In the liner notes of NIN's Pretty Hate Machine, Reznor thanks Prince.

I always felt PHM had a sparsely arranged quality that borrowed from Prince.

Was there ever any sort of formal connection?

S3V3N said:

No formal relations that I know of. There's a sample of a Prince song in one of the tracks on that album. I think "Sin".

SexLovely said:

Sin is a good one, also "Head like a Hole", "Wish" and "Suck". I can't remember much else, havent listened to him in about 5 years.

trent reznor is a huge prince fan.

there is a track on the fragile which kinda sound like that scissor track on kama sutra. very similar.

SexLovely said:

Actually the whole Pretty Hate Machine CD is great. Don't let the whole NIN branding scare you away...they started off pretty simple and relatively safe. I think it sucks that Reznor went for shock/Ministry-esque stuff and didn't fulfill the promise that was PHM.

Stuff that made me think of Prince?...

- Something I Can Never Have (has a great sparse piano arrangement)
- Ringfinger
- Kinda I Want To (great line in this one that's sorta sexually confusing..."The devil wants to fuck me in the back of his car")

Damn, I love me some Nine Inch Nails. Helps drive the family outta the house.

"Come on kids - we're going to the mall. Daddy's lost his mind again . ..

They´ve met a couple of times, but Prince is mentioned in the PHM liner notes mostly because Trent sampled a bit off "Tamborine" for "Head Like A Hole". However, Prince inspired him to make the album all by himself and yes, there are a lot of musical similarities if you can get past the aggression.

Prince and NIN? Yes, look for a track on Audiogalaxy: Face Down - Prince vs NIN. It's Face Down from Emancipation with a backing track lifted from some NIN song. It's really good, probably homemade but really cool and slightly more sinister than the album version.

Funny that you guys say TrentReznor is a big Prince fan. When I think of Reznor, I recall an MTV interview where he slams Prince saying he would make a "real soundtrack" unlike "the crap Prince did for "Batman."'

trent said that cuz he isn't a NUTSWINGER, just a fan. it's ok to be a fan in case ya'll forgot. fan didn't mean something bad until prince said so.

i've heard head like a hole a million times, and never heard a sample from tambourine in it ... but a remix of head like a hole, i believe the opal version, has the same drum loop that is used in release it.

as far as the cat asking what to check out, here's a few ideas

head like a hole
sin (long)
get down make love
something i can never have
sanctified
maybe just once
piggy (rick ruban mix)
hurt
a warm place
the art of self destruction, final
deepest shade of mushroom blue
ruiner
we're in this together
the frail
wish (fixed version)
gave up
last
physical
memorabilia
the perfect drug
burn
dead souls


peace
alx
[This message was edited Mon May 6 18:17:11 PDT 2002 by smokeverbs]

I've heard several times on this site that they were going to work together, met, and didn't exactly get along. I can see them getting along poorly -- both essentially solo artists with a vision -- who sometimes take others along for the ride. Too much ego for one room. Love 'em both though.

I still think the most interesting connection is between Prince's "Had U" and Trent's "Erase (Polite)" from "Further Down the Spiral". Trent's song was out a year or two before Prince's, so I reckon Prince must listen to some NIN on occasion. Trent's lyrics go like so:

Need U
Dream U
Find U
Taste U
Use U
Scar U
Fuck U
Break U


I can't believe Prince's version was coincidence.

AnnaStesia said:

that is a cool corilation that I never noticed...

Wow! I'm impressed Anna! I'm going to go pull out that nails record now! Man I haven't listened to that stuff since high school... lol.