Nine Inch Nails (abbreviated as NIN) is an industrial rock band, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its musical direction. NIN's music straddles a wide range of genres, while retaining a characteristically intense sound using electronic instruments and processing. After recording a new album, Reznor usually assembles a live band to perform with him; this live component is a separate entity from Nine Inch Nails in the recording studio. On stage, NIN often employs spectacular visual elements to accompany its performances, which frequently culminate with the band destroying musical instruments.

Underground music audiences warmly received Nine Inch Nails in its early years. The band produced several highly influential records in the 1990s that achieved widespread popularity: many Nine Inch Nails songs became radio hits, two NIN recordings won Grammy Awards, and the band has sold over 20 million albums worldwide, with 10.5 million sales certified in the United States alone. In 2004, Rolling Stone placed Nine Inch Nails at 94 on their list of the 100 greatest music artists of all time. In spite of this acclaim, the band has had several feuds with the corporate side of the recording industry. Trent Reznor announced in 2007 that Nine Inch Nails would proceed independently of record labels.

In the past, NIN released major studio albums infrequently; remixes and live albums bridged these gaps in the band's catalog. Reznor cites his personal issues as the cause of these delays, and his songs often confront dark explorations of the self. The most recent Nine Inch Nails album, Year Zero, is an exception to the usually introspective nature of Reznor's songwriting and the long gestation between major releases.

Initial ambitions for Nine Inch Nails in 1988 were to release one 12-inch single on a small European label. Reznor was employed at that time as an assistant engineer and janitor at Right Track Studios in Cleveland, and asked studio owner Bart Koster for permission to record some demos of his own songs for free during unused studio time. Koster agreed, remarking that it cost him "just a little wear on [his] tape heads". While assembling these, the earliest NIN recordings, Reznor was unable to find a band that could articulate his songs as he wanted. Instead, inspired by Prince, he played all the instruments except drums himself. This role remains Reznor's on most of the band's studio recordings, though he has occasionally involved other musicians and assistants. Several labels responded favorably to the demo material, and Reznor signed with TVT Records. Nine selections from the Right Track demos were unofficially released in 1994 as Purest Feeling; many of these songs would appear in revised form on Pretty Hate Machine in 1989.

Several rumors have persisted about the origins of the name "Nine Inch Nails", one being that Reznor chose to reference the story of Jesus' crucifixion with nine inch spikes. Chuck Klosterman surmised that Reznor was inspired by the sight of nine inch fingernails on Freddy Krueger. Reznor maintains that he coined the name because it "abbreviated easily", rather than for "any literal meaning". Reznor and Gary Talpas designed the Nine Inch Nails logo, which consists of the letters "NIN" set inside a border with the second "N" reversed. The logo first appeared on NIN's debut, "Down in It", and was inspired by Tibor Kalman's typography on the Talking Heads album Remain in Light. Talpas, a native of Cleveland, would continue to design NIN packaging art until 1997.

Written, arranged, and performed by Trent Reznor, NIN's first album Pretty Hate Machine debuted in 1989. It marked Reznor's first collaboration with Adrian Sherwood (who produced the lead single "Down in It" in London, England without having met Reznor face-to-face) and Mark "Flood" Ellis. Flood's production would appear on each major Nine Inch Nails release until 1994, and Sherwood has done remixes for the band as recently as 2000. Reznor and his co-producers expanded upon the Purest Feeling demos, and added future singles "Head Like a Hole" and "Sin". Rolling Stone's Michael Azerrad described the album as "industrial-strength noise over a pop framework" and "harrowing but catchy music"; Reznor proclaimed this combination "a sincere statement" of "what was in [his] head at the time". After spending 113 weeks on the Billboard 200, Pretty Hate Machine became one of the first independently released records to attain platinum certification. MTV aired videos for "Down in It" and "Head Like a Hole", but an explicit video for "Sin" was only released on the 1997 home video Closure.

