Nine Inch Nails
Broken/Fixed
"Say fist fuck. Win a Grammy."-Trent Reznor, 1992.
Not much for subtlety, but at least you can't call him a liar. Nine Inch Nails were never a band that concerned themselves for being mysterious--the only reason Pretty Hate Machine could be considered a slow album was because Trent hadn't started experimenting with upping the tempo, or playing his brand of industrial poems live; and yes, they are poems...bad ones. Much like his choice of backing technology, Nine Inch Nails have always been one of those bands that like to start hitting you with a hammer from the first yell--they then continue to hit you with it until the timely conclusion. Broken was, and to some extent, still remains, one of the best examples of what's become an incredibly successful format: make it loud, make it fast, make the lyrics so baldly honest and revealing that every 16 year old will identify with them personally, and put it in a weird package. Then put out an unnecessary remix album that looks cool next to aforementioned album. Sure, industrial music had been going on for years: but Throbbing Gristle had never made MTV heavy rotation, and they'd certainly never cracked the Midwest High School circuits; the Nails not only did all of that, but they cemented themselves so firmly in the fears and disgust of parents and authority figures that, until Reznor's protege Marilyn Manson took over, it seemed like we might be under the dawn of a new Sex Pistols, or, even more eerily, a new Doors. After all, Jim Morrison and Trent Reznor are both sex symbols who stride right past intelligence on big charismatic stilts, drunkenly
proclaiming their song lyrics as if they should be filed alongside Voltaire. Both men also fronted bands that, to anyone who was stone cold sober, weren't really that great in the first place--but that didn't stop them from becoming a polarizing factor, and a really dumb piece of fun. Spin readers will always claim The Downward Spiral to be the best of the Nails releases--but Broken was the one that nobody had to take seriously, and, 14 years later, it's now the only one we can.
-Tucker Stone, 2006
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