Your First Impression(s)

[snaapz]

Curious on how others first perceived NIN. What song(s) you first heard, first impression(s) and what got you hooked?

I'll start.

1. I listened to Dead Souls on repeat all summer 1994. Didn't really know who NIN was.
2. My friend played Head Like A Hole for me in 1997. I thought it was good but also silly. "Bow down before the one you serve"
3. In 1997 I started buying albums. Started with Broken. Help Me I'm In Hell got my attention. I liked how NIN was different (abstract even) compared to Metallica, AC/DC, Nirvana, Green Day... each track was something new and different.
4. in 1998 I bought TDS. I heard songs and styles I'd never heard. Reptile got me hooked and addicted, it consumed me.
5. 2014 I started this thread.

[WorzelG]

1991 - saw them open for GNR at Wembley Stadium, they trashed all instruments and we thought, wtf does he think he's Axl Rose? But my sister and a friend bought PHM and I still have the letter my sister wrote with the mix tape saying I trust you'll be a big fan of NIN. Loved Terrible Lie particularly
1993 - bought Broken, remember listening with a friend, going to make a tea near the end in the kitchen and going back into the room and Physical was playing, first experience of Easter eggs!
1994 - bought Downward Spiral, loved the remixes even more - still wracking my brains as to how we missed seeing them live, it doesn't help reading my diary of one of the days they were playing London and I was doing such boring things!
1999 - Fragile (the Frail particularly) plus live show in London cement them as favourite band

[pwing47]

In ~6th grade I first heard HLAH and Closer. After looking up this Trent guy, I went and dug into TDS and PHM to see what all the fuss was about.

Ringfinger and TL became quick standouts on PHM; Ruiner quickly became one of my fav songs. I had never heard anything like it. Same with Reptile; it was like he recorded this thing in a factory where killer robots were being made.

I remember WT was the first NIN album that I heard on the day it came out. At the time I was on a big surround-sound kick, so the 5.1 version blew me away.

Ten years later, here I am: a complete and utter NIN addict.

[fillow]

Circa 2000 - I discovered Lost Highway and Natural Born Killers soundtracks. I was 13 or 14, the soundtracks were my sister's (7 years older than me). Didn't care about NIN in particular, just liked all of that stuff.

2002 (I'm 15) - I was on a mission to discover as much new music as possible and was constantly borrowing CDs of unfamiliar bands from my friends. That's how I got to listen to The Fragile and it clicked instantly. I have to confess I never returned the CD, still have it (although it was already passed through several hands before I got it). Some few months later i bought AATCHB CD and TFA (the only NIN records that were on sale where I lived). Listened to them for a year on repeat, didn't bother to get the full discography before someone gave me AATCHB on VHS tape (around 2004), and that's when it got serious. I've got all the halos (in glorious mp3) and joined old ETS in late 2004.

[BRoswell]

2005. With Teeth came out. My best friend played it every time I was in the car with him. I was still more of a Top 40 pop and rock bullshit listener, so I couldn't get into it at first. I even jokingly referred to it as "angry white boy music". The more I listened to it though, the more I began to like it. Then my friend started playing some songs from The Downward Spiral for me to see if I would be into it. It was a little too extreme for my tastes at the time. Then Year Zero came out right around the time I was getting into a lot of electronic music, and suddenly it clicked for me. I've been a fan ever since.

[pinata89]

1999 - Saw the promo advertisement for The Fragile on MTV (when all was right in the world). I probably had seen/heard NIN references here and there prior to this, but nothing before this promo really caught my eye (or ear) in terms of engaging my interest enough to explore further. [NOTE: We could really finish the story here]

2000 - Got to see the "Into the Void" music video, and loved it; initiated enough interest to download several random tracks via LimeWire/BearShare (haha, right!?!). If memory serves me correct, I remember downloading "Please," "Into the Void," "Even Deeper," and "Starfuckers, Inc." Immediately hooked, but since discovering/downloading music at this time was still new and pretty much geared toward single songs, I had very little concept of discography-oriented artist praise at this point in my life (I was 13).

