When did you know? You know, really know? (The first time you heard NIN)

[InvitingmeAway]

When did you first hear NIN, and when did it become one of your favorite projects?


I want to start off by saying I’m a relatively young fan (23 years old). And the first time I heard NIN was on the radio, and the alternative radio station was playing THTF. So this was most likely around the time that single came out back in 2005. But when I really started getting into NIN was when he released the Came Back Haunted video (the reel to reel video). After that I went to the record store and bought With_Teeth, and The Fragile, and found myself listening to those records on repeat for about two months. By that point I had also downloaded The Slip, and also bought TDS deluxe edition. Now I am a huge fan (obviously since I’m on this forum) and I’m happy to say I got to see NIN at Riot Fest a couple years ago.

please feel free to share your experience as well

[laststepdown]

My next door neighbor worked at Best Buy as his first job, got discounts on all their merch including music stuff, and dubbed me a cassette of pretty hate machine in 1989. Back then you could get 90 minute blank cassettes and fit 2 albums on one tape, one on each side. I loved Head Like a Hole and knew all the words to it, because I thought the african chant at the beginning was saying "Brian, Brian" (it's not) which is my first name. I didn't want the rest of the album, I wanted some radio pop stuff, not a full album-I didn't know how to ingest an entire album, and he forced me to listen to it because he was much older and wiser, 16 at the time. I was 8.

[theimage13]

Elementary school. I don't know if it was the first song I heard, but I distinctly remember having HLAH stuck in my head while I was waiting for the school bus before I was 10. Heard them the same way most people heard things in the 90s - radio. We had the benefit of having a radio station that was non-profit and actually listened to incoming music instead of playing what was sold to corporate owners by labels. They were playing bands like Nirvana before commercial radio was, and I presume they were the first in our area to get NIN on the air (I listened to a couple different stations at the time so I can't pinpoint with certainty that they were the ones I first heard NIN on).

[Endlessly]

I was 13, and my friend had just gotten AATCHB as a birthday gift from her coolest cousin. We went to hang out at her house after school, as usual, sat on the floor of the living room and she put on the DVD. Terrible Lie didn't quite grab me, but Sin? That was it, and I begged her to burn me a copy of the CD. I still prefer that particular recording to any other version.

16 years later, I'd finally hear it live at the Aragon -- twice! -- and completely lose my shit each time.

[Jon]

Elementary school. I don't know if it was the first song I heard, but I distinctly remember having HLAH stuck in my head while I was waiting for the school bus before I was 10. Heard them the same way most people heard things in the 90s - radio. We had the benefit of having a radio station that was non-profit and actually listened to incoming music instead of playing what was sold to corporate owners by labels.

I wonder how much different of an experience that would have been. They certainly didn't play anything on a local radio station (here) till at least after "Wish" won a Grammy; our first alternative station popped up in '93-94.

I was lucky enough to first catch NIN on MTV during a Lollapalooza "rundown/countdown" show. They talked about a band for a minute or so, while showing footage of them performing, then played a music video or two. To say that "Head Like A Hole" started an obsession, almost 30 years ago now, would be a bit of an understatement.

[BRoswell]

One of my best friends got his license in 2005, and we rode around listening to With Teeth on repeat that summer. I repeatedly joked that all he did was listen to "angry white boy music". However, the more I listened to it, the more I got into it. Year Zero came out two years later, and it was perfect timing. My exploration of electronic music had begun in earnest (as had my anger at the state of the world at that time), and that album pushed all the right buttons. That album encouraged me to take a deep, deep dive into Trent's music, and the rest is history.

[mason]

I had a friend who helped me through a hard time in high school. He was a couple years older than me, and had family in the UK who sent him CDs. He introduced me to a lot of music I would have never found myself, living in a small Canadian prairie city. This was 1992 so Nine Inch Nails weren’t the huge yet, especially in our neck of the woods. I was already a fan of Depeche Mode, Public Enemy and Nirvana, so the sound was in the sweet spot I didn’t know I was looking for. Angsty and sexy with samples and electronics? I was SOLD. Soon I bought Fixed for myself and listened to it obsessively. After my pal decided that he wasn’t listening to aggressive music anymore he gave me his copies of PHM and Broken.

