Nine Inch Nails is an American rock band formed by singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Trent Reznor in 1988 in Cleveland, Ohio. Trent was the sole permanent member of the band until his frequent collaborator, Atticus Ross, became an official member in 2016. They're known for popularizing the industrial genre and making it more accessible, often using catchy hooks and melodies in their songs, which isn't common in the genre. Most of NIN's discography isn't classic "industrial", and falls more into alternative, electronic rock genres, and acts as a gateway into industrial music. Another signature Trent production staple is his use of piano. Some of Trent's biggest inspirations are Bowie, Prince, and Depeche Mode. In recent years, NIN/TR+AR has solidified themselves as pop culture icons, scoring films, being praised as inspirations by pop artists/celebrities, producing for/being sampled in pop music, and more recently performing their jaw dropping Coachella set.

When touring, Trent typically assembles a live band to perform with him under the Nine Inch Nails name. This live band has varied over the decades, with various members leaving and returning; the current lineup consists of Trent and Atticus alongside Robin Finck, Stu Brooks, and Josh Freese.

You may know NIN from their most famous songs: Closer, Hurt, Head Like a Hole, and The Hand That Feeds. Hurt was famously covered by Johnny Cash, Head Like a Hole was adapted by Miley Cyrus for her song On a Roll, and Lil Nas X sampled 34 Ghosts IV for his song Old Town Road.

Latest Release: Nine Inch Noize

Upcoming Release(s): Unnamed NIN album in progress, soundtrack for Naughty Dog's game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet

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MAIN DISCOGRAPHY

Pretty Hate Machine - Broken - The Downward Spiral - The Fragile
With Teeth - Year Zero - Ghosts I-IV - The Slip
Hesitation Marks - Not The Actual Events - Add Violence - Bad Witch
Ghosts V: Together - Ghosts VI: Locusts - Tron: Ares (soundtrack) - Nine Inch Noize

EXTRAS WORTH CHECKING OUT

Things Falling Apart - Still - Year Zero Remixed - The Social Network (soundtrack) - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (soundtrack)
Welcome Oblivion (How To Destroy Angels) - Watchmen Vol. 1-3 (soundtracks) - Soul (soundtrack) - If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power (Halsey) - Challengers (soundtrack)
Also check out: The Perfect Drug, song written for David Lynch's Lost Highway, soundtrack produced by Trent | Deep, song written for the Tomb Raider soundtrack

WHERE TO START?

There's two routes I'd recommend: for those who aren't afraid of dipping their toes in aggressive and experimental, rock-heavy music, and for those who mostly listen to dance/pop/electronic music.

Route 1: If you dig these albums, you'll likely love the rest of their discography and encourage you to keep going after these. You can't go wrong with just going in order of release. The essentials would be:

• Pretty Hate Machine: their debut album, and among the more accessible albums, featuring a heavy synthesizer-driven electronic sound blended with industrial rock elements. If you love Depeche Mode, you'll love this. Notable songs: Head Like a Hole, Terrible Lie, Sin

• The Downward Spiral: considered one of the most influential albums of the 1990s and often on best albums lists (Apple Music Best 100 Albums). This is a concept album that chronicles the self-destructive descent of a misanthropic protagonist into madness, dehumanization, and suicide. Despite being among the most abrasive in sound, Trent is able to make a lot of these songs super catchy, and theres no shortage of piano use. Notable songs: Closer, March of the Pigs, Hurt

• The Fragile: taking a step back from the more aggressive TDS, this 1hr 45m long double album features elements of electronic beats, ambient noise, and heavy guitar within a wide variety of genres, including industrial, trip-hop, and electronic. Fans often cite either TDS or The Fragile as their favorite album. Notable songs: Somewhat Damaged, The Wretched, Into The Void, The Big Come Down

• With Teeth: another more accessible album, With Teeth continues to feature some of the more electronic and dancey elements from The Fragile, fused with alternative rock and industrial sounds. Notable songs: The Hand That Feeds, Only, Sunspots

Route 2: For those of you who are only familiar with their biggest hits like Closer, maybe liked Halsey's If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power, and more recently, their collaboration with Boys Noize on Nine Inch Noize, but are hesitant starting with harsher industrial rock sounds:

• Nine Inch Noize: This is a great place to start if you love Closer, and love dark techno fused with industrial influence, and feeling like you're shaking your ass at a warehouse club in Berlin. These are all past NIN songs that Boys Noize hand his hand in reimagining and remixing to be more clubby, so if you love BN, you're love this. Notable songs: Vessel, Heresy, Parasite, Closer

• Pretty Hate Machine: their debut album, and among the more accessible albums, featuring a heavy synthesizer-driven electronic sound blended with industrial rock elements. If you loved NINoize, and love Depeche Mode, you'll love this. Notable songs: Head Like a Hole, Terrible Lie, Sin