2000-2005 - Delved even deeper (no pun intended) into the discography, downloading a few tracks here and there from previous eras. Liked what I heard, but was into more current-day musical things at that time. NIN goes on my backburner because of inactivity.

2005 - Went ahead and purchased the NIN back-catalog to do my homework in midst of the anticipation of With Teeth...which I found an underwhelming album on release day, from the onset. I grew to love this album, however. I remember listening to The Downward Spiral for the first time and really enjoying the sounds explored throughout the album, but what I remember most about purchasing that album is the naïve attitude I had towards it. I found it to be a musical relic; I didn't really understand what had made this album such a commercial hit, because the music wasn't catchy to me--yet I maintained the slim jewel case and album art booklet as a prized possession (I treated my first copy of The Fragile like shit...and bought several more copies since) knowing the music industry praise behind it...looking back, I still don't know why. I also remember my Youth Group leader at church using the lyrics of "Heresy" as some part of a Bible study one time--I felt both guilty and cool knowing I had the hard copy of the track at home. Anyhow, I had now became acquainted with all NIN material to-date, but NINsanity hadn't really "hit" me as it soon would in the coming years.

2006 - Listening to the radio one day, I hear a radio DJ announce NIN at Rupp Arena here in Lexington, KY and I screamed (by myself) at the top of my lungs out of excitement. You can really have a different perspective on an artist/group when you see them live, and this became very evident to me once the concert was over. I spent the next few months in the NIN-zone...really taking each album seriously, and embracing what each was meant to emit chronologically, aesthetically, artistically. Adding to an already immense appreciation of TR and his craft, the live show ingrained NIN as one of my favorite bands for the rest of my life.

2006-on - The rest is history, really.

[Millionaire]

I first heard NIN doing Dead Souls on the Crow soundtrack and quite liked it. After that I saw the video for Closer and actually didn't like it at all. My musical exposure at the time was only what I heard on alternative rock stations, and Closer was too new, weird, and perverse for me. Cut to a year or so later, after I was 'primed' for more harsher music by getting into more punk and metal, a friend let me borrow The Downward Spiral and my mind was blown. Its usually hard for me to pick a favorite movie/book/whatever, but if you put a gun to my head and told me to pick a favorite album, I would have the say The Downward Spiral. It reflected some feelings I was having at the time(not as harsh as what Trent was talking about, though) and it has so many layers of sounds and interesting musical ideas that I could listen to it today and notice something I never have before, even after probably hundreds of listens. TDS is still my favorite, but NIN is one of the few musical acts where I could say I liked all of their records.

I've followed Trent ever since hearing TDS, and when he won the Oscar I couldn't stop smiling, like it happened to an old friend.

[EndlessLoveless]

Terrible lie in shop class junior high '92. The teacher used to let us listen to radio. I remeber it was the outro keyboard line that got me. It sounded so fucking cool. It was like nothing i'd ever heard. Then some older "cool" kids i knew had broken and i remember the packaging. It was like nothing i'd ever seen. In love from then on. Before that, i listened to late 80's early 90's cock rock like Slaughter, Extreme etc.....i was a kid who liked the guitar. Nine inch nails changed that. I wanted to play every instrument myself from then on.

[thevoid99]

1993-Wish on an episode of Beavis & Butt-head. I was 12 and was just starting to get into the music that was going on at the time like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Metallica, and GNR. Yet, hearing that wind and those guitars was something very different. Once I saw the full video and song... I realized this wasn't any of the music that my parents were listening to.

1994-I see the video for March of the Pigs and was just blown away by the drums of that song. Months later came Closer as I was bewildered by its video and the song itself. Then came the performance at Woodstock '94 and.... I became a convert after that. I bought TDS, Broken, and PHM on cassette and then upgraded it to CDs and the journey has never stopped.