When my family moved to an even smaller town in a different province that summer (part of the reason that was a tough time in my life) the homemade NIN shirt I made in shop class before moving earned me points with new pals - who are still ride or die friends. I owe nine inch nails my mental health. No other music will ever mean as much.

[Leviathant]

I'm not sure when I first heard NIN, but when I 'really knew'? My friend James flipped his dad's car, totaled it. I think this was in 1995? Before it got hauled off to the wreckers, they went and pulled the tape from the tape deck. We all went to Jim's house, and Jason popped the tape into the stereo: "Let's hear what Jim was listening to as he flew around that corner and flipped his dad's Buick Regal" - he hits play, and March of the Pigs comes out of the speakers.

Sold.

[Magnetic]

It was 1991 and my older sister's boyfriend had dubbed a copy of Pretty Hate Machine. She listened to it once or twice, and let me 'borrow' it. She never got it back, and that was all I listened to for a solid month (maybe the whole following year?). I was twelve. HLAH was not my favorite song though, Sanctified and The Only Time were the songs I liked the most, but I usually played the tape completely. I was hooked.

[piggy]

The first time I actually heard NIN was in 1994, though I was familiar with the name since maybe the PHM days. TDS came out when I was thirteen and I tried listening to it, but found it a little too unsettling at the time and decided it wasn't my thing. You have to understand that I hadn't been exposed to that many different kinds of music yet. Then when I started high school I had a few friends who were vaguely interested in NIN, but one of them had an older brother who was just hardcore. I got exposed to more of the music through him and found that I was really starting to like it. It came to me at a time when I was going through some serious emotional turmoil and upheaval, and it was scratching me right where I itched. By 1997, I was all the way on the bandwagon.

P.S. I've always wondered if my friend's brother is on here...

[gorast]

It's a little frustrating to me, but I don't think I really remember an exact moment or time period when NIN became a big fixture in my life. I remember hearing the big hits on the radio, Closer and THTF in 2005 (in middle school, lol), but I didn't really listen to NIN until late 2008/early 2009. I remember trying to go to the opening night of the NINJA tour in West Palm Beach, and my friend, whose dad worked the venue, completely failed to secure tickets for us like he promised, and I was pretty pissed about that. I do know that 2009 was the year it all came together in general - my neighbor let me borrow Broken and Fixed, and I was hooked. 2010, I blew a lot of Christmas money on snatching up a bunch of Halos at once, and after that, there was no turning back.

Funnily enough, though it wasn't the first album I listened to all the way through, I think With Teeth was the one that locked it in once and for all.

[botley]

It was over twenty years ago, now; I don't remember much about the specific circumstances of first hearing the band's music, but I really knew I loved them after immersing myself in The Fragile over and over and over as a young teen. A truly remarkable influence on my life.

[bobbie solo]

I had heard songs like Wish & HLAH prior, but when I saw the video for MotP is when it all clicked for me. Watching that strange video for that intense song really upped my intrigue level. I was 14.

[ManBurning]

First song I heard/saw that I remember was the perfect drug video on the Much Music countdown. I liked it, but not enough to scope the band out. About a year later, a friend ordered "The Downward Spiral" through one of those buy 10 CDs for a cent promos you'd find in magazine's back then thinking "The Perfect Drug" was on that record. When he found out it was not, he gave it away to another mutual friend of ours. This guy jammed the record all the time at his place and we used to rock out to Mr Self Destruct, Piggy, MOTP in his bed room.

When I actually became a SUPER fan was right before the Fragile was about to be released. The warm up to that album dropping was epic. The promo clips online, the TV spots, the shitty leaked radio quality snippets of WITT. When they were about to play the MTV music awards and everyone was expecting WITT or TDTWWA and all of a sudden they play the never heard before song "The Fragile" before the album dropped. I remember buying TDTWWA CD single that summer before the record dropped and just jammed the hell out of the 3 songs on there. Good times.

[Shadaloo]

1995. 13 years old.

I'd seen the Closer video on MTV at my grandparents' and it warped my fragile little mind. On a whim, I asked my mom to buy me whatever NIN had that song on it. I wound up having TDS and Broken on cassette.

