Nine Inch Nails may be a band, but Trent Reznor has remained the lone constant throughout the group’s run, generating an impressive catalog of dark, devastating and sometimes danceable hard rock albums with a talented group of collaborators that resulted in induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There are plenty “must haves” in the Nine Inch Nails history, but we want to know which of their records you think is the best during this week’s Loudwire Nights Album of the Week poll.
You’ll have until Friday at 12N ET to cast your votes. We’ll then play the three tracks from the album with the most votes during Loudwire Nights‘ Album of the Week block to start the following Monday’s show!
While working as an assistant engineer at Cleveland’s Right Track Studios in 1987, Reznor used whatever time he could get to record demos and by 1988 the first Nine Inch Nails performance took place in Lakewood, Ohio. Then, in 1989, Nine Inch Nails left an indelible imprint on a changing music industry with Pretty Hate Machine, which spawned their MTV hit “Head Like a Hole.”
While that album put them on the map, Nine Inch Nails saw their star rise to new heights with a memorable Woodstock performance that helped catapult their 1994 full-length follow-up, The Downward Spiral. It would be five years before the next NIN album, but Reznor delivered with The Fragile, a conceptual double album that dealt with a man’s destruction.
Another lengthy break between records followed, with the more accessible With Teeth following in 2005, shortly followed by the politically tinged Year Zero in 2007 and two surprise albums — the instrumental Ghosts I-IV and the no cost The Slip album — arriving in 2008.
Reznor would take an extended hiatus, turning his attention to a new project called How to Destroy Animals, before eventually starting up Nine Inch Nails again for the next decade. The band’s stellar return, Hesitation Marks, dropped in 2013. Then Nine Inch Nails turned their focus to a musical trilogy, with the first two releases, Not the Actual Events and Add Violence, being issued as EPs, before the third installment, Bad Witch, in 2018, returned to full album length.
With Reznor’s movie scoring work taking over a good portion of his time, he satiated Nine Inch Nails fans with a pair of albums continuing his previous Ghosts instrumental record. Ghosts V: Together and Ghosts VI: Locusts arrived in 2020.
So there you have it. Head below to vote for your Nine Inch Nails album, then tune into Loudwire Nights next Monday at 7PM ET to find out which record prevailed. During tonight’s show, you’ll get to find out which Breaking Benjamin album was voted the best, and hear three songs from the winner.
Loudwire Nights with Toni Gonzalez airs nightly starting at 7PM ET. You can tune in anytime, from anywhere right here or by downloading the Loudwire app.