I think if it wasn't for NIN. I would've resigned myself to listening to the AC crap my parents were listening to at the time. I would've been extremely uninteresting.

[Sarah K]

My boyfriend took me to a show in 2006. Best thing he ever did.

[Ryan]

I was a fan of Tool around 2002. Discovered Trent was kind of associated with Maynard around that time, listened to samples of PHM and other albums on Amazon.com, then bought PHM, TDS and The Fragile. Liked it all immediately. I kinda became a fan just in time for all the Bleedthrough hype, maybe a bit earlier, 2002-2003.

[ZeroSum]

Pre-fanhod: Playing guitar hero in my grandparents basement, my cool older cousin who's into like, cool alternative things, tells my sheltered nerd ass, who never really appreciated music until they played guitar hero for three months straight, to check out this band called "Nine Inch Nails." I thought the name was insanely cool, and kind of scary sounding in a way. Ominous, intimidating. Slightly creepy. From that point on I kept noticing NIN come up in weird spots. Some fundy kid at my school was telling me about how popular music has mobilized against god. Within a slew of distaste regarding rock bands, rap, pop, and metal, I remember him saying "Guess what Nine Inch Nails is named after!? The nails that killed Jesus when he was put on the cross!!!!!!!111" I thought he was probably full of crap, but thought it was cool nonetheless. I was an angsty 16 year old, more pissed than I previously knew possible at a God I slowly stopped believing in. A Hand That Feeds remix played on a dance station my sister was listening to (I remember not liking it and thinking it was "kind of gay." (I used gay that way because I was 16.) I then saw a bit of Beside You In Time while channel surfing one day, it used to play on DirecTV all the time. I saw Right where it Belongs and was moved so much, particularly by the lights. Later that year, I'm in Wal Mart with my parents and looking at their shitty cd section. I'm trying to find Snakes and Arrows by Rush. Couldn't find it for the life of me. My parents tell me to hurry the fuck up. I really want some new music, so I grab the new album by NIN on a total whim, and because the hand coming down from the sky on the blue album cover is quite intriguing.

OMFG Wtf am I listening to phase: I had never heard anything like NIN before. I snuck away from helping my dad the afternoon after I bought Year Zero and put the cd in, and listened for the first time. It blew my mind. I couldn't believe how much was going on, how much depth it had. I wanted to listen to each song over and over. I listened until my dad came and yelled at me to get out of the truck. I later skipped my high school's graduation (I was a sophomore and friends with a few graduates... so maybe I'm a shithead) to sit and listen to it on repeat in my parent's house. The music was so invigorating, intriguing. I got super into the ARG stuff I could find, and just spent a whole day absorbing that album. Everything I could about it. I remember thinking, early on "the point of this music is deeper, it's not all done just to sound good and cool. Like people don't actually like all this distortion and stuff, but they like the message it represents." It was the sound of my young mind slowly wrapping itself around something I could tell was amazing.

Favorite band era (forever) - After listening to Year Zero about a thousand times, I went on a scavenger hunt to find every NIN halo I could. I remember spending the bulk of a paycheck on mostly NIN albums. Then I went home, and listened, over and over and over again. I never wanted to stop listening. I shunned finding new bands until I felt like I had absorbed NIN to its fullest extent (I still haven't, but I did eventually find a lot more bands). Music became my favorite thing ever. I got into NIN music videos, and was actually pretty scared by most of them. The Broken Movie made me nauseous, the Closer video made me so uneasy. But I wanted more, more, more. It forced me to challenge things that initially made me feel uncomfortable, to learn and understand them. It was a beautiful process- my mind and perception grew heavily because of NIN. Then I saw them live and well, lets just say I have attended almost 200 concerts since then, 6 of them being NIN shows.

I love NIN.

