After years of languishing in varying degrees of limbo, Pretty Hate Machine, the debut album from Nine Inch Nails, was reissued on Tuesday in a remastered mix overseen by sole member/mastermind, Trent Reznor.
Originally released by independent label TVT Records on October 20, 1989, Pretty Hate Machine garnered good reviews and airplay for singles “Down In It,” “Sin,” and most famously, “Head Like A Hole.” The album went gold and then platinum, but as these things too often go, Reznor and his label disagreed about the sonic direction for the follow-up, and TVT only begrudgingly issued NIN’s Broken EP three years later. Because of this falling out, and coupled with some other troubles at TVT, Pretty Hate Machine went out of print in 1997. In 2005, Rykodisc reissued the seminal industrial-rock album without Reznor’s involvement, a release that went largely ignored as a result.
But now, with the original master tapes unearthed, Pretty Hate Machine arrives in newly cleaned-up form. It’s been remixed by engineer Tom Baker, onboard with Reznor since The Downward Spiral, and the album art has also been reinterpreted and expanded by longtime NIN art director, Rob Sheridan.
Though Pretty Hate Machine originally arrived in 1989, it wasn’t until four years later that I came to know it. The album was one of two that a close friend had constantly playing in her car’s cassette player during the summer of 1993, winning over her captive audience (the second was Kingmaker’s Eat Yourself Whole, which didn’t stick as strongly.) A few months later, a mixtape from another friend introduced me to Nine Inch Nails’ cover of Queen’s “Get Down, Make Love,” a B-side from the “Sin” single.
Produced by Ministry’s Al Jourgensen (but credited as Hypo Luxa), Reznor’s hard-edged take “Get Down, Make Love” has been appended to Pretty Hate Machine as the sole bonus track on the remastered edition:
Purchase Nine Inch Nails – “Get Down, Make Love” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.