Pretty Hate Machine
by Nine Inch Nails

Album
Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails
Year: 1989
Release date: 1989-10-20
Overall rank: 510th   Overall chart history
Average Rating: 
79/100 (from 718 votes)
  Ratings distribution   Average rating history
Accolades:
Award Top 10 albums of 1989 (8th)
Award Top 100 albums of of the 1980s (77th)
Award Top 1,000 albums of all time (510th)

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Nine Inch Nails bestography

Pretty Hate Machine is ranked 2nd best out of 25 albums by Nine Inch Nails on BestEverAlbums.com.

The best album by Nine Inch Nails is The Downward Spiral which is ranked number 160 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 8,637.

Nine Inch Nails album bestography « Higher ranked (160th)
The Downward Spiral This album (510th)
Pretty Hate Machine Lower ranked (510th) »
Pretty Hate Machine

(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).

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Pretty Hate Machine track list

  Track ratings The tracks on this album have an average rating of 83 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).

Sort Sort by
#
Track
Rating/Comments
1.
Track pick (890 - 208 votes)
Head Like A Hole
Average Rating: 89 (208 votes)Comments: View 2
2.
Track pick (870 - 179 votes)
Terrible Lie
Average Rating: 87 (179 votes)Comments: View 0
3.
Down In It
Average Rating: 83 (145 votes)Comments: View 0
4.
Sanctified
Average Rating: 83 (132 votes)Comments: View 0
5.
Track pick (870 - 163 votes)
Something I Can Never Have
Average Rating: 87 (163 votes)Comments: View 1
6.
Kinda I Want To
Average Rating: 80 (125 votes)Comments: View 0
7.
Sin
Average Rating: 85 (136 votes)Comments: View 0
8.
That's What I Get
Average Rating: 80 (120 votes)Comments: View 0
9.
The Only Time
Average Rating: 81 (125 votes)Comments: View 0
10.
Ringfinger
Average Rating: 80 (124 votes)Comments: View 0

Track pick (1000 - 100 votes) Top-rated track as rated by BestEverAlbums.com members.

Pretty Hate Machine rankings

Pretty Hate Machine rankings summary
Overall rank: 510th | 1980s rank: 77th | 1989 rank: 8th  Overall chart history
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings).Help Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 3 hours ago)

Pretty Hate Machine collection

Pretty Hate Machine ratings

Average Rating: 
79/100 (from 718 votes)
  Ratings distribution Help Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AV
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.

Showing latest 3 ratings for this album.  | Show all 718 ratings for this album.

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RatingDate updatedMemberAlbum ratingsAvg. album rating
 
80/100
 !		5 days ago Siromynian  Ratings distribution  1,77374/100
 
80/100
 !		08/18/2026 15:33 Untitled  Ratings distribution  1,81177/100
 
60/100
 !		08/17/2026 02:20 hoyquarlow  Ratings distribution  54176/100

Rating metrics: Help Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 2% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 79.1/100, a mean average of 78.4/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 79.2/100. The standard deviation for this album is 14.9.


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Pretty Hate Machine favourites

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Pretty Hate Machine forum mentions

This album has been referenced 149 times on the forums, Explore the wider forum discussion to see what members have said about it.
From BestEverAlbums 10/02/2026 08:18 in Monthly overall chart movements - September 2026
“The overall chart is ever changing, and it's difficult to keep up with the detail of what's happening. So, for those people who are interested, this post attempts to show the latest movements - biggest climbers, movers, new entries and leavers for the top 100, 250, 500 & 1000 over the past month,…”
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From BestEverAlbums 09/18/2026 08:00 in Chart of the day (#5439): By joedec
“Today's chart of the day Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by joedec () 1. (1989) 2. by (1982) 4. (1990) 5. by (1980) 7. by by (1993) 10. by (1985) 11. by by by (1988) 14. by (1977) 16. by (1987) 17. by (1987) 18. by (1971) 19. by (1979) 20. by (1984) 22. by (1972) 23. by (1979) 24. by (1968) 25. by by…”
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From BestEverAlbums 09/07/2026 08:00 in Chart of the day (#5428): By ExTeaSea
“Today's chart of the day Top 100 Music Albums of the 1980s by ExTeaSea () 1. by by (1982) 3. by (1980) 4. (1981) 5. by (1981) 6. by by (1981) 8. by (1980) 9. by by (1985) 11. by (1983) 12. by (1987) 13. by (1986) 15. by (1988) 16. (1986) 17. by by (1982) 20. (1982) 21. by by by by by (1981) 27. by…”
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Pretty Hate Machine comments

Showing latest 5 comments | Show all 45 comments |
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Rating:  
90/100
From 06/15/2016 02:05 | #168739 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
Pretty Hate Machine is Nine Inch Nail's first album, and it is awesome. Much dancier than any other NIN record, Pretty Hate Machine mixes synthpop with the industrial influences that would dominate the rest of his work. However, this album is not lacking in humanity, but incorporates it in the lyrics seamlessly with the industrial dance music beneath. "Head Like A Hole" is a classic, but the song that best showed Trent's potential is "Something I Could Never Have". An excellent album, and even though his subsequent releases wouldn't adapt this same sound, I think it's an incredible debut.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) · 10
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Rating:  
80/100
From 07/09/2015 21:02 | #145408 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
First time really giving this a proper listen, and damn is it good. I'm actually surprised at how much influence you can hear from 80s hip hop and synth music. Some parts almost sound like Beastie Boys collaborations. Either way, this is a great listen. Not as twisted and dark as Downward Spiral but brilliant in its own way.
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Rating:  
40/100
From 02/13/2018 12:15 | #207917 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
Pretty Hate Machine BEA Ranked 496 February 2018

This album was made by a 23yo Trent Reznor between working as a Janitor , Trent himself has described the album a "Immature" and quite frankly I 100% agree

There are some pretty hilarious none hard core lyrics contained here that could have been straight out of the One Direction song book such as

"My favorite dreams of you still wash ashore"
or
"I guess I'm not the only boy for you "
or
"I'm slipping on the tears you made me cry "

Aww so beautiful Trent I'm getting teary

All is not completely lost though as the album is bookended by the best 2 tracks in Track 1 'Head Like a Hole' and track 10 'Ringfinger' . Everything between is mostly forgettable

Really surprised this album sits inside the BEA top 500 , I think even Trent's Mum would agree with this assessment

Stick with The Downward Spiral

40/100

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Rating:  
85/100
From 04/15/2016 02:27 | #163837 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
Lyrically and emotionally intense. First half is amazing, second half is somehow lacking (not sure why).
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From 01/15/2019 03:23 | #229697 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
One of my all time favorite albums. I'm biased in the sense that I went to a lot of warehouse clubs in Detroit around the time this came out and several of these tracks got a lot of play time. This and Ministry's A Land of Rape and Honey the year prior really put their stamp on industrial music for me
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Best Albums of  1989
1. Doolittle by Pixies
2. Disintegration by The Cure
3. The Stone Roses by The Stone Roses
4. Paul's Boutique by Beastie Boys
5. On Fire by Galaxie 500
6. 3 Feet High And Rising by De La Soul
7. Bleach by Nirvana
8. Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails
9. Full Moon Fever by Tom Petty
10. New York by Lou Reed