[spiraling out]

When PHM 1st came out i was with this girl who had the tape on her dresser and i liked the name NIN so i took it home and listened to it from start to finish. I was into Pantera and such back then but wanted something different. I FOUND IT !!!! Im 41 now so that was over 20 years ago and NIN the music and Trent the man i feel a connection that is so strong that i cant even put it into words. All's i can say is that i feel like ive been sharing a common bond with the music NIN has been putting out since the first beat that hit my ears off of HEAD LIKE A HOLE off PHM to the first sounds of EATER OF DREAMS/COPY OF A off HESITATION MARKS and everything in between. I feel like he talks about me and my life, good and bad. LONG LIVE NIN AND THE PIGS WHO CAN UNDERSTAND WHAT THE HELL I JUST WROTE.

[ambergris]

There was an MTV jingle, clip, or however you want to call it, featuring the latter third of Closer, this awesome industrial synth build-up. This must have been in the late 90s or so... I was determined to find out what song that was, but didn't immediately succeed. Then a couple of things happened, for one, I wanted to find out who David Bowie did that song with. I got into Bowie around 1996, went through his discography, actually bought Earthling when it came out, but the single version of I'm afraid of Americans was hardly played in Germany. Well, then in 2002 there was Deep, which, yes, I really liked. It's charmingly stupid and very melodic, it keeps on your mind. I began to listen to a lot of alternative music around 2001-2002, which in Germany was probably not always the kind of alternative music that was popular in America. Marilyn Mansion was a much bigger name at that time than NIN here, but occasionally MTV or its German equivalent VIVA II played Head Like A Hole, Starfuckers Inc. and then Closer. Around 2003 it all came together and I bought the Fragile. Then I was drafted (Yes, the draft still existed in Germany at that time) and developed a liking for noisy industrial music. I began to collect all NIN I could find...

[onthewall2983]

I remember the "Closer" and "Perfect Drug" videos and hearing them and a few other songs on the radio as a teen. Also remember seeing the "Starsuckers" video and the performance at the VMA's in '99. It was certainly different but it didn't connect, as I was pretty steeped in my classic rock and prog stuff, so anything new was of little interest.

A few years later I'd started getting into shoegazing, post-rock and even Radiohead. It was on an AOL station that played a lot of those bands (as well as some Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel for good measure) that I heard "The Great Below", and I was absolutely blown away. It completely differed from the image I'd had of what he was doing and fit perfectly into my listening habits at the time. Through that I really started getting into a lot of the Fragile record and bits and pieces elsewhere, all stuff I really hadn't heard on the radio or had seen on TV. I'd actually come around as a fan completely by the time I'd gotten to the more familiar stuff, and appreciated it more in it's original context.

[nooneimportant]

I decided to give Year Zero a shot in 2008 after seeing how brilliant the ARG was and it blew me away. PHM and TDS came next and boy I tell you what, it all made me a fan for life.

[Edo]

Feel free to facepalm mine. I'm facepalming myself all the time.

Throughout decades, I had a vague uninformed idea of NIN as a noisy-scary-something (I wasn't into the heavier genres, more a gentle ambient and indie pop kind of person). Around 2007 I really got into David Bowie's music and NIN got mentioned a lot, so I thought I might check it out. I tried listening to Year Zero, but my reaction was that of respectful indifference ("not my thing"). Fast forward 6 more years, last November, I'm looking at new music releases and there's HM in there. I thought what the heck, I might as well try again. And it was like, omfg where have you been my entire life? I loved HM on first listen and then I dove into the whole past catalog like there was no tomorrow, and my brain exploded. Since then, TR's music has been the soundtrack of my life and I've been trying so hard to catch up on everything I'd missed out on. And then two concerts this summer -- my face melted straight off. I want my life back so I can go to the past tours I missed. I feel so stupid. LOL

[WorzelG]

Feel free to facepalm mine. I'm facepalming myself all the time.

