasionally mellow out to moody atmospherics, while Reznor's vocals range from whispers to screams." ''

PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fi ...

'' AJ Ramirez regarded the album as "a synthesizer-dominated industrial dance record that on occasion slipped under the alternative rock banner." Reznor has humorously described ''Pretty Hate Machine'' as "the all-purpose alternative album," remarking that "if you want to stage dive to it, you can, but if you're a big Depeche Mode fan, you can get what you need out of it as well." Reznor further stated: "I like electronic music, but I like it to have some aggression. That 'first wave' of electro music –

Human League The Human League are an English synth-pop band formed in Sheffield in 1977. Initially an experimental electronic outfit, the group signed to Virgin Records in 1979 and later attained widespread commercial success with their third album ''Dare' ...

and Devo – that's the easiest way to use it. To be able to get some humanity and aggression into it in a cool way, that's the thing ... ''Pretty Hate Machine'' is a record you can listen to and get more out of each time. To me, something like Front 242 is the opposite: great at first but, after 10 listens, that's it." In a commentary on the album, Tom Hull said that Reznor's "notion of industrial is closer to New Order new wave, but with a harder metallic gleam and more dystopian attitude."

Samples

Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. T ...

Jane's Addiction Jane's Addiction is an American rock band from Los Angeles, formed in 1985. The band consists of vocalist Perry Farrell, guitarist Dave Navarro, drummer Stephen Perkins and bassist Eric Avery. Jane's Addiction was one of the first bands fr ...

, and

Public Enemy "Public enemy" is a term which was first widely used in the United States in the 1930s to describe individuals whose activities were seen as criminal and extremely damaging to society, though the phrase had been used for centuries to describe ...

are listed in the liner notes as artists whose music was sampled on the album. Segments of Prince's "

Alphabet St. "Alphabet St." is a song from American musician Prince's 1988 album, ''Lovesexy''. It was the first single from that album and the album's only top 10 single, reaching the top 10 in both the UK and US. Initially written as an acoustic blues song, ...

" and Jane's Addiction's " Had a Dad" can be heard in "Ringfinger". Other samples were edited or distorted so as to be unrecognizable, such as the introduction to "Kinda I Want To". "Something I Can Never Have" features unused backing tracks created by John Fryer for

This Mortal Coil This Mortal Coil were a British music collective led by Ivo Watts-Russell, founder of the British record label 4AD. Although Watts-Russell and John Fryer were the only two official members, the band's recorded output featured a large rotati ...

. A speech from '' Midnight Express'' was sampled at low volume during the pause in "Sanctified". On the album's 2010 reissue, this sample is not present, most likely due to clearance issues. Reznor stated, "I was tempted to lay in more of other people‘s stuff, but I thought that would lend a real dated quality to the record, seeing where that has gone the way it has in hip-hop." Time constraints similarly prevented him from accumulating "good sounds" as he wanted. He obtained "weird percussion tracks" by sampling loops from artists like Public Enemy, playing them backwards and modulating them in Macintosh Turbosynth with an oscillator tuned to the pitch of the song, obtaining "this weird flanging-type thing that‘s in key". He said that "every drum fill on 'Terrible Lie' is lifted intact from somewhere. There are six other songs playing through that cut, recorded on tape, in and out, depending on where they worked."

Cover art

The cover art was designed by Gary Talpas, which is a photo of the blades of a turbine stretched vertically to create the illusion of a rib cage. For the 2010 reissue, visual artist Rob Sheridan was assigned to update the cover art by Reznor to tone down the heavy late-Eighties neon aesthetic. Unfortunately, Sheridan was unable to locate the original artwork as it was deemed lost forever. To remedy this, he had to reverse engineer the cover art by scanning the existing cover art and digitally painted the image in very high resolution.

Touring

In 1990, Reznor quickly formed a band, hiring guitarist and future

Filter Filter, filtering or filters may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming * Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream * Filter (video), a software component tha ...

frontman

Richard Patrick Richard Michael Patrick (born May 10, 1968) is an American musician, singer and songwriter. He is the frontman for the rock band Filter and a founding member of the supergroups Army of Anyone and The Damning Well, and has served as a touring g ...

, and began the ''

Pretty Hate Machine Tour Series Pretty may refer to: *Beauty, the quality of being pleasing, especially to look at **Physical attractiveness, of a person's physical features Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Pretty'' (advertisement), a 2006 television advertisement for Nike ...

'', in which they toured North America as an opening act for alternative rock artists such as Peter Murphy and

The Jesus and Mary Chain The Jesus and Mary Chain are a Scottish alternative rock band formed in East Kilbride in 1983. The band revolves around the songwriting partnership of brothers Jim and William Reid. After signing to independent label Creation Records, they re ...

. Nine Inch Nails' live set at the time was known for louder, more aggressive versions of the studio songs. At some point, Reznor began smashing his equipment onstage (Reznor preferred using the heel of his boots to strip the keys from expensive keyboards, most notably the

Yamaha DX7 The Yamaha DX7 is a synthesizer manufactured by the Yamaha Corporation from 1983 to 1989. It was the first successful digital synthesizer and is one of the best-selling synthesizers in history, selling more than 200,000 units. In the early 1980 ...

); Nine Inch Nails then embarked on a world tour that continued through the first Lollapalooza festival in 1991 and culminated in an opening slot to support Guns N' Roses on their European tour.

Critical reception

In a contemporary review for ''

'',

Michael Azerrad Michael Azerrad is an American author, music journalist, editor, and musician. A graduate of Columbia University, he has written for publications such as ''Spin'', ''Rolling Stone'', and ''The New York Times''. Azerrad's 1993 biography '' Come a ...

called ''Pretty Hate Machine'' "industrial-strength noise over a pop framework" and "harrowing but catchy music"; Reznor proclaimed this combination "a sincere statement" of "what was in ishead at the time".

Robert Hilburn Robert Hilburn (born September 25, 1939) is an American pop music critic, author, and radio host. As critic and music editor at the ''Los Angeles Times'' from 1970 to 2005, his reviews, essays and profiles appeared in publications around the wor ...

found Reznor's "dark obsession" compelling in the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'', while '' Q'' said Reznor "scans the spectrum of modern dance" with a "panoramic vision" that is "both admirably adventurous and yet accessible." '' Select'' critic Neil Perry said that record was "a flawed but listenable labour of loathing". Ralph Traitor of ''

Sounds In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...

'' said that "Reznor has guts, and they make his ''Machine'' one to be treated with respect", finding that the album was comparable to releases by Ministry and

Foetus A fetus or foetus (; plural fetuses, feti, foetuses, or foeti) is the unborn offspring that develops from an animal embryo. Following embryonic development the fetal stage of development takes place. In human prenatal development, fetal develo ...

. Jon Pareles was less impressed in his review for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', writing that ''Pretty Hate Machine'' "stays so close to the conventions established by Depeche Mode,

Soft Cell Soft Cell are an English synthpop duo who came to prominence in the early 1980s. The duo consists of vocalist Marc Almond and instrumentalist David Ball. The band are primarily known for their 1981 hit version of "Tainted Love" and their pla ...

and New Order that it could be a parody album". Mark Jenkins of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' found the music "competent but undistinctive stuff" and believed the "angry denunciations" of songs such as "Terrible Lie" are overshadowed by the "nursery-rhyme" chants of " Down in It". Tom Popson wrote in the ''Chicago Tribune'' that "the playing and production get points for introducing some variety to the industrial style, but the moments of soap-on-a-rope singing tend to cancel them out." In a retrospective review,

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

editor Steve Huey commended Reznor for giving "industrial music a human voice, a point of connection" with his "tortured confusion and self-obsession", and felt that "the greatest achievement of ''Pretty Hate Machine'' was that it brought emotional extravagance to a genre whose main theme had nearly always been dehumanization." Upon its 2010 reissue,

Will Hermes Will Hermes (born December 27, 1960 in Jamaica, Queens, New York City) is an American author, broadcaster, journalist and critic who has written extensively about popular music. He is a longtime contributor to ''Rolling Stone'' and to National Pu ...

of ''Rolling Stone'' called it "the first industrial singer-songwriter album" and commended the sound produced by

and Keith LeBlanc, who he said "taught Reznor a lot." Kyle Ryan of ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

'' felt that the album "remains the work of an artist just discovering his voice" and said that "20 years later, it doesn't warrant repeat listens like its successors." He found some of its synth and sampled sounds to still be dated after the album's remastering and Reznor's lyrics "mopey" and "silly". In an interview with ''

Blender A blender (sometimes called a mixer or liquidiser in British English) is a kitchen and laboratory appliance used to mix, crush, purée or emulsify food and other substances. A stationary blender consists of a blender container with a rotating me ...

'', journalist and novelist Chuck Palahniuk said that the album "seemed like the first honest piece of music I ever heard." In 2020, ''Pretty Hate Machine'' was included at number 453 on ''Rolling Stone''s " 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list.

Commercial performance

Released on October 20, 1989, ''Pretty Hate Machine'' was a commercial success and entered the ''Billboard'' 200 in February 1990. Although it peaked at number 75 on the ''Billboard'' 200, the album gained popularity through

word of mouth Word of mouth, or ''viva voce'', is the passing of information from person to person using oral communication, which could be as simple as telling someone the time of day. Storytelling is a common form of word-of-mouth communication where one pe ...

and developed an underground following. ''Pretty Hate Machine'' was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on March 3, 1992, two years after the album's initial release, for shipping 500,000 units in the USA. Three years later in 1995, it became one of the first independently released records to attain a

Platinum certification Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...

