History Trivia / NineInchNails

** Trent went on record disowning most of ''Pretty Hate Machine'' a mere two years after its release, citing the extremely withdrawn and antisocial headspace he was in during its production making for "immature", "introverted, claustrophobic" music. For one, he claimed retrospectively that "Down in It" was nothing more than a ripoff of Music/SkinnyPuppy's "Dig It". "Kinda I Want To" is another song Trent hates, as it was difficult to write and went through multiple revisions (the ''Purest Feeling'' and ''Pretty Hate Machine'' versions have barely anything in common other than the lyrics), and hasn't been played live since the earliest NIN shows. That said, Trent warmed back up to the album by the time he finally got to do a remaster, calling it an "old friend."

-->"When we got immersed in it, it felt like some people were phoning it in. And you're stuck with a film editor who had real bad taste. That's kind of our barricade to getting stuff in the film. And the final icing on the shit cake was we were on tour when they mixed it. And they mixed the music so low, you couldn't hear it anyway. So it was like, that was a ... (''laughs'') That was a fucking waste of time. Then we thought, no one's going to see this fucking movie. And, of course, it's the hugest movie ever in Netflix."

** Everyone familiar with NIN and Reznor know that his biggest and most influential inspiration is Music/DavidBowie. Reznor toured with Bowie in 1995 (even performing "Hurt" together during concerts), remixed Bowie's song "I'm Afraid of Americans" which then went on to be released as a single, and starred in that song's music video as a stalker chasing down Bowie.
* ReferencedBy: The recurring boss Reznor in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' is named in his honour. (Creator/{{Nintendo}} has a long habit of naming recurring bosses in the ''Mario'' franchise for famous musicians.)

** Oddly enough, ''Pretty Hate Machine'' was out of print for a while between the late '90s and 2005, owing to Trent's dispute with TVT.

* WhyFandomCantHaveNiceThings: Various nasty and overly-personal comments are the reason Trent isn't as active on Website/{{Twitter}} these days. Mostly, he posts news updates now. He even [[LampshadedHanging lampshaded this]] in a now deleted Tweet.

* WhyFandomCantHaveNiceThings: Various nasty and overly-personal comments are the reason Trent isn't as active on Website/{{Twitter}} these days. Mostly, he posts news updates now.

** After Creator/JohnnyCash covered "Hurt" in 2002, Trent Reznor had nothing but gushing to offer, claiming that the song "[wasn't his] anymore."

* ApprovalOfGod: Shortly after Music/LilNasX's "Old Town Road", which samples "34 Ghosts IV", began gaining traction online, his manager reached out to Trent in hopes of clearing the sample. Trent approved, calling the song "undeniably hooky" and wanting Lil Nas X and co. to own the spotlight so much that he refrained from publicly discussing it at length and even turned down an offer to cameo in the music video.

* ApprovalOfGod: Shortly after Music/LilNasX's "Old Town Road", which samples "34 Ghosts IV", began gaining traction online, his manager reached out to Trent in hopes of clearing the sample. Trent approved, calling the song "undeniably hooky" and wanting Lil Nas X and co. to own the spotlight so much that he refrained from publicly discussing it at length and even turned down a cameo offer for the music video.

** Trent has gone on record disowning most of ''Pretty Hate Machine'' a mere two years after its release, citing the extremely withdrawn and antisocial headspace he was in during its production making for "immature", "introverted, claustrophobic" music. For one, he claimed retrospectively that "Down in It" was nothing more than a ripoff of Music/SkinnyPuppy's "Dig It". "Kinda I Want To" is another song Trent hates, as it was difficult to write and went through multiple revisions (the ''Purest Feeling'' and ''Pretty Hate Machine'' versions have barely anything in common other than the lyrics), and hasn't been played live since the earliest NIN shows. That said, Trent warmed back up to ''Pretty Hate Machine'' by the time he finally got to do a remaster, calling it an "old friend."

** There were two songs that never ended up/even recorded for ''The Downward Spiral'', both called "The Beauty of the Drug" and "Just Do It". The latter gets special mention due to the straight forward mention of suicide with the lyric "[[DrivenToSuicide Just do it. Nobody cares at all.]]" Producer Flood ''did not like this'' and insisted to Trent to not use either song and have been scrapped since, but nobody knows if Trent ever really recorded them.

* BigNameFan: While Reznor is a fan of Music/GaryNuman, inviting him to perform onstage for several songs in London at one NIN gig, the affection is mutual. Numan credits discovering Reznor's music for pulling him out of a creative slump in the '90s.

** ''The Broken Movie'' was found to be too extremely violent to be released (being filmed as a ''[[NightmareFuel very convincing]]'' SnuffFilm probably had something to do with it), but finally saw a public leak on the Pirate Bay that was probably from Trent himself. Additionally, there was a failed attempt to release the film on the band's official Vimeo account.

* LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition: ''Ghosts I-IV'' got this treatment by its release in five different packages: A digital download of the full album in FLAC with digital extras; a 2CD format; a 4 LP format; a Deluxe Edition featuring the [=CDs=], a 24/48 blu-ray and a DVD-ROM with multitrack stems for the full album; and an Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition, which paired the Deluxe Edition with the vinyl copy, a coffee table book of the artwork and two exclusive Giclée prints. A free torrent of the first 9 songs (Ghosts I) also existed.
* OldShame

** Trent has gone on record disowning most of ''Pretty Hate Machine'' a mere two years after its release, citing the extremely withdrawn and antisocial headspace he was in during its production making for "immature", "introverted, claustrophobic" music.
** Trent has claimed retrospectively that "Down in It" was nothing more than a ripoff of Music/SkinnyPuppy's "Dig It".
** "Kinda I Want To" is another song Trent hates. It was difficult to write and went through multiple revisions (the ''Purest Feeling'' and ''Pretty Hate Machine'' versions have barely anything in common other than the lyrics). It hasn't been played live since the earliest NIN shows.

** Even though "The Perfect Drug" is a quite popular song, Trent himself isn't too happy with it. It took 21 years for him to perform it live.

* DevelopmentHell: Interscope apparently has been in plans to make a NIN compilation album. So far, as of 2018? Nothing!

** Evidently the "Ocean pulls me close" part of "The Great Below" was originally intended to be sung by a female vocalist.

** ''Bad Witch'' was intended to be the third EP in the unnamed EP trilogy that preceded ''Not the Actual Events'' and ''Add Violence'', however Trent wanted the release to garner more attention and instead had it be a studio release. Fans were not amused.

** Trent isn't fond of "Big Man With a Gun" (which is probably why he doesn't often play it live), nor is he fond of "Ruiner"; in a ''Guitar World'' interview released the month after ''The Downward Spiral'' was released, Trent admitted that "Ruiner" was the hardest song to write, and he still wasn't sure that he did it right.

** "Kinda I Want To" is another song Trent hates. It was difficult to write and went through multiple revisions (the ''Purest Feeling'' and ''Pretty Hate Machine'' versions have barely anything in common other than the lyrics). It hasn't been played live since the earliest NIN shows.
** Trent has claimed retrospectively that "Down in It" was nothing more than a ripoff of Music/SkinnyPuppy's "Dig It".

** Even though "The Perfect Drug" is a quite popular song, Trent himself isn't too happy with it. It took Twenty One years for him to perform it live.

* AscendedFanboy: Everyone familiar with NIN and Reznor know that his biggest and most influential inspiration is Music/DavidBowie. Reznor toured with Bowie in 1995 (even performing "Hurt" together during concerts), remixed Bowie's song "I'm Afraid of Americans" which then went on to be released as a single, and starred in that song's music video as a stalker chasing down Bowie.

* PromotedFanboy: Trent is a ''huge'' [[Music/PinkFloyd 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. [[TheWoobie Trent actually took it surprisingly well.]] It became a RunningGag on [[http://www.theninhotline.net/meatpers/meatpers.html The Meathead Perspective]].

** ''Bad Witch'' was intended to be the third EP in the unnamed EP trilogy that preceded ''Not the Actual Events'' and ''Add Violence'', however Trent wanted the release to garner more attention and instead had it be a studio release. [[InternetBackdraft Fans were not amused]].

** He also disowned the one album he recorded with Option 30, particularly a notoriously cheesy cover of [[Music/{{Falco}} "Der Kommissar."]]

*** Arguably this was a response to a mild (particularly by Nine Inch Nails' case; see above) case of ExecutiveMeddling, as streaming sites like Spotify tend to ignore EP releases. Of course, some people will find that a more reasonable justification than others will.

*** Arguably this was a response to a mild case of ExecutiveMeddling as streaming sites like Website/{{Spotify}} tend to ignore EP releases.

* NamesTheSame: "Into the Void" from ''The Fragile'' is not a Music/BlackSabbath cover.

** The drum solo in "Piggy" was just Trent testing a new microphone in his studio, but Trent liked it too much to lose it.

** There were two songs that never ended up/even recorded for ''The Downward Spiral'', both called "The Beauty of the Drug" and "Just Do It". The latter gets special mention due to the straight forward mention of suicide with the lyric "[[DrivenToSuicide Just do it. Nobody cares at all.]]", Producer Flood ''did not like this'' and insisted to Trent to not use either song and have been scrapped since, but nobody knows if Trent ever really recorded them.