In 1988, Reznor assembled a live band and toured North America as an opening act for Skinny Puppy, later supporting alternative rock artists such as Peter Murphy and The Jesus and Mary Chain. On the latter tours, Reznor began smashing his equipment while on stage; Rockbeat interviewer Mike Gitter attributed NIN's early success in front of rock oriented audiences to this aggressive attitude. Nine Inch Nails then embarked on a world tour that continued through the first Lollapalooza festival in 1991, where the band "stole the show" from headliners Jane's Addiction despite numerous equipment problems. After a disastrous European reception opening for Guns N' Roses, NIN returned to America amid pressure from TVT to produce a more commercial follow-up to Pretty Hate Machine. In response, Reznor secretly began recording under various pseudonyms to avoid record company interference.

In his liner notes, Trent Reznor credits the 1991 Nine Inch Nails touring band as an influence on the 1992 Broken EP's six songs and two bonus tracks. Reznor characterized the EP as a guitar-based "blast of destruction", which was intentionally "a lot harder[...] than Pretty Hate Machine". Songs from Broken have garnered NIN their only two Grammy Awards: a performance of the EP's first single "Happiness in Slavery" from Woodstock '94, and the second single "Wish".

Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson of the bands Coil and Throbbing Gristle directed a performance video for "Wish", but the EP's most infamous video accompanied the song "Happiness in Slavery". The video was almost universally banned for its graphic depiction of performance artist Bob Flanagan disrobing in front of the camera and lying on a machine that pleasures, tortures, then kills him. A third video for "Pinion", partially incorporated into MTV's Alternative Nation opening sequence, showed a toilet that apparently flushes into the mouth of an individual in bondage. Reznor and Christopherson compiled these three clips along with videos for "Help Me I Am In Hell" and "Gave Up" into a longform music video also called Broken. "Broken" depicts the murder of a young man who is kidnapped and tortured while forced to watch the videos. This footage was never officially released, but instead appeared covertly among tape trading circles.

A separate performance video for "Gave Up" featuring Richard Patrick and Marilyn Manson was filmed at 10050 Cielo Drive (then renamed "Le Pig studios" by Reznor), site of the Tate murders; a live recording of "Wish" was also filmed, and both videos appeared on the Closure compilation in 1997. Broken was followed by the remix EP Fixed in late 1992. Rather than tour in support of the new material, Reznor began living and recording full-time at Le Pig, working on a follow-up free of restrictions from his record label. The Downward Spiral was the result of this creative environment.

Nine Inch Nails' second full-length album, The Downward Spiral, entered the Billboard 200 in 1994 at number two, and it remains the highest-selling NIN release in the United States. Inspired by late-1970s rock albums Low and The Wall, The Downward Spiral features a wide range of textures and moods to illustrate the mental progress of a central character. In his last work with the band to date, Flood once again co-produced several tracks; his longtime collaborator and fellow Englishman Alan Moulder mixed most of The Downward Spiral and took on more extensive production duties for subsequent NIN releases.

The album spawned two singles: "March of the Pigs" and "Closer"; "Hurt" and "Piggy" were issued to radio without a commercial single release. The music video for "Closer", directed by Mark Romanek, received frequent rotation on MTV after the network made edits to it. A radio edit that partially mutes the song's explicit lyrics also received extensive airtime. "Hurt" enjoyed renewed success when it was covered by Johnny Cash in 2002, and Reznor has stated that hearing Cash's cover revitalized his interest in writing music. The Closure video documented highlights from NIN's Self Destruct tour, including full live videos of "Eraser", "Hurt" and a one-take "March of the Pigs" clip made for MTV.

Critical response to The Downward Spiral has generally been favorable: in 2005 the album was ranked 25th in Spin's list of the "100 Greatest Albums, 1985–2005", and in 2003 Rolling Stone ranked the album number 200 on their "500 greatest albums of all time" list. After The Downward Spiral, Reznor produced a remix album entitled Further Down the Spiral, the only non-major NIN release to be certified gold in the United States. It featured contributions from electronic musician Aphex Twin, producer Rick Rubin, and former Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro. Two versions of Further Down the Spiral were released in 1995, both featuring exclusive content. A tenth anniversary deluxe reissue of The Downward Spiral was released in 2004.

The Self Destruct tour in support of the album reached its widest mainstream audience with a mud-drenched performance at Woodstock '94 that was broadcast on Pay-Per-View and seen in as many as 24 million homes. Nine Inch Nails received considerable mainstream success thereafter, performing with significantly higher production values and adding theatrical visual elements to the live show. Around this time, Reznor's studio perfectionism, struggles with addiction, and bouts of writer's block prolonged the production of a follow-up record.

Five years elapsed between The Downward Spiral and NIN's next major album, The Fragile, which arrived as a double CD in September 1999. On the heels of NIN's previous successes, media anticipation surrounded The Fragile more than a year before its arrival, when it was already described as "oft-delayed". When the album was finally released, it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 228,000 copies in one week and receiving favorable reviews. Spin hailed The Fragile as the "album of the year", and several songs from it were regular features on alternative rock radio stations. However, the album slipped out of the Billboard Top 10 only a week after its release, and Reznor was forced to pay for the subsequent North American tour out of his own pocket.

According to Reznor, The Fragile was conceived by making "songwriting and arranging and production and sound design [...] the same thing. A song would start with a drum loop or a visual and eventually a song would emerge out of it and that was the song." Canadian rock producer Bob Ezrin was consulted on the album's track listing; the liner notes state that he "provided final continuity and flow."

Before the album's release, the song "Starfuckers, Inc." provoked media speculation about whom Reznor had intended its acerbic lyrics to satirize. Cinesexuality critic Patricia MacCormack interprets the song as a "scathing attack on the alternative music scene", particularly Reznor's former friend and protégé Marilyn Manson. The two artists put aside their differences when Manson co-directed and appeared in the song's music video, retitled "Starsuckers, Inc." and performed on stage with NIN at Madison Square Garden in 2000. Nine Inch Nails released three commercial singles from the album in different territories: "The Day the World Went Away" in North America; "We're in This Together" in the EU and Japan (on three separate discs); and an EP with "Into the Void" as its lead track in Australia. MTV aired videos for the latter two tracks, as well as "Starsuckers, Inc."

Reznor followed The Fragile with another remix album, Things Falling Apart, released after the 2000 Fragility tour, which itself was recorded and released on CD, DVD, and VHS in 2002 as And All that Could Have Been. A deluxe edition of the live CD came with the companion disc Still, featuring stripped-down re-interpretations of songs from the band's entire career along with several new pieces of music.

Nine Inch Nails' fourth full-length album, With Teeth, was released in 2005, though it was leaked prior to its official release date. The album was written and recorded following Reznor's battle with alcoholism and substance abuse. Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield described the album as "vintage Nine Inch Nails", while Robert Christgau criticized the album as "shtick". Like The Fragile, With Teeth debuted on top of the Billboard 200. The album's package art lacks typical liner notes; it simply lists the names of songs and co-producers, and the URL for an online PDF poster with lyrics and full credits. The entire album was made available in streaming audio on the band's official MySpace page in advance of its release date.

A promotional video for the song "The Hand That Feeds" premiered on NIN's website in March 2005, rather than the traditional music channels, and Trent Reznor released the source files for "The Hand that Feeds" in GarageBand format a month later, allowing fans to remix the song. This release spawned an unofficial remix contest, in which over 500 fan remixes were submitted. Reznor also released the source files for the album's second single "Only" in a wider range of formats, including Pro Tools and ACID Pro; fans were also invited to access the band's official MySpace page to upload remixes, vote for favorites, and comment about them in a blog. David Fincher directed a video for "Only" using primarily computer-generated imagery. The third single, "Every Day Is Exactly the Same", was released in April 2006 along with an EP of With Teeth remixes, but a planned music video was reportedly scrapped in the post-production stage. The song topped Billboard's 2006 year-end Hot Dance Singles Sales and Hot Digital Songs charts.

Nine Inch Nails launched a North American arena tour in autumn 2005, supported by Queens of the Stone Age and Autolux. Another opening act on this tour, hip-hop artist Saul Williams, performed on stage with Nine Inch Nails at the Voodoo Music Experience festival during a headlining appearance in hurricane-stricken New Orleans, Reznor's former home. To conclude the With Teeth era of the band, NIN completed a tour of North American amphitheaters in the summer of 2006, joined by Bauhaus, TV on the Radio, and Peaches. In late 2006, the official NIN website announced that a tour documentary entitled Beside You in Time would be released in three formats: DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc. After taking a break to complete work on a follow-up album, NIN embarked on a world tour in 2007. Trent Reznor personally invited Ladytron to open for the band in Europe.

Nine Inch Nails' latest studio album, Year Zero, was released only two years after With Teeth. With its lyrics written from the perspective of multiple fictitious characters, Reznor described Year Zero as a concept album criticizing the United States government's current policies and how they will impact the world 15 years in the future. Critical response to the album was generally favorable, with an average rating of 76% on MetaCritic. Robert Christgau described Year Zero as Reznor's "most songful album", though PopMatters' Andrew Blackie commented that "it cannot be said, in all honesty, that the music on Year Zero is good".

An alternate reality game emerged parallel to the Year Zero concept, expanding upon its storyline. Clues hidden on tour merchandise initially led fans to discover a network of fictitious, in-game websites that describe an "Orwellian picture of the United States circa the year 2022". Before Year Zero's release, unheard songs from the album were reportedly found on USB drives hidden at NIN concert venues in Europe. Fan participation in the alternate reality game caught the attention of media outlets such as USA Today and Billboard, who have cited fan-site The NIN Hotline, forum Echoing the Sound, fan club The Spiral, and NinWiki as sources for new discoveries.

The album's first single, "Survivalism", and other tracks from Year Zero were released as multitrack audio files for fans to remix. A posting on the official NIN website dated August 15, 2007 announced the official Year Zero Remixed compilation, which is Nine Inch Nails' final new release on a major record label as of November 20, 2007.

Nine Inch Nails has influenced many newer artists, which according to Reznor range from "generic imitations" dating from NIN's initial success to younger bands echoing his style in a "truer, less imitative way". Following the release of The Downward Spiral, mainstream artists began to take notice of Nine Inch Nails' influence: David Bowie compared NIN's impact to that of The Velvet Underground. In 1997, Reznor appeared in Time magazine's list of the year's most influential people, and Spin magazine described him as "the most vital artist in music". The RIAA certified sales for 10.5 million units of the band's albums in the United States, which accounts for roughly half of the band's reported sales worldwide. Bob Ezrin, producer for Kiss, Alice Cooper, Peter Gabriel and Pink Floyd, described Reznor in 2007 as a "true visionary" and advised aspiring artists to take note of his no-compromise attitude. During a rare appearance at the Kerrang! Awards in London that year, Nine Inch Nails accepted the Kerrang! Icon, honoring the band's long-standing influence on rock music.

All Music Guide's Steve Huey states that "Nine Inch Nails were the most popular industrial group ever and were largely responsible for bringing the music to a mass audience." Reznor has never referred to his own work as industrial music, but admits to borrowing techniques from such early industrial bands as Throbbing Gristle and Test Dept. Despite the disparity between those artists initially operating under the term "industrial" and Nine Inch Nails, it has become common in journalistic descriptions of Reznor's body of work to describe it as such. In actuality, the band's output has covered a wide range of genres: though Reznor acknowledged in Spin magazine that "Down in It" was influenced by early Skinny Puppy, particularly their song "Dig It", other songs from Pretty Hate Machine were described in the same interview as synth-pop. Reviewing The Fragile, critic Steve Cooper noted that the album juxtaposes widely varied genres, such as solo piano in "The Frail" and drum and bass elements in "Starfuckers, Inc."

Certain techniques and styles can be found throughout NIN's catalog. Songs such as "Wish" () and "The Day the World Went Away" () exhibit changes in dynamics, changing from quiet to loud and back again, and end with an abrupt stop. Reznor's singing follows a similar pattern, frequently moving from whispers to screams. The band's music also occasionally features complex time signatures, notably in "The Collector", from With Teeth, and concert favourite "March of the Pigs". Reznor also uses noise and distortion in his song arrangements, and incorporates dissonance with chromatic melody and/or harmony. These techniques are all used in the song "Hurt" (), which features a highly dissonant tritone played on guitar during the verses, a B5#11, emphasized when Reznor sings the eleventh note on the word "I" every time the B/F dyad is played. "Closer" () concludes with a chromatic piano motif: the same melody that recurs on the title track of The Downward Spiral. On The Fragile, Reznor revisits this technique of repeating a motif multiple times throughout different songs, either on a different musical instrument, with a transposed harmony, or in an altered tempo.