. It eventually garnered a triple Platinum certification on May 12, 2003, with three million copies sold in the United States. ''Pretty Hate Machine'' spent a total of 115 weeks on the ''Billboard'' 200 chart, tying their sophomore album, ''

The Downward Spiral ''The Downward Spiral'' is the second studio album by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, released on March 8, 1994 by Nothing Records in the United States and Island Records in Europe. It is a concept album detailing the self-destru ...

'' as their longest charting effort. The album was also certified Silver by the

British Phonographic Industry British Phonographic Industry (BPI) is the British recorded music industry's Trade association. It runs the BRIT Awards, the Classic BRIT Awards, National Album Day, is home to the Mercury Prize, and co-owns the Official Charts Company with ...

(BPI) on November 1, 1995, following its number 67 peak on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

Reissue

''Pretty Hate Machine'' went out of print through TVT, but was reissued by

Rykodisc Rykodisc is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, operating as a unit of WMG's Independent Label Group and is distributed through Alternative Distribution Alliance. History Claiming to be the first CD-only independent record la ...

on November 22, 2005, with slightly modified packaging. Reznor had expressed interest in making a deluxe edition with

surround sound Surround sound is a technique for enriching the fidelity and depth of sound reproduction by using multiple audio channels from speakers that surround the listener (surround channels). Its first application was in movie theaters. Prior to s ...

remastering and new remixes, similar to the rerelease of ''

''. Rykodisc initially accepted the idea, but wanted Reznor to pay the production costs. On March 29, 2010, the recording rights to ''Pretty Hate Machine'' were acquired by the Bicycle Music Company and on October 22, 2010, Reznor announced that a remastered edition would be released the following month. The remaster included new cover art by

Rob Sheridan Robert Sheridan (born October 11, 1979) is an American graphic designer, art director, photographer, and comic book author best known for his extensive work with the band Nine Inch Nails. Biography Sheridan attended art school at New York's Pr ...

and the bonus track " Get Down, Make Love", a

Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

cover originally from the "

" single. The 2010 reissue was

mastered Mastering, a form of audio post production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device (the master), the source from which all copies will be produced (via meth ...

by Tom Baker at the Precision Mastering in Hollywood, California. "''PHM 2.0'' is far brighter and clearer than its original incarnation," observed ''

Classic Rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, prima ...

'', "but ultimately it's the strength of the songwriting… that shines through. Although that said, a super bass beef-up job on an already infamous cover of Queen's 'Get Down, Make Love' ups the sleaze 'n' grind quotient no end." Before the album's rerelease, a fan website was launched featuring touring information for ''Pretty Hate Machine'', the videos for "Head Like a Hole" and "Down in It" (with remastered sound), the uncut video for "Sin" (a remix for the video was used) and two early live segments, one with interviews. The album and its respective singles were included in a

Record Store Day Record Store Day is an annual event inaugurated in 2007 and held on one Saturday (typically the third) every April and every Black Friday in November to "celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store". The day brings together fa ...

Black Friday exclusive box set, '' Halo I–IV'' in 2015.

Track listing

Notes * signifies an additional remix producer. * signifies a remixer.

Personnel

Credits adapted from the liner notes of ''Pretty Hate Machine''. *

– vocals, arrangement, continuity, digital editing, programming ; production ; mixing ; engineering * Tom Baker – mastering *

Sean Beavan Sean Beavan is a musician, record producer, and audio engineer best known for his work with Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Guns N' Roses, God Lives Underwater, and Slayer. His production style is typically heavy, with heavily saturated guita ...

– engineering * Blumpy – remastering preparation * Tony Dawsey – mastering * Doug DeAngelis – engineering *

– engineering, production ; additional synth programming * John Fryer – engineering ; mixing ; production * Hypo Luxa – engineering, production * Kennan Keating – engineering * Keith LeBlanc – additional remix production ; engineering ; mixing ; production ; remix * Jeff "Critter" Newell * Tim Niemi – additional synth programming *

– drone guitar at end * Ken Quartarone – engineering *

– art direction *

– engineering, mixing, production *

Jeffrey Silverthorne Jeffrey Silverthorne was an American photographer mainly known for taking pictures of physical and psychological borders, including death and nudity. He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1946, and graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design's ...

– portrait photography * Gary Talpas – original sleeve *

Chris Vrenna Chris Vrenna (born February 23, 1967 in Erie, Pennsylvania) is an American musician, producer, engineer, remixer, songwriter, programmer, and founder of the electronic band Tweaker. Vrenna played drums for the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails ...

– continuity, digital editing

Charts

Certifications

References

Bibliography * *

External links

*
Pretty Hate Machine
' at

Discogs Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the ...

{{Authority control 1989 debut albums Albums produced by Adrian Sherwood Albums produced by Al Jourgensen Albums produced by Flood (producer) Albums produced by John Fryer (producer) Albums produced by Keith LeBlanc Albums produced by Trent Reznor Nine Inch Nails albums TVT Records albums