Throughout decades, I had a very vague uninformed idea of NIN as a noisy-scary-something-not my thing (I wasn't into the heavier genres, more a gentle ambient and indie pop kind of person). Around 2007 I really got into David Bowie's music and NIN got mentioned a lot, so I thought I might check it out. I listened to Year Zero once, but my reaction was that of respectful indifference ("not my thing" again). Fast forward 6 more years, last November, I'm looking at new music releases and there's HM in there. I thought what the heck, I might as well try again. And it was like, omfg where have you been my entire life? I loved HM on first listen and then I dove into the whole past catalog like there was no tomorrow, and my brain exploded. Since then, NIN and the rest of TR's music has been the soundtrack of my life and I've been trying so hard to catch up on everything I'd missed out on. And then two concerts this summer -- my face melted straight off. I want my life back so I can go to the past tours I missed. I feel so stupid. LOL

Your taste in music, indie pop, sounds a bit like my brother in law. My sister tries to get him into NIN but he just won't listen, didn't like Year Zero. Trent doesn't help himself though when it comes to promotion

[Edo]

Your taste in music, indie pop, sounds a bit like my brother in law. My sister tries to get him into NIN but he just won't listen, didn't like Year Zero. Trent doesn't help himself though when it comes to promotion

Maybe your sis could try to get him into HM. Worked for me! And of course Year Zero became a favorite, how ironic. Oh if I knew back then what I know right now lol

[Khrz]

Started off with Dead Souls, which was somewhat cool, but well, meh. My dad mistook it for an interest in Joy Division and lent me Closer, which made me go "what the fuck is that limp-ass whiny shit". I was pretty much into Ministry back then, anything slower and less aggressive was pop shit to me.

Since I couldn't find any NIN in the library, I bought a second hand cassette tape of Broken. I adored it, even though I was convinced the previous owner had fucked the tape up somehow (took me years to realize the tracks were actually arranged that way).

The Downward Spiral was released eventually, and it was okay at first, but not brutal enough. After repeated listening I realized it was brilliant, and decided to go hunt for more. I bought the Down In It single which made me go "what the fuck is that limp-ass whiny shit" again.

From there I bought every single, remix and iteration thereof from the TDS era, go excited as hell when The Perfect Drug came out, went desperate for new stuff for years when The Fragile eventually came out, which forced me to learn to appreciate NIN again...

And the rest is history.

[Substance242]

It was in 1999, I was in this shitty flat working in foreign town, three rooms, each with one distant person. TV was turned on without me paying attention, until... hmm, what is this... black and white video with some dude running away from something or what... this actually sounds good... lots of people running, what on earth is going on there... wait, this is really interesting... who is that girl, why that look... wow beautiful musical ending... Then the name popped up - Nine Inch Nails, We're in this together.

I was aware some NIN exists but knew nothing about it, only after this it all really begun.

[allegro]

1991: Heard "Down In It" and thought it was stupid.

1993: Friends INSISTED I buy "Broken" immediately. I did. I listened to it through really good headphones while drunk. I saw God.

1993: I saw the "Wish" video, and thought it was the coolest music video I'd ever seen. Note that at this point, I still had no idea who "Trent Reznor" was, nor did I care.

1994: TDS, still one of my favorite albums of any artist. I only found out who "Trent Reznor" was when somebody on a Usenet group mentions that he is dating Courtney Love. At the time, I'm more disturbed that Courtney is already dating other guys so shortly after Kurt's death.

1999: huh?

2005: Stretch, wake up, ah that's better. Whoa, this Trent Reznor guy has weird hair. This is the Era of the WebCam.

I was a big fan of With Teeth. My fandom dropped off after that. I still love the older albums, though.

[kel]

it's amazing to read about so many of you who've only recently became fans (wt on up). so cool.

mine was the closer video on alternative nation in 1994. i won't repeat myself.

