you take me closer to god

Trent Reznor went to college at Allegheny College in Meadville PA, as did my friend Eric. I have this idea that perhaps, on one of our yearly treks up to hang out with Eric, I ran across Trent, maybe in the WARC radio station where we tended to hang out (Eric was the program director while he was in college). Maybe not. My other near-miss with the future soul of NIN is a friend from high school (we did a lot of plays together, though she wasn't really in my tight group of friends) who used to be married to Trent's high school music teacher. Allow me the luxury of these fanboy, one degree of separation connections....

1989 - PRETTY HATE MACHINE. This is still my least favorite of the releases. It's pretty derivative and were it not for Adrian Sherwood's production on much of it, I'd probably never listen to it. Not a lousy album, but just not anywhere near what the rest of the catalog has to offer. But for most NIN this is probably the #2 disc, following SPIRAL. There is a long promised re-master (it's the only disc not controlled by Reznor), so that might change my low opinion.

1992 - BROKEN is a quantum leap from the debut, even though it's only an eight song EP. The most famous thing about the disc, other than the fact that there are no less than 4 songs that still feature into the live shows, is the 99 tracks it contains. After the first six tracks, there are 91 one second tracks that tick away in the background; remembering this was still the early days of CDs, the two unlisted tracks buried at the bottom of 90 seconds of silence was a huge surprise and treat. One of the buried tracks is a really dark cover of the Adam Ant song "Physical" that reveals some of Trent's love of pop and the new-wave he listened to growing up.
FIXED is the first of many remix discs released close on the heels of the original. Even way back in the early years, there is a fascination and lack of ego (?) in letting other people manhandle his material into radical versions. The Coil remix of "Gave Up" is probably better than the original and this release, like all of the remix discs to come, is as worthwhile as the proper album.

1994 - THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL is a quantum leap from PHM. It's the dark underbelly of humanity with all its pain, brutality, anxiety and sadness exposed like a raw nerve. A stunning combination of song writing, arranging, and sound design, for many it is his masterwork. It is certainly the harshest release in terms of both music and lyrical content. The 2004 reissue with a hi-rez stereo and 5.1 mix, along with a second disc of remixes, demos and non-album tracks is the way to best experience this masterwork. The artwork by Russell Mills is superb and the first in a long line of very elegant NIN packages, which culminate in the Ghosts I-IV box in 2008.
FURTHER DOWN THE SPIRAL (1995) is the next collection of reworkings/remixes and it sports contributions by Rick Rubin, Jim Thirlwell, Coil, and Aphex Twin.

In the five years between studio albums Reznor wrestled with personal demons and released a few minor gems. The first is his supervision of the soundtrack for Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994). While it contains three new NIN songs that date prior to TDS, the cut-up aesthetic looks forward to future release. The soundtrack contains new and old songs from a variety of styles, picked and sequenced by Reznor: Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Cowboy Junkies, Dylan, Patsy Cline, Peter Gabriel, Diamanda Galas, Barry Adamson , Dr. Dre, Lard, and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan all rub shoulders in the mix.

The other work from this period is some contributions to David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997), including the MTV smash "The Perfect Drug". The actual soundtrack contains some other atmospheric pieces under Reznor's name ("The Perfect Drug" is credited to NIN.)

1999 - THE FRAGILE was not exactly what fans were expecting. A sprawling double disc of material, it tempers the rage of TDS with more impressionistic and ambient textures -- Bowie and Eno's Low and Heroes are the touchstones for this. A transitional album to be sure, over time it has started to get its due with fans and critics. But at the time there was definitely a feeling of "we waited five years for this?1?"
THINGS FALLING APART (2000) is mostly manipulated by folks directly in the NIN camp (Reznor, Charlie Clouser, Alan Moulder) with Keith Hillebrandt and Dave Oglivie. The cover of Gary Numan's "Metal" is fun.

2000 - AND ALL THAT COULD HAVE BEEN is the first official live album from the band, capturing the lavish and visually stunning "The Fragile" tour , containing a good overview of the entire NIN catalog. The DVD has a lot of nice extras too.

2005 - WITH TEETH came after another five year wait and again was not exactly what fans were expecting. The very stripped down sound and clean production bring to mind early synth-punk-new wave like Gary Numan, Ultravox! and Bauhaus. The songs are muscular and taut , at times sounding more like demos than NIN of past recordings. This may ultimate be the best NIN release.
EVERYDAY IS EXACTLY THE SAME (2006) is less essential than previous remix albums but still good and worth hearing.

2007 - YEAR ZERO was a surprise, coming less than 2 years after WT. A concept album dealing with government control and art, Reznor built the songs up from soundscapes he made on the WT tour. The sound is noisy and tight and full of textures -- The Fragile infused into With Teeth.
Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D is a remix of virtually the entire album (14 of the 16 tracks), each song by a different artist. It covers the gamut from ambient techno to the Kronos Quartet.

2008 - GHOSTS I-IV is an experiment. Thirty-six tracks that were born in a series of studio sessions that are often little more than sketches compared to previous NIN tracks. All instrumental, the music is easily the most risky stuff Reznor's ever released and highly recommended.

2008 - THE SLIP followed within months of Ghosts and Reznor describes it as his "gift to NIN fans". It is totally free and downloadable from the NIN website, though there was a limited edition of pressed discs released to stores. It's a more straight-ahead rock album than the previous few though it's very much informed by the sorts of textures featured in Year Zero.

As of this writing, Reznor has announced that for the foreseeable future there will be no more NIN material or tours. One supposes he will continue to make music and it seems likely that NIN will reappear in the future.