content: Introducing the world to Industrial music in 1988, Pretty Hate Machine set the standard for the underlying trend of pop sensibility/ depressing atmospheric sound NIN was about. However, this is NIN's first album, and it definitely shows.The album spawned a couple of still-thriving radio hits in "Head Like a Hole" (a catchy synthesizer-driven ballad about how dollar signs can be the only things in peoples' eyes sometimes), "Terrible Lie" (an isolated, lonely song about being abandoned by God), and "Down in it" (regretful song about being caught up in your own hubris).Maybe I'm just comparing this to Trent's progressively darker material, but this album just isn't heavy at all. If you're looking for that consult "The Downward Spiral". This album is more about wallowing in misery than anything else and it comes off as too- what's the word? - foreign sounding?? I don't know maybe, youll get a different impression. Certainly not the best the NIN catalog has to offer.