Playing Chrono Trigger in my room, TDS playing in the background. Hearing A Warm Place start...and pausing the game just to listen. That was it.

[spahn]

1992-1993, my neighbor had just subscribed to BMG Music service (Get 10 CDs for the price of 3 or whatever) and he got Broken as one of the CDs. He popped it in and we just listened to it over and over. I found the digipak foldout so damn cool since I had never seen anything like it. Later that year, he gifted me a Long Box version of PHM (I regret till this day throwing away the longbox packaging) and the rest is history.

[Maximilian]

The "Wish" video on MTV when it was first released. Instant fan.

[Patrick_Nicholas]

As a kid, I first remembered hearing of NIN after getting into Quake and being notified by my dad of who did the music. This was not long before The Fragile came out, though it took a long while for me to finally get that album. At the time I was more familiar with the music of the Quake "mission pack" games ("Scourge of Armagon" and "Dissolution of Eternity") and Quake II than I was with the music of the first game (often played without music), but I assumed that NIN did the music for all of the Quake games instead of just the first one. So, the first time I remembered truly hearing NIN was when I heard "Head Like A Hole" on the radio. Shortly after, my dad found Pretty Hate Machine (which included HLAH) at a Goodwill store. I later found Broken at a pawn shop. I started to gradually get more into NIN from that point.

I officially started to consider NIN the "coolest band in the world" around 2004-2005, while listening to the TDS cassette from front to back during the months leading to me starting high school. There was a time, in the early 2010s, in which I was not quite "over" NIN but intentionally let it take a backseat - part in response to the HTDA worship on the nin.com forums, but mainly to discover more metal out there, resulting in Opeth being my favorite band at the time - before NIN returning from hiatus with Hesitation Marks started to bring me back to being first and foremost a NIN fan.

[Volk]

I was 18 years old in 1989. There were a bunch of us skateboarding a drainage ditch somewhere in Florida. Some guy popped the PHM cassette in, and I was hooked from then on.

[Halo Infinity]

I actually heard about Nine Inch Nails in 1999 when I was in middle school, but didn't become a fan until 2002 and by that time I was in high school.

In 1999, I heard and read about The Fragile coming out since The Downward Spiral came out in 1994 and Trent Reznor's opinions on Limp Bizkit, so being a huge fan of Limp Bizkit at the time got me curious, especially after hearing Nine Inch Nails being referenced on Hot Dog from Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water.

I had a friend that was with me throughout the years, and we had some similar tastes so we'd often talk about music among other things. For whatever reason, I just didn't ask about getting into Nine Inch Nails right away. If I bothered, I would've already been a fan since Autumn of 1999 to Spring of 2000, but didn't become a fan until Autumn of 2000.

And as bad as this is, while I didn't ever hate Nine Inch Nails, the Limp Bizkit feud at the time put me off. (I don't know if this counts as a defense, but I was 13 going on 14 and really hardcore over Limp Bizkit, way before getting really hardcore over Korn. As I've also mentioned on other parts of the board, Limp Bizkit was also the very first band that I became serious fan over, while introducing me to the hobby of actively listening to and collecting records.) But it had nothing to do with hating Nine Inch Nails either.

If anything, this experience taught me not to dismiss or avoid musicians over beefs.

Anyway, that same exact friend who also got me into Marilyn Manson couldn't help but notice how much I loved Antichrist Super, Mechanical Animals and Holy Wood, so he told me that I just got check out Nine Inch Nails in a very matter of fact way to the effect of "You owe it to yourself." and "You simply can't go wrong."

I also loved that he even told me, even before telling me who Trent Reznor was, to look up who "Trent Reznor" was when he pointed to the back of the Portrait of an American Family CD case.

So I let him know that I was interested and what he did was lend me Broken, The Downward Spiral and The Fragile on CD-Rs. Wish and Mr Self Destruct immediately had me excited for me and the rest really was history. However, it was The Fragile and then a little later, Pretty Hate Machine that really sealed the deal for me.

To this day, I can still feel the same exact way I felt when I first listen to Nine Inch Nails, which to me seems like a true test of time as far as favorites go. To me, that also sums up the epitome of the word favorite.

