Pretty Hate Machine stayed on the Billboard 200 for 115 weeks, but peaked only at No. 75. Nine Inch Nails’ 1989 debut was largely the work of one man: frontman Trent Reznor.
It arrived in October 1989 on TVT, an indie label best known for TV-theme compilations.
“Down In It,” the first single, hit No. 16 on both the U.S. dance and alternative charts. Two more singles helped keep the album on the chart, per Craft Recordings.
David Bowie later reflected on Reznor’s music in a piece for Rolling Stone.
“It contains a beauty that attracts and repels in equal measure,” he wrote.
While the landmark album is now immortalized in music history, it all started with a janitor’s job in Cleveland.
How a Studio Janitor Made Pretty Hate Machine After Hours
Reznor worked as an assistant engineer and janitor at Cleveland’s Right Track Studios, per The New Yorker. Owner Bart Koster let him record whenever no other band had the room booked.
Reznor described the arrangement to Cleveland Scene around the album’s release.
“If you want to come in at night and mess around, go ahead,” Koster told him, Reznor recalled.
“So I pretty much taught myself engineering for what I needed to know, anything to do with computers. If someone came in with a drum set, I didn’t know what I was doing.”
Koster once sized up his former employee for People magazine, via Grunge.
“He is so focused in everything he does,” Koster said. “When that guy waxed the floor, it looked great.”
Reznor built the demos alone on an E-mu Emax sampler and a Macintosh Plus, per Riffology. The finished album was completed with outside producers, including Flood, in London, Boston and New York.
TVT was reportedly unhappy with the finished album. Producer John Fryer recalled a record-company representative hearing it and saying, “You’ve ruined this record.” Reznor’s relationship with the label later deteriorated, contributing to his move to Interscope.
Pretty Hate Machine still sold three million copies in the U.S.
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