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{{quote|''"Something's gonna get '''BROKEN!'''"''|'''Trent Reznor'''}}
 
Nine Inch Nails is an [[Industrial Metal]] band who have been rolling around the musical scene since 1989, releasing music videos which have ranged from politically subversive to the sort of video which answers the question 'What if ''[[Hostel (Film)|Hostel]]'' had been a set for music videos?'
 
They're somewhat unusual in that [[I Am the Band|it's essentially one man]], Trent Reznor, who's done all of it. Most members have come and gone, occasionally contributing to albums but mostly staying for the live shows. As of 2009, Reznor's decided to retire from touring, though he's going to continue to release albums under the Nine Inch Nails name.
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The music is surprisingly varied, from ear-destroying screaming guitar-death on ''Broken'' to beautiful, mellow piano pieces on ''Still''; but most of it falls squarely under [[True Art Is Angsty]].
 
In contrast to his highly brutal [[Industrial Metal]] output, Reznor in person is more of a [[Mean Character, Nice Actor]], being very active in his community and generally a pretty nice guy. Also in the same vein, he was friends with [[Tori Amos (Music)|Tori Amos]] - he even sang backing vocals on one of her songs (the past tense is [[Courtney Love (Music)|Courtney Love]]'s fault).
 
In the past couple of years, though, Reznor has taken a break from new Nine Inch Nails work and instead focuses on a project with his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, called [[How To Destroy Angels]], as well as on film soundtracks. Along with Atticus Ross, Reznor has composed the score for ''[[The Social Network]]'', for which the duo won an [[Academy Award|Oscar]] for Best Original Music Score, and 2011's ''[[The Millennium Trilogy|The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo]]''. ([[He Also Did|Reznor also provided the soundtrack]] to ''[[Quake (Video Gameseries)|Quake]]'' and recorded tracks for ''Doom 3'' that didn't make it into the final game (although they can still be found in the game files)). That said, he has revealed in interviews that he will spend much of 2012 writing material for Nine Inch Nails, so the project should return in some form in the near future.
 
There have been eight major Nine Inch Nails albums as of February 2012:
 
* ''Pretty Hate Machine'' (1989) - Nine Inch Nails' debut, at points showing the way towards the [[Industrial Metal]] that they'd popularise and at other points sounding like evil [[Depeche Mode (Music)|Depeche Mode]].
* ''Broken'' (1992 EP) - this is where Reznor definitely adopted harsh [[Industrial Metal]], updating his electronics, putting the guitars in the forefront and employing a more abrasive production.
** ''Fixed'' (1992; a remix album of ''Broken'')
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There have been five DVDs [[Executive Meddling|(sort of)]]:
 
* ''Broken Movie'' (1993) - essentially one long extended music video for the ''Broken'' EP, made to look (very convincingly) like a [[Snuff Film]]. Never got released, though a handful of VHS tapes exist, and torrents were released by Trent in late 2006. Directed by the late [[Coil (Music)|Peter Christopherson]].
* ''Closure'' (1997) - two-disk VHS/DVD set, one tape/disk chronicles the chaotic ''Self Destruct'' tour of '95-'96, the other is a collection of music videos that had been released thus far. (The DVD version got caught in red tape, so Trent got fed up and released torrents of ''that'' as well.)
* ''And All That Could Have Been'' (2002) - included with the "deluxe" album of the same name, it's the live concert DVD of the 2000 ''Fragility 2.0'' tour, and is littered with [[Easter Egg|Easter Eggs]].
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* [[Snuff Film]]: ''Broken'', again.
* [[Spit Trail Kiss]]: "Deep", though it's technically a spit trail ''lick''.
* [[Take That]]: "Starfuckers, Inc."`The song itself is a huge [[Take That|'take that!']] at celebrities and fame in general, and [[Word of God]] admits it had a lot to do with [[Marilyn Manson (Music)|Marilyn Manson]] in particular. [[Face of the Band|Manson]] realized this and made a video out of it, which took more specific shots at Pamela Anderson, Fred Durst, Gene Simmons, and Trent himself, among others. Oh, [[Refuge in Audacity|and it also portrayed a fat, ugly]] [[Courtney Love (Music)|Courtney Love]].
 
=== Tropes that generally apply to NIN: ===
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* [[AcCENT Upon the Wrong SylLABle]]: [[Title-Only Chorus|U-WIH-thu TEE-thuh!]]
* [[Addiction Displacement]]: After finally getting clean of drugs and alcohol, Reznor became a weight-lifting enthusiast.
* [[Alone in Aa Crowd]]: "All the Love in the World."
* [[Angst]]: Most songs.
** [[Wangst]].
* [[Ascended Fanboy]]: Trent is a ''huge'' [[Pink Floyd (Music)|Roger Waters]] fan, which only made it all the more amusingly tragic during a 2003 ''Guitar World'' interview that paired them up; Trent fell all over himself declaring how much he loved and respected Waters' solo work, only for Waters to apologetically state that he'd never heard any of NIN's music. [[The Woobie|Trent actually took it surprisingly well.]] It became a [[Running Gag]] on [http://www.theninhotline.net/meatpers/meatpers.html The Meathead Perspective].
* [[Author Vocabulary Calendar]]: The fact that [http://www.ninwiki.com/Recurring_lyrics this page exists].
* [[Awesome McCoolname]]: ''Trent Reznor''. Just say it.
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* [[Bishonen]]: Reznor was quite pretty in his younger years.
* [[Canon Dis Continuity]]: Any release without a Halo number. Most of these were forced by the record company. Reznor is very open about how he feels about that.
* [[Careful Withwith That Axe]] + [[Metal Scream]]: One must admit Trent's got a great voice for [[Industrial Metal]].
* [[Cluster F-Bomb]] + [[Precision F-Strike]]
** ''Especially'' live.
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* [[Digital Piracy Is Okay]]: Encouraged by Reznor himself, out of spite for [[Executive Meddling|the record industry]].
** Not just subverted; subverted to the point where he ''[http://www.theninhotline.net/news/archives/backissue.php?y=07&m=9#1189989696 actually encouraged fans to steal his own music]'' due to his loathing of how badly his record company was screwing his fans.
* [[Downer Ending]]: The aptly titled ''[[Concept Album|The Downward Spiral]]'' ends on an excruciatingly depressing note with {{spoiler|the character's suicide}}, while ''Year Zero'' ends with {{spoiler|[[The End of the World Asas We Know It]]}}.
* [[The End of the World Asas We Know It]]: How ''Year Zero'' [[Tear Jerker|ends]].
* [[Everything Is an Instrument]]: Trent has been exploring and exploiting the ways computers and samples can be used to make music from the beginning.
** Especially in the Ghosts series, which included, for instance, a chain laid across a cookie sheet.
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* [[Industrial]]: Songs like "Heresy" and "The Becoming" off of ''The Downward Spiral'' show that Trent still (back then, at least) could make genuine Industrial music.
* [[Intentionally Awkward Title]]: Despite various apocryphal origin stories, Trent's basic story on how he came to "Nine Inch Nails" as the band name is simple: it sounded cool and abbreviated easily.
* [[Intercourse Withwith You]]: So many of their songs.
** Often [[Lampshaded]] when "The Only Time" is performed live; Trent often introduces it with "This song... is about... [[Precision F-Strike|FUCKING]]."
* [[Last-Note Nightmare]]: "Hurt".
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* [[Recycled Trailer Music]]: Quite a few action movies use NIN songs in their trailers nowadays.
* [[Religion Rant Song]]: "Heresy" and "Ruiner" from ''The Downward Spiral'', "Terrible Lie" from ''Broken'', and judging by [[Word of God]], "Capital G" from ''Year Zero'' as well.
* [[Sampling]]: Not only from the obligatory old horror and sci-fi movies, but also occasionally from other artists. ''Pretty Hate Machine'''s liner notes thanked [[Prince (Music)|Prince]], [[Public Enemy (Music)|Public Enemy]] and [[Janes Addiction (Music)|Janes Addiction]] among others because Trent sampled them. "Big Man with a Gun" from ''The Downward Spiral'' begins with a sample of what is apparently a porn star having an orgasm, heavily processed so as to be unrecognizable. The album booklet gives the sample the [[Non-Indicative Name]] of "Steakhouse".
** An expansive list can be found [http://www.ninwiki.com/Samples_In_NIN_Songs here]. The most unusual samples on the list include Saddam Hussein's trial verdict and a ''[[YouTube]] video of [[Bio ShockBioshock]] cosplay.''
* [[Self-Backing Vocalist]]: Virtually all of the background vocals on Trent's songs are...well, Trent. The only songs with audibly non-Trent contributions from the band's entire career are "La Mer" (which is instrumental apart from Denise Milfrot's French mumbling) and "Pilgrimage" (which is instrumental with indistinct militaristic chanting in the background).
* [[Sanity Slippage Song]]: ''The Downward Spiral'' is 14 tracks of this.
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* [[Take That]]: Quite a few.
** The "eat your heart out, Steve" whisper at the start of "Physical" is directed at Steve Gottlieb, the head of TVT Records who tried to interfere with the recording of ''Broken'' and prevent Trent from moving to Interscope.
** The video for "Starfuckers Inc." mocks [[Courtney Love]], and depicts Trent throwing copies of [[Self-Deprecation|his own album]] and ''[[Marilyn Manson (Music)|Mechanical Animals]]'' in the trash at a carnival attraction.
* [[Testosterone Poisoning]]: "Big Man With a Gun".
* [[Textless Album Cover]]: ''The Fragile'' (only a portion of the NIN logo is visible), ''Year Zero'', and ''The Slip''.
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