To those of you that have known me, I've told this story numerous times already, but still like threads that give me the chance to do so as you can see here.

We grew apart after our high school graduation along with him relocating here and there over the past decade or so, but we can also catch up as if no time has passed between us. Easily one of my best friends I ever met in my formative years who introduced me to what would be my ultimate most favorite musician ever for both entertainment and super personal reasons.

[Substance242]

A coworker who introduced me to some interesting music (like Portishead, Nitzer Ebb) lent me The Downward Spiral, but at that time (~1997) it was too brutal for me. Then, I randomly catched "We're in this together" on MTV. And THEN I knew.

[ghostaustin]

I remember hearing Closer on the radio in the mid 90's ( I was around 8 or 9) and thinking that some of the synths sounded like the space station stage from Duke Nukem.

Later, my brother got The Fragile, so I heard it whenever he played it, becoming very familiar with the opening of Somewhat Damaged. My brother asked my mom what a Starfucker is lol

Before With Teeth came out, I took a deep dive into the NIN discography, and recorded THTF off the radio, and I was so overjoyed I cried! I'd say I've been a hardcore fan ever since.

[thenorthwood]

I first heard NIN in 1992 as a freshman in high school. I watched the video for “Wish” on MTV at night and it scared me a little. I did not yet know what I liked and was all over the map musically: House of Pain, N2Deep, Vanessa Williams, etc., which eventually transitioned into a love for grunge music. I joined Columbia House and got a handful of cassettes for a penny. The Downward Spiral was in that mix, and because I had little money to spend and lots of time in my room at my parents’ house, I sat with the music and listened to TDS over and over again until it became one of my favorite albums. But NIN was not my favorite, as Nirvana held that title in the mid 90’s and PJ Harvey in the late 90’s.

Until The Fragile came out. It was a masterpiece and I listened to it repeatedly and NIN moved up in the ranks and became my favorite band. The first time I saw NIN live was Fragility 2.0. But really the moment it elevated to something bordering on addiction was when I saw NIN live again in 2005. It was a revelation. Then I really began to consume massive amounts of NIN in the form of live shows, physical releases and online resources. No band has come close to usurping their position as my #1.

[onthewall2983]

Heard the hits on the radio a lot during the 90's. I wasn't hip to much alternative stuff, and stuck largely to classic rock through high school. Then in about 2002-3 I started exploring more. Internet radio was in it's infancy, and AOL particularly had some interesting channels that were off the beaten path of the more meat-and-potatoes rock stations on regular radio. One of those stations played a lot of shoegaze, dark ambient, and occasionally threw in some Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel which made for a very interesting mix. I heard "The Great Below" on that station. I had really a fixed idea of who Trent was and what he did, and didn't think much of still up to this point but the song blew me away. It really flipped my pre-conceptions of what he did, and I started in on the work. Inside out before I started to appreciate the big radio songs in a new way.

[Detunez]

I can vaguely remember seeing the video for Perfect Drug somewhere in time, a very long time ago, but i actually only began to get into Nine Inch Nails music around 2011. I was playing the first Quake game during a nostalgic mood and started to notice the music which lead me to reading about NIN and everything they meant in the modern history of Music. I began with figuratively going down the Downward Spiral and really liked what i heard. The one thing that truly pulled me in was the 'Vevo Presents Nine Inch Nails Tension 2013" live set on Youtube, combined with the official 'remix.nin.com" website as i truly enjoyed messing around with the multi track releases. NIN has been in my heavy rotation for all those years now. There really isn't any album i dislike, i listen to them all on Spotify and the only issue I have is with having to take breaks to not get tired of the songs.

I was born in 1988 but for some odd reason (probably because of not living in the U.S.) i never really got in to them at an earlier age.

[Siah13]

A girlfriend of my brother's had a mixed tape someone had made for her and it had Sin on it... I was around 10/11 and I remember thinking it was weird. Then Freshman year came... By then Me, my fishnets, black dresses and combat boots were ALL about NIN. Hahaha. The first day of high school a group of goth seniors, who of course all loved NIN, saw me and inducted me into their little weirdo group and I'm still close friends with most of them. I can't believe I've been listening to them for over almost 30