Pretty Hate Machine | The Downward Spiral | The Fragile | With Teeth | Year Zero | Ghosts I-IV | The Slip | Hesitation Marks
- Black Sheep Hit: "Closer" counts both because it is quite atypical of Nine Inch Nails' work from this period, containing far more influence from funk and the work of Prince than most of Reznor's work of the time, and because it was repeatedly misinterpreted and gained a huge Misaimed Fandom.
- Creator Backlash: In an interview
from the April 1994 issue of Guitar World, Trent said that "Ruiner" was the hardest song to write for the album, and he still wasn't 100% sure that he got it right."I have such a bad vibe from that song now—from it sucking in so many different ways." - Cut Song: There were two more songs planned to be included on the album: "The Beauty of the Drug" and "Just Do It". The former was scrapped for reasons unknown, but the latter gets more explanation: it was full straight with the act of suicide with the lyrics "Just do it. Nobody cares at all". Producer Flood thought it was too grim and told Trent that the song shouldn't be included. It's likely that both songs weren't even recorded at all.
- Method Acting: A unique variant; Trent Reznor sought out and recorded the album in the former home of Sharon Tate, where she had been murdered by members of the Manson family, to cultivate a suitably dark atmosphere for the album's recording environment. However...
- Old Shame: After a chance encounter with Tate's sister, he would come to regret exploiting her death for the sake of his own curiosities.
- Promoted Fanboy: The album was heavily inspired by David Bowie's 1977 album Low, and Trent Reznor regarded Bowie as a significant influence on his work as a whole. As it just so happened, Bowie's own industrial rock doomfest Outside was heavily inspired by Trent's work, and both that and this album were being promoted simultaneously; Bowie got Trent to tour alongside him for a brief period of time, up to and including the pair duetting on "Hurt". The two would collaborate again with a remix of Bowie's "I'm Afraid of Americans", and would remain close friends up until Bowie's death in 2016.
- Sequel Gap: If you don't count the Broken EP as the direct follow-up to Pretty Hate Machine, The Downward Spiral came out almost five years after the latter album.
- What Could Have Been:
- According to Russell Mills, who made the artwork for the album and its various side releases, a live album related to The Downward Spiral was planned to be released shortly after the Closure video album, but was scrapped. He had made a number of paintings for said live album, which can be seen in the "Nine Inch Nails" section at the bottom of this page.
- Speaking of Closure, it was going to get a DVD reissue in 2004 alongside the album's 10th anniversary remaster, which was never released for unknown reasons, although it did get a leak later in 2006. Nowadays, DVD versions of the video album are only available through bootleg releases.
- According to Russell Mills, who made the artwork for the album and its various side releases, a live album related to The Downward Spiral was planned to be released shortly after the Closure video album, but was scrapped. He had made a number of paintings for said live album, which can be seen in the "Nine Inch Nails" section at the bottom of this page
