Nine Inch Nails is the reason I listen to the music I do, whether because of a remix credit or liner note, collaboration, Nothing Records label-mates, supporting acts, etc., I can trace everything back to Trent Reznor somehow or another, sometimes intentionally other times not. From my first introduction listening to Broken and then Pretty Hate Machine, to the hook-line-and-sinker Industrial Rock played-out "Closer", to the dense double-disc The Fragile, to whatever direction Trent takes his music next, I don't think anyone can deny the musical innovation, integrity, and respect due to Trent.

I personally think that The Downward Spiral is an absolute masterpiece. Pretty Hate Machine is a great early industrial rock near-synth pop album, Broken is just full of metal angst, The Fragile is a terse and complicated listening adventure, and With Teeth is almost a visitation to earlier influences with new perspectives, I still feel TDS is the strongest and tighest audio journey with perfect industrial anthems and hymns.

I think once musicians drop the drugs and go clean their music somehow lacks he same punch as it did prior, and I feel With Teeth illustrates that. But I'd rather have a living Reznor with more albums (assumably 1-2 per decade) than bother having to just collect re-releases. And I don't think at all Reznor is finished, I think he'll prove to be a next-generation David Bowie of industrial rock, on the fringe but to be cited endlessly as an influence. And I hope that's how it plays out.

I would ask Reznor to cut back on all the live video releases, as great as the live stuff works it looks much better in person than staring casually at it in my living room full of interruptions. And aside from continued releases from NIN, I'd love to see more collaborative involvement and maybe someday all the never-to-be-released stuff to surface somehow (like Tapeworm...).

Nine inch nails are a group that has influenced music whether we like it or not. Yes Reznor was a poster boy for teens in the 90's but was that his choice? No. I'm from Europe and to be honest I never even heard of NIN until about a year ago.
There was no real hype about NIN over here or at least no where near as much as stateside so I do not see Reznor as some kind of musical sell out.

NIN has made some of the best written songs to ever come out of the 90's (Hurt, No You Don't , Wish, Piggy, The great below etc) so I don't see why people are questioning that aspect of NIN.

With The Fragile Reznor made one of the albums of the 90's if not the album of the 90's and even though I only got into NIN last year it doesn’t mean I don’t listen to any music back then its just anything from that era I did listen to was pure crap or average at best. Now that’s not to say NIN has flaws. Allot of His work is over produced, he takes too long to make an album (with teeth could be his last) and with has also stopped the steady climb of class that The Downward Spiral and The Fragile had created. But all in all NIN is one of the great alternative groups out there and will always be.

I don't consider Nine Inch Nails' music "industrial", just as I wouldn't consider The Cure's music "gothic". Trent Reznor has just used some of the same trappings and filtered them into his own form of pop music. Nine Inch Nails, being as it is so far from the original intent of the early industrial artists, the term "alternative" would work much better as a description in my opinion. Especially since many of his influences are well outside the realm of industrial - even skeptics should certainly be able to hear echoes of Depeche Mode's 'Violator' throughout 'The Fragile,' amongst a plethora of others.

I'd say Trent's music is nothing more nor less than an alternative to what could normally be considered pop music... most of Nine Inch Nails' fan base seems comprised mostly of people who's main listening interests include other pop-sensible bands. Nine Inch Nails is, perhaps more to the point, for the same people that listen to groups like Nirvana, Green Day, Britney Spears, etc. to put on when they are in the mood for music that reflects directly the feelings of being angry, depressed, alienated, discontent with religion, and/or experiencing varying degrees of emotional stress.

Industrial and the closely related noise genres could hardly be seen as pop-sensible and many of the emotions displayed in the music of such groups as Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, Nurse With Wound, SPK, etc. might seem alien and vulgar to many others... they were more a musical extension of the art world's dada or a continuation of musique concrete coupled, often enough, with violent, sexual or otherwise offensive imagery. Little in the way of music, more in the way of sound exploration... and with the intent to change the face of music and challenge the consensus' comfortability.

Surprise, surprise - NIN weren't always about music for soccer moms and bored housewives. In fact, you can see a huge improvement from "Pretty Hate Machine" empty youthful anger to more refined lyrical and musical approach on "Broken" and nearly anything done up to 1995 (skip the hit "Closer" (also called "I wanna fcuk You like an animal" by radio listeners) as it became notoriously stale after awhile. After that period, Trent apparently lost a bit of his songwriting abilities. Apparently he have a taste - after all, Coil is one of his favorite bands and he also helped them out somewhat. Coil were also featured on "Further Down A Spiral" which is, quite possibly, one of the best remix albums ever done by anyone, period. But then we also have stinkers like afromentioned "Closer" and his latest "With Teeth" which sounds as if though he is really lazy. See - i'm sure that by now most of his fans (as well as non-fans) will buy anything with the word NIN written on it, even he will produce blank records and call them 4.33 #1, #2 and so on. Its a tragic end for a band/performer which seemed to be going somewhere, but lost it completely and never recovered.