[Calla lily]

1989, heard "Down In It" on the radio (I was 15) and thought this is different. Heard a few more PHM songs on the radio or friends tapes. Bought the cassette about a year or so later after I had a job and car. Immediately bought Broken when I got my first cd player for Christmas '92 during my first year of college. Bought TDS as soon as it came out. Thought TDS was the best album ever. I still have both those cd's, including the mini disc (although the mini disc is with the case in our attic, I really need to get that down). Saw NIN at Woodstock, and again in '95. But then by 1999, life got in the way for a while and I lost touch with a lot of music in general, work, marriage, then a couple kids kinda got in the way. Listened to the albums I had occasionally or whatever came on the radio. Got TDS cd stuck in my car, apparently it's thicker than newer cd's. I never did lose my love of NIN though, music just turned into background music, didn't go to any concerts for probably 10 years.

Then around 2.5 years ago, NIN came on Pandora, I can't even remember which song, but I thought Holy Shit!, I forgot how awesome NIN is. I got most of the other albums (don't have Ghosts for some reason) as soon as I could and was totally hooked. I just feel a huge connection with the music. Rediscovering NIN has also re-sparked my love of music in general and I've spent the last couple years making up for lost time going to concerts.

[Sutekh]

late 90s, I heard perfect drug and didn't think it was all that! (still don't)

few years later a friend was selling her cd collection and I got everything up to the fragile for a tenner (score), obsessed over broken and disc 1 of the fragile for... er... well.. up to the present day really

[Copy of V]

After reading some of these stories, I felt compelled to join the forum and add my own.

I saw NIN on the Grammys (ha, go figure), I was reminded that the band exists. I had only heard of NIN by name, but never looked into the music. Then later on came the announced tour with Soundgarden, so I decided to finally check out the music. My other favorite bands are Rush, anything with Maynard, and Tori Amos, so NIN was connected in one way or another to them each. The first two things I listened to were Head Like a Hole and Closer, upon recommendation from a friend. They didn't quite click for me at that moment. I wanted to see something live. I saw the Woodstock video on youtube in the search results and Trent covered in mud, thinking what in the world is this supposed to be. Pinion into Terrible Lie (which remains my favorite NIN song) got me instantly. Wish was next. Forget it. I was in.

The NIN/SG tour was coming to my area, so I began looking into setlists and discovering NIN's catalog by what I might be seeing live. Copy of A, Head Like a Hole, and Great Destroyer were some of the ones I was digging the most. Little by little everyday, I'd listen to more new stuff, and pretty much loving everything I was hearing. Couldn't believe I had never gotten into NIN before.

Two days before the 2014 summer tour hit my area (NJ), I managed to snag a 4th row seat to the show. My mind was completely melted. If I thought I was into NIN before, this was a whole new level. The live show cemented NIN right up into my group of top 5 favorites. I know it's a staple, but hearing Terrible Lie live was insane for me. Some of the shows on that tour I noticed it would get dropped, so I was nervous I wouldn't get to hear it. Was a little disappointed that Me, I'm Not was replaced by Disappointed, but that was my only little nitpick of the show, besides the lame crowd. I'd only been into the band a few months, and people next to me were sitting with their arms folded while I'm rocking out. Maybe they were SG fans? Who knows. I like SG a lot too, so the show was double special for me.

Now, I continue to check out the band's catalog, as there is still a good amount of stuff I haven't heard yet, or enough to be familiar with. Trent has been a source of endless inspiration for me since I have discovered his music, and has influenced my own music as well. It makes me cringe how much NIN has played at venues near me (like House of Blues in Atlantic City....cannot imagine seeing a NIN show in a tiny place like that). Cannot wait for more new music, (I really like Hesitation Marks....Find My Way live made me tear up), more live shows, and continuing to discover everything I've missed all this time!~

[Halo Infinity]

This is also like a NIN confession, but it really was my first impression of the Wish video. For the longest time, I sometimes kept thinking that the people that managed to bust the cage wide open were trying to rescue Trent as fellow prisoners, and then have him join their side.

That is before, actually paying close attention to the video that is, as I was far more immersed in the song.

[magnolia]

I believe I've posted a bit of this elsewhere, but I enjoyed reading all of these stories, so I wanted to add mine in full...

When I was 13, I got involved with a guy that was several years older than me. That’s relevant because that whole affair, which went on for a few years, fucked me up so badly. I've always been very melancholy anyway, but as a teenager you think everything is so much worse, you know? I was very depressed. Anyway, it was late September 1999, only a few months into this relationship, and I was at a friend’s house, and she absolutely insisted that I listen to this album she’d just gotten, yammering away about how good it was. I asked who it was, and she said Nine Inch Nails. I had heard of them, but didn’t really know the music, (and in retrospect, I’m sure I’d heard Closer, HLAH, etc before then but not connected the two.) All I could picture by the name was a heavy metal band, and that didn’t appeal to me. I protested, saying I didn’t want to hear it, and then she actually forced headphones onto my head for me, and made me listen. The song was “The Fragile.” I’m not sure if it was the melody, or the lyrics, or what, but I felt hooked right from the first listen. Maybe it’s nostalgia, but it’s still my favorite NIN song. I bought the album for myself shortly thereafter, and it resonated with me, I connected with it… I don’t know how else to put it, it just helped me. Listening to NIN helped me through a lot of tough times after that. I’ve been a fan ever since.

First time I saw NIN live was in 2005, with the aforementioned guy, who bought me tickets to one of the club tour shows as a gift. It was one of the only nice things he ever did for me. This past summer I saw them on my birthday, the same day I got “I won’t let you fall apart” tattooed on my wrist, which was something I’d been thinking about getting for a number of years. I went that night with the friend that made me first listen to them... I’m still grateful to her for shoving those headphones on me.

[The_Prowler]

Late 90s: My first introduction to Nine Inch Nails was the March of the Pigs video on Beavis and Butthead. The first time I saw and heard it, my mouth literally fell open and my mind was forever altered. However, I could never remember the name of the band (I was never a particularly bright child), so I was unable to track down who they were, and no one knew what song I was talking about.

Early 2000s: A cleaning lady that I was close with would talk to me about music every time she was over. One day she loaned me a CD and told me "don't listen to track five too loud when your parents are home". She had had my curiosity, but that statement commanded my attention. Later that day, I put the CD in my stereo and was greeted by something that sounded like a basketball being thrown against a brick wall. I put my ear against the speaker and kept turning it up to hear it better trying to figure out what the hell I was hearing, when Mr. Self Destruct suddenly kicked off at full volume right into my ear canal. My speakers melted, my ears fried, my brain went into epileptic seizures and my penis became so engorged in blood that I'm still surprised it didn't rupture... My world changed forever and I was instantly hooked for life. And as an added bonus, I finally figured out who that band from Beavis and Butthead was.

2000/01: The first Nine Inch Nails purchase I ever made was the And All That Could Have Been DVD and CD. I put the DVD in and couldn't have moved even if I had wanted to. As I recall, I was standing in front of the TV when I pressed play and remained there until about halfway through the first disc, such was the spell it had on me. After that, I went on a binge trying to find everything I could with their name on it. Pretty Hate Machine, Broken, The Fragile, Things Falling Apart and The Perfect Drug were all bought within weeks of each other. My best friend at the time came over one day while I was watching the DVD again, and said that it was stupid and sucked. I invited him to kindly eat a bag of dicks and fuck off. But he listened to a lot of rap and hated Aerosmith, so his musical opinion really wasn't all that valid.

2005: I would wait and listen to shitty radio for hours every day just to hear The Hand That Feeds. The day I got With Teeth, I played it almost nonstop for weeks.

Nov 11, 2005: I saw Nine Inch Nails live for the very first time. I avoided all reviews and clips online like the Black Death for weeks leading up to the show because I didn't want to know anything about it. During their 19 song set, I jizzed my pants a minimum of 20 times. I wasn't able to properly ejaculate for a month after that. To this day, it remains one of the greatest concerts I have ever seen.

(Skipping past the releases for Year Zero, Ghosts, The Slip, The Social Network and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, How To Destroy Angels and Welcome Oblivion, as well as the How To Destroy Angels show I went to)

2013: I got Hesitation Marks the day it came out (because of course I did) after allowing myself to only listen to Came Back Haunted once online. Aside from the obvious "this is amazing and it's giving me a chub", I kept thinking "The Downward Spiral and The Fragile got wasted on tequila shots and Jagerbombs and had hot, sweaty, nasty pig sex while Ghosts and Year Zero came in and Eiffel Towered them at a NIN album orgy, and this is what happened nine months later". The thought made me go and take a shower as soon as the CD was over... then I listened to it again.

2014: After seeing the 2013 stadium tour (which was amazing), I was excited to see Nine Inch Nails as a four piece, especially considering what they did on the 2009 tours (which I sadly missed). I was disappointed that it was a "greatest hits" tour and didn't really feature much in the way of the deeper/rare cuts, but it was still a Nine Inch Nails show and I still loved every second of it. Someone stole my $300 prescription sunglasses while I was there, but Trent made everything all better just by being Trent. That was, of course, until I had to buy new sunglasses and wait two weeks for lenses I could actually see out of... but when I was at the show, everything was just dandy.

[WorzelG]

After reading some of these stories, I felt compelled to join the forum and add my own.

I saw NIN on the Grammys (ha, go figure), I was reminded that the band exists. I had only heard of NIN by name, but never looked into the music. Then later on came the announced tour with Soundgarden, so I decided to finally check out the music. My other favorite bands are Rush, anything with Maynard, and Tori Amos, so NIN was connected in one way or another to them each. The first two things I listened to were Head Like a Hole and Closer, upon recommendation from a friend. They didn't quite click for me at that moment. I wanted to see something live. I saw the Woodstock video on youtube in the search results and Trent covered in mud, thinking what in the world is this supposed to be. Pinion into Terrible Lie (which remains my favorite NIN song) got me instantly. Wish was next. Forget it. I was in.

The NIN/SG tour was coming to my area, so I began looking into setlists and discovering NIN's catalog by what I might be seeing live. Copy of A, Head Like a Hole, and Great Destroyer were some of the ones I was digging the most. Little by little everyday, I'd listen to more new stuff, and pretty much loving everything I was hearing. Couldn't believe I had never gotten into NIN before.

Two days before the 2014 summer tour hit my area (NJ), I managed to snag a 4th row seat to the show. My mind was completely melted. If I thought I was into NIN before, this was a whole new level. The live show cemented NIN right up into my group of top 5 favorites. I know it's a staple, but hearing Terrible Lie live was insane for me. Some of the shows on that tour I noticed it would get dropped, so I was nervous I wouldn't get to hear it. Was a little disappointed that Me, I'm Not was replaced by Disappointed, but that was my only little nitpick of the show, besides the lame crowd. I'd only been into the band a few months, and people next to me were sitting with their arms folded while I'm rocking out. Maybe they were SG fans? Who knows. I like SG a lot too, so the show was double special for me.

Now, I continue to check out the band's catalog, as there is still a good amount of stuff I haven't heard yet, or enough to be familiar with. Trent has been a source of endless inspiration for me since I have discovered his music, and has influenced my own music as well. It makes me cringe how much NIN has played at venues near me (like House of Blues in Atlantic City....cannot imagine seeing a NIN show in a tiny place like that). Cannot wait for more new music, (I really like Hesitation Marks....Find My Way live made me tear up), more live shows, and continuing to discover everything I've missed all this time!~

Nice that the Grammies thing did actually bring someone new on board!