After over three months of dormancy, Trent Reznor’s Twitter page was resurrected last night as the Nine Inch Nails frontman celebrated the 20th anniversary of his debut album Pretty Hate Machine. “Happy birthday, old friend. Pretty Hate Machine turns 20,” Reznor wrote, his first tweet since quitting Twitter following a July 17th message that read, “I believe I’ve done all I care to do here at this point. Flesh and reality and silence are calling.” Reznor’s call out to his first LP helped make #PrettyHateMachine a Twitter Trending Topic last night.
Check out photos of NIN’s last-ever live gig.
Pretty Hate Machine was released on October 20th, 1989 on TVT Records, introducing music fans to hits like “Head Like a Hole,” “Down In It,” “Terrible Lie” and other synth-goth classics. The New Rolling Stone Album Guide awarded PHM four-and-a-half stars, crediting Nine Inch Nails for being “on to something that no one else had quite figured out yet” and labeling Reznor as “an artist already near the top of his game.”
If you’re looking to celebrate Pretty Hate Machine’s 20th anniversary by downloading the album off a digital service, you’re out of luck: The official NIN Twitter announced yesterday that a legal download isn’t available since the band doesn’t own the rights to PHM, but import copies of the CD are available. (The rights issue has always made finding a physical copy of PHM in stores quite difficult over the past decade.) Reznor retired NIN as a touring band last month, capping the band’s live run with an epic final gig in Los Angeles.
More NIN live: onstage shots from the band’s tour with Jane’s Addiction.
Fittingly, the same week we’re celebrating the 20th anniversary of a song ...
Article Source: Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily