Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails

Released in 1989, Nine Inch Nails' first album sounds extremely 80s, and extremely different from everything else they ever did. Imagine if New Order had kept Joy Division's anger and depression, but still wrote dancy tunes, and that's what this album is. While it is very dated, it is also Nine Inch Nail's most entirely listenable album. That is, there's no pretentious instrumentals yet, or long moments of ambient wind sound effects to act "deep," but just a lot of songs with a good beat behind them. I mean, it's nowhere near as good as The Fragile, but it's still kind of fun in a retro sort of way, right Jeff?

RATING: 68%