Nine Inch Nails as a live band is generally understood to be a separate entity from its recording studio-based component. Archived at WELL.</bgref> Archived at Canadian Online Explorer.</bgref> Occasionally, past band members are invited to participate in the process, but when not directly involved with recording new material, Nine Inch Nails' lineup tends to change drastically between major tours. Aside from Trent Reznor remaining on lead vocals and guitar, nothing about the live band has remained constant since its inception. Reznor cited the long gestation period between studio albums as part of the reason for these frequent personnel changes. Beginning in late 2005, the live band featured Aaron North on guitar, Jeordie White on bass guitar, Alessandro Cortini on keyboards, and Josh Freese on drums, though all occasionally performed with different instruments. This lineup toured Europe, Asia, Australia, and America through 2007. Trent Reznor reported that he would disband the "rock band configuration" of his touring lineup after their concert in Honolulu, Hawaii on September 18, 2007, and would explore other means to perform Nine Inch Nails material on subsequent tours.

Trent Reznor is an outspoken critic of the music industry, particularly corporate influence on his artistic freedom. As a result, Nine Inch Nails has clashed with several corporations, culminating in a decision to proceed as a free agent without any recording label contracts.

* In the early 1990s, Nine Inch Nails was involved in a much-publicized feud with TVT Records, the first record label to sign the band. Reznor objected to the label's attempted interference with his intellectual property. Ultimately, they entered into a joint venture with Interscope Records in which Reznor forfeited a portion of his publishing rights to TVT Music in exchange for the freedom of having his own Nothing Records imprint. In 2005, Reznor sued his former friend and manager John Malm, Jr., co-founder of Nothing, for breach of contract and fiduciary duty. Their relationship was formally severed in a New York courtroom, with damages awarded to Reznor in excess of three million US dollars.

* At the behest of Prudential Securities bankruptcy proceedings, TVT put the rights to Reznor's recordings for the label on auction in 2005. This offer included the whole TVT catalog, including Pretty Hate Machine and a percentage of royalties from Reznor's song publishing company, Leaving Hope Music/TVT Music. Rykodisc, who did not win the auction but were able to license the rights from Prudential, re-issued the out-of-print Pretty Hate Machine CD on November 22, 2005. Ryko also reissued the "Head Like a Hole" CD and a vinyl edition of Pretty Hate Machine on January 31, 2006. They considered releasing a deluxe edition, just as Interscope had done for The Downward Spiral; however, Reznor declined to produce it for them without payment.

* Nine Inch Nails was scheduled to perform at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards, but dropped themselves from the show due to a disagreement with the network over the use of an unaltered image of George W. Bush as a backdrop to the band's performance of "The Hand that Feeds". Soon afterwards, Reznor wrote on the official NIN website: "apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me". MTV replied that they respected Reznor's point of view, but were "uncomfortable" with the performance being "built around partisan political statements". A performance by the Foo Fighters replaced NIN's time slot on the show.

* In 2006, after being alerted by a fan website, Reznor issued a cease and desist to Fox News for using three songs from The Fragile on air without permission. The songs "La Mer", "The Great Below", and "The Mark Has Been Made" appeared in an episode of War Stories with Oliver North detailing the battle of Iwo Jima. A post appeared on Reznor's blog, which read: "Thanks for the Fox News heads-up. A cease and desist has been issued. FUCK Fox Fucking News." Archived at The NIN Hotline.</bgref>

* As part of the alternate reality game which accompanied the release of Year Zero, three tracks from the album were intentionally "leaked" prior to their official release at a number of NIN concerts on USB flash drives. The high-quality audio files quickly circulated the internet, and owners of websites hosting the files soon received cease and desist orders from the Recording Industry Association of America, despite the fact that the viral campaign, and the use of USB drives, was sanctioned by Nine Inch Nails' record label. The source that broke the story was quoted as saying "These fucking idiots are going after a campaign that the label signed off on."

* On May 13, 2007 Reznor made a post on his blog on the official Nine Inch Nails website condemning Universal Music Group for their pricing and distribution plans for Year Zero. He criticized the company's retail pricing of Year Zero in Australia as "ABSURD", concluding that "as a reward for being a 'true fan' you get ripped off". Reznor went on to say that when "the climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the consumer over even more." Reznor's post, specifically his criticism of the recording industry at large, elicited considerable media attention.

* On September 16, 2007, Trent Reznor continued his attack on what he perceived as unfairly high CD prices at a concert in Australia, urging fans there to "steal" his music online instead of purchasing it legally. The text of Reznor's speech was widely reported on Digg:

"Last time I was here, I was doing a lot of complaining about the ridiculous prices of CDs down here. And that story got picked up and got carried all around the world and now my record label all around the world hates me, because I yelled at them, I called them out for being greedy fucking assholes. I didn't get a chance to check, has the price come down at all? I see a no, a no, a no... Has anyone seen the price come down? Okay, well, you know what that means - STEAL IT. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin'. Because one way or another these motherfuckers will get it through their head that they're ripping people off and that's not right."

*On October 8, 2007, Trent Reznor announced with "great pleasure" that Nine Inch Nails had fulfilled its contractual commitments to the recording industry and was now free to proceed as a "totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label".

Nine Inch Nails have produced to date six major studio releases:

*1989: Pretty Hate Machine *1992: Broken *1994: The Downward Spiral *1999: The Fragile *2005: With Teeth *2007: Year Zero

In addition to its major studio releases, Nine Inch Nails has released numerous remix albums, singles with extensive b-sides, and tour documentaries. Most of these are labeled with halos, a sequential numbering system that has been applied to most official NIN releases.

Nine Inch Nails has also recorded five songs specifically for film soundtracks: Joy Division's "Dead Souls" for The Crow, "Burn" and a reworked version of "Something I Can Never Have" for Natural Born Killers in 1994; "The Perfect Drug" for 1997's Lost Highway; and, in 2001, "Deep" for Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Other film music, such as "You Know What You Are?" from Clint Mansell's Doom soundtrack, constitutes remixes of the band's official catalog by other artists. Reznor himself has remixed a number of songs by other artists, but only a few are credited to NIN. The original music from the video game Quake is credited to "Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails"; the band helped record sound effects for Quake<i> and the NIN logo also appears on ammunition boxes in the game.

Reznor has stated that he would like to release remastered editions of </i>Pretty Hate Machine, Broken/Fixed, and The Fragile akin to The Downward Spiral tenth anniversary re-release. A deluxe two-disc DVD version of Closure<i> was delivered to Interscope Records in 2004, but has been indefinitely delayed. Both discs appeared on BitTorrent networks in December 2006.

</i>These statistics were compiled from the RIAA certification online database. *Pretty Hate Machine — Triple platinum (May 2003) *Broken — Platinum (December 1992) *The Downward Spiral — Quadruple platinum (October 1998) *Further Down the Spiral — Gold (June 1996) *The Fragile — Double platinum (January 2000) *With Teeth<i> — Gold (July 2005)

2 Wins, 8 Nominations

*</i>'"Wish" — Best Metal Performance, 1992 *''The Downward Spiral'' — Best Alternative Music Performance, 1994 (nomination) *"Happiness in Slavery" — Best Metal Performance, 1995 (from Woodstock '94 compilation)''' *"Hurt" — Best Rock Song, 1995 (nomination) *"The Perfect Drug" — Best Hard Rock Performance, 1997 (nomination) *The Fragile — Best Alternative Music Performance, 1999 (nomination) *"Starfuckers, Inc." — Best Metal Performance, 1999 (nomination) *"Into the Void" — Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, 2000 (nomination) *"The Hand That Feeds" — Best Hard Rock Performance, 2005 (nomination) *"Every Day Is Exactly the Same" — Best Hard Rock Performance, 2006 (nomination)

*nin.com − official website *nin - The Spiral − official fan club *nin Wiki

;Catalogs and Other * * *

;Major fansites

*The NIN Hotline - largest fansite (Alexa.com)/ second largest (Google) *Painful Convictions - largest fansite (Google)/ second largest (Alexa.com) *Echoing the Sound - largest forum