• Tron Ares: Divergence (Tron Ares soundtrack): If you love NINoize, or maybe felt it to be too much, or wanna slow it down a bit, try this. Continuing with the techno beats as well as some atmospheric and dark synthwave sounds. It also slows down with some somber instrumental piano pieces, a Trent Reznor staple. Since it's a soundtrack, there are only a few vocal tracks here. Divergence is the deluxe edition of the album: Disc 1 having new additions and remixes by Pixel Grip, Arca, The Dare to name a few, and Disc 2 being the original. Notable (vocal) songs: As Alive As You Need Me To Be, I Know You Can Feel It, Shadow Over

• Challengers (soundtrack): More danceable beats, but not nearly as dark as the prior two, more accessible with a bit of grit. It's a very popular soundtrack for a reason, and Boys Noize also had his hands on it. Notable songs: Challengers, Brutalizer, Compress/Repress

• If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power (Halsey): Halsey's album produced by TR+AR. Definitely go here first if you haven't heard it yet and are more used to typical pop music with female vocalists. A lot of their production here mirrors their soundtrack work, so if you love it, take a deep dive into their soundtracks, starting with The Social Network. Notable songs: Girl is a Gun, I am not a woman, I'm a god, Nightmare (Reprise)

• Welcome Oblivion (How to Destroy Angels): Trent's side project, featuring his wife Mariqueen as the vocalist. Typical TR+AR soundtrack sounds, mixed with electronic and glitchy/noisy elements. Go here if you want something more experimental and moody than IICHLIWP. Notable songs: How Long?, The Space In Between, Parasite

• Year Zero (and the remix album): If you loved NINoize, this is another great next step, especially the remix album, which is more dancey. It also features a ton of glitchy production that is reminiscent of Welcome Oblivion, but harsher and more electro-industrial. This concept album is regarded as ahead of its time for it's political commentary and depiction of a future dystopian America, and was released with a super involved alternate reality game that expanded upon the album's storyline, using websites, phone messages, murals, treasure hunts, and other media to promote the project. If you're into that kind of marketing, please consider taking a deep dive by watching this, it's very interesting! Notable songs: Vessel, Capital G, God Given

• Hesitation Marks: An underrated album that was very divisive for fans when it came out. This is their most electronic album, and not at all in the same realm as typical industrial acts. There's some real dancy and funky bangers in here. If you liked PHM, you'll likely like HM. This album demonstrates Trent's ability to continuously evolve his sound album to album and not stay in a box. Notable songs: Copy of A, Came Back Haunted, All Time Low

If you loved most of the above, chances are, you'll also dig Pretty Hate Machine, With Teeth, Add Violence, and most of TR+AR's soundtracks (especially The Social Network!)

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RECOMMENDED PERFORMANCES TO WATCH

Closer - Live at Coachella 2026: Boys Noize performs alongside NIN with this revamped version of Closer. See Trent be involved with choreo for the first time!

Heresy - Live at Coachella 2026: Heresy upgraded to be a techno industrial club banger, featuring Mariqueen on background vocals.

Sanctified - Tension Tour: A super funky and electric rendition of Sanctified complimented by 2 backup female vocalists.

In Two - Tension Tour: This tour was amazing for it's lighting/stage design, here's a great example of that.

Closer - Woodstock 1994: While in crunchy quality, this was an iconic performance for them, despite Trent thinking they played horribly, and solidified them in the mainstream. They performed ruthlessly while covered in mud, and trashed his keyboards mercilessly throughout the set.

Hurt with David Bowie - Outside Tour: Performing Hurt with his hero, David Bowie, in this unforgettable experience for those lucky to witness it.

March of The Pigs - NIN + QOTSA Tour: March of the Pigs live is so much fun, especially since they perform an outro that doesn't exist on the standard album version.

Right Where it Belongs, Ruiner, Piggy - Peel It Back Tour: Trio of songs performed acoustically and intimately on piano, before exploding with Piggy at the end.

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FUN FACTS

• Trent is a classically trained pianist, starting lessons at the age of 5.

• David Bowie was a huge inspiration and role model for Trent, joining forces on their co-headlining Dissonance leg of the Outside Tour, and helping Trent get sober. They famously worked on I'm Afraid of Americans together.

• The band intentionally leaked a few tracks from the concept album Year Zero as part of a 'conspiracy' ad campaign to suit the subject matter of the album. The campaign was an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) to accompany the album, exploring dystopian and political themes. During a concert, a USB flash drive was planted in a bathroom stall containing an MP3 of the track My Violent Heart, for fans to discover and share online. At the end of the MP3 was a few seconds of static, which, when analyzed under a spectrogram reveals an image of "The Presence", an entity from the Year Zero universe. There's a TON more fun easter eggs/hunts, it's a really in depth marketing campaign that fused fictional storytelling with IRL involvement.

• Trent, his wife Mariqueen, Atticus and Rob Sheridan formed a short lived, post-industrial/electronic band called How To Destroy Angels with Mariqueen as the main vocalist. NIN performs some of these songs on tour still.

• Trent and Atticus are also known for their Oscar winning film scores. Trent would need a Tony Award to achieve EGOT status.

• They produced Halsey's album, If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power

• They won their first Country Music Association award after Lil Nas X sampled the Nine Inch Nails instrumental track "34 Ghosts IV".

• Aaliyah was a huge NIN fan, and was in talks with Trent to produce an album for her, but their schedules unfortunately never lined up.

• NIN's current touring drummer, Josh Freeze, performed with Lady Gaga during her Grammy's performance of Abracadabra.

• Stu Brooks, current touring bassist, worked on Lady Gaga's early demos.

• Trent liked an Instagram post reporting on Lady Gaga saying she "blacks out" in his presence.

• From 2025-current, creative director duo Todd Tourso and Mel Roy (MTLA Studio) worked with both NIN and Lady Gaga: on NIN's Peel it Back tour visuals, Coachella set, Alive As You Need Me To Be, as well as the album artworks for Mayhem, Disease music video, Harlequin and Harlequin Live Special (I bring this up as a delulu fan wanting a collab lmao)

• Trent and his family were seen watching Katseye's Coachella set

• Trent's song of the year in 2024 was Sabrina Carpenter's Espresso

• Trent teared up to a Dua Lipa song (it was Levitating):

  "...I heard my daughter, who's six, singing Dua Lipa the other day. She is so into it and it is so cool. Like this is her music, you know, this is her thing… It really reminded me the art of writing a well-crafted song — I teared up listening to a Dua Lipa track. Because it was just a really well-done piece of music, you know? It was clever. It felt good."

Edited May 31May 31 by nineinchnails

Johnny Cash's version of Hurt SUCKS and will never be better than the OG. I just had to say that

Edited May 1May 1 by Toxic Love

3 minutes ago, Toxic Love said:

Johnny Cash's version of Hurt SUCKS and will never be better than the OG. I just had to say that

this being the first reply—

Epic. Amazing. Edgy. Love them.

The collaboration with Boyz Noize is amazing

2 minutes ago, Gov Hooka said:

Epic. Amazing. Edgy. Love them.

The collaboration with Boyz Noize is amazing

I LOVE IT, I think it's a fantastic album to get people started on NIN who prefer techno/dancey stuff and are used to Boys Noize. my favs are heresy, parasite, closer, and vessel

L E G E N D

I listened to Nine Inch Noize because i really like Boys Noize. It got me interested so i than listened to The Downward Spiral and OH MY, what a revelation.

34 minutes ago, nineinchnails said:

I LOVE IT, I think it's a fantastic album to get people started on NIN who prefer techno/dancey stuff and are used to Boys Noize. my favs are heresy, parasite, closer, and vessel

Boyz Noize is playing at a techno festival here in my city later this month so super stoked to hopefully hear some tracks from the album played during the set

Just now, Gov Hooka said:

Boyz Noize is playing at a techno festival here in my city later this month so super stoked to hopefully hear some tracks from the album played during the set

fingers crossed! i saw nin on this past tour with BN, was front and center at the stage BN was at and it was SO GOOD.

finally a thread with talent

I just need one more Bad Witch-like album

2 hours ago, nineinchnails said:

1. Trent's song of the year in 2024 was Sabrina Carpenter's Espresso

delete this btw

incredible discography and the new album with Boys Noize is the best thing they've done in years

Gone Girl & Bones and All soundtracks, you will always be famous

Legends only

As Alive As You Need Me to Be

Everyday Is Exactly The Same

Two best songs of all time!!!

Not a NIN base, ATRL finally serving taste

I just recently got into them and both With Teeth and Pretty Hate Machine are some of my favorite albums ever.

Omg?

NIN's resurgence needs to be studied Trent Reznor has just made so many smart career moves over the last 20 years.

I can't believe it, but NIN feels as big (or bigger?) than ever in 2026, and they have been releasing for almost 40 years. It's just amazing to behold

Anyway, stream The Hand That Feeds

Edited May 1May 1 by Reginald

what are the BEST NIN albums for someone who LOVED Nine Inch Noize?

It's the only thing I've ever listened from them and I absolutely loved it

7 minutes ago, Kummercell said:

what are the BEST NIN albums for someone who LOVED Nine Inch Noize?

If you're into the modern NIN sound, I would recommend Challengers, The Tron: Ares soundtrack, and Halsey's 2021 album produced by Trent and Atticus

I need to get into NIN. I only know them from their work with Halsey and Trent being with Tori Amos

yes the Noize album is incredible

A new best base debuted

56 minutes ago, Kummercell said:

what are the BEST NIN albums for someone who LOVED Nine Inch Noize?

It's the only thing I've ever listened from them and I absolutely loved it

I would recommend Year Zero for the glitchy sounds (a handful of the BN remixed songs are on there), their side project How To Destroy Angels for some more mellow sounds, Pretty Hate Machine (a classic), and Hesitation Marks! For soundtracks, definitely check out Tron which also has BN on it (the deluxe version has Arca and The Dare on it), Chsllengers, and The Social Network

37 minutes ago, Angelshark said:

I need to get into NIN. I only know them from their work with Halsey and Trent being with Tori Amos

we were robbed of a collaboration between them! he is featured on backup vocals for Past The Mission at least

I'll list the albums in my main post and write some blurbs on recommendations later today