Pretty Hate Machine was released back in the days when Trent Reznor had his hair in dred locks, and had no money. He had released a record that would go on to sell millions of copies and then some. Pretty Hate Machine paved the way for other spectacular records such as The Downward Spiral, The Fragile, and more recently Year Zero. Head like a Hole was the song that made this album a best seller, and if you haven't heard it for some reason, you should listen to it soon.
The overrall lyrical content is both dark and catchy, Which would become one of Reznors trademarks. The music isn't too technical, for being industrial music. Personally i'm not too fond of the drum machine used in pretty much the whole album, but it suits it I suppose. The bass being the driving force behind the songs is a good way to recognize the bass guitar for what it can do in rock music. The guitars are thick sounding, but don't overpower the other instruments, which is definately a good thing.
The worthwile tracks are Head like a Hole, Terrible Lie, Something I can never Have, and Down in It. Terrible Lie has some small guitar breaks between the lyrics during the verses, and the chorus mainly drums and a synth. Something I can never Have is probably my favorite NIN song ever. It's played mostly on piano with some guitar and drums in the chorus, I reccomend listening to this song first actually, it's that good. Down in It has a nice beat and catchy lyrics"I was up above it, but now i'm down in it." not necessarily the best of the best, but still really good.
So the song writing is good, the lyrics and instrumentation are good, so what's bad about this album? Well, it's short. Each song clocks in at about four to five minutes, so yeah the albums not very long. But none the less, it's still an excellent album with clever hooks both lyrically and musically. So i'll bet whenever Trent Reznor retires he'll look back at Pretty Hate Machine for what it was, and for what NIN became.
All that being said, I highly reccomend this for fans, or people looking to get into new types of music. As it is, very different, as all NIN albums are, from traditional rock music. Whatever traditional music is these days.