I think first of all like many have said before me.
"This is not industrial" this is electronic pop. Trent Reznor career its not so far away from Britney Spear, Limp Bizkit and the rest of the crowd of "artists" included in the pop show bussiness.His music contains all the "drama" of a pop star and its "despair" and supposedly visionary thoughts and the musician supreme capabilities of a Mozart according to the fans and the critics that avail his work.
Critics and popularity for one instance doesnt mean a thing when it comes to judge what its great and what its not. if that would be the case we should put Eminem in a throne of a master visionary as many music critics, their fans and some intellectuals pretend. But we know he is not.
And we know Trent its not too becouse theres nothing REALLY innovative in his music aside from the fact that he transformed industrial music in something "listenable,popular and understandable".
Yes theres some originality in some parts of his albums, some good moments and ideas but thats all about it.
We cannot forget the fact that NIN's albums were produced by a big company, with masterminds of electronic production and digital assistance such as:flood,John Fryer,Chris Vrenna and lots of others. We cannot forget as well the long hard road other bands walked through before NIN, and that not just include Skinny Puppy but many genious behind like Einsturzende Neubauten, Coil, Throbbing Gristle, SPK, etc etc.
Its easy to make an album like "pretty hate machine" having a predecesor as Nitzer ebb, skinny puppy or keith leblanc around the corner. you just cut and paste.amd then you add some teenager angst lyrics in between, some sexual references, some insults and profanities about god and religions and thats it. you got "pretty hate machine"
Then we have "Broken" basically the same "pretty hate machine" with more drones and layers, a better album without a doubt and much more agressive, that made NIN world wide known, by producing not a masterpiece but an album that sells, and sells becouse it is well done, it is easy to catch, easy to understand, easy to obtain. its a mix of metal frenzy and some unrelentless assault of machinery through the envelope of lyrics teen provocative lyricism Music for the masses.
Then comes the victimized "Downward spiral". stolen or not. it is just the projection of the previous release with much better production and better equipment. same silly lyrics as previous album, and again some "pretty hate machine" obvious references.
The fragile could be called a masterpiece, a modern jewel of music, the master ouvre only compared to pink floyd (Which only a big mouth could compare) but to the ears of anyone who really knows about music it is just another electronic work, not above not below the mainstream, a bit better development in the lyric section and a frankly demonstration of boredom and silly minimalism in the musical side.
Nine Inch Nails another band to the history of the massive music production of music, a band who captured an audience in a specific period of time like many others did in the past. Lets see what time and enthropy does with them.

Now don't take it wrong, with this comment I don't want to add another brick to the endless "Nine Inch Nails VS Skinny Puppy VS Ministry" debate, just want to point out one or two things.
To maintain that Nine Inch Nails is a simple rip-off of other artists who developed a similar music style before (like Skinny Puppy or Ministry), is surely false. It can't be denied, however, that most of NIN's sound patterns in both "Pretty Hate Machine" and "Downward Spiral" can be easily found on Skinny Puppy's albums like "VIVIsectVI" or "Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse".
As for the fact that NIN have surpassed them in populatiry, well, they have Interscope behind their back, not small Canadian indie Nettwerk, which makes quite a difference.
Moreover, Trent Reznor is a very handsome boy, guaranteeing a wide female support to the band (Nivek Ogre is quite handsome too, but he's always covered in blood and shit, making it more difficult to have him at the center of teenagers' sexual fantasies...).
Finally, Skinny Puppy's lyrics are really hard to get into, often they are kind of "stream of consciousness" nightmare visions, while other times they deal with topics such as world pollution, exploitation and destruction of nature, cruelty on animals (like on "VIVIsectVI" and "Too Dark Park"). Not everyone likes to get thrown in his/her face this kind of stuff while listening to a CD. NIN, on the contrary, deal with very easy stuff, which almost everyone from 12 to 35 can feel sympathetic towards: the whole "Pretty Hate Machine" CD deals with topics such as "I feel so bad cause my girlfriend left me", "I want to fuck", "My girlfriend is a bitch cause she lied to me", and so on.
These elements can't be ignored when comparing their success with that of other bands.
Anyway, I like very much both bands and think both are amazing and worth of support and appreciation.

Trent Reznor's last albums have actually been reviewed by many as his MOST creative. The double album 'The Fragile' has been compared to Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' in scope and depth, and it seems to be a valid comparisson. I think it's his best work to date and unlike 'The Downward Spiral,' I still isten to it often.
Also, the bonus CD that comes with the 'And All That Could Have Been' DVD, 'Still,' his latest release, contains new tracks that are soft and chilling not at they stereotypical harsh and angry NIN sound. They make you feel like you're listening to snowfall in the dark. The fact of the matter is that Trent, with the help of some really talented people, (Charlie Clouser, Chris Vrenna, Flood, Danny Lohner, even Manson) has always created dark emotional music that ended up opening a limited but profitable pop-Industrial genre. He created Industrial that was actually listenable to an audience of more than, say...2 people. Album sales didn't make him a visionary or pioneer, complex layers of beats and moody lyrics - that you could actually stand listening to - made him a visionary and a pioneer.

That said, don't believe for a second that Trent stole any kid's music for his epic downer 'The Downward Spiral.' He's always been far too egotistical and self-absorbed to do something like that. And he did NOT settle out of court.

"A federal judge has tossed out a lawsuit that claimed Nine Inch Nails singer Trent Reznor stole songs for his 1994 album, "Downward Spiral." The copyright infringement suit was dismissed Tuesday by U.S. District Judge William Rea, who put the trial on hold in February in hopes that
both sides would settle."

Hate on him if you want, but he makes damn good music, original music, and always has. He never stole a thing, he was just influenced by bands that NIN would ultimately surpass in popularity and success.

Trent Reznor is Nine Inch Nails. Having forged a sound from 1980's synthy pop music and seething industrial noise Nine Inch Nails have set the benchmark for industro ambient music, and designed a template on which scores of electro industrial musicians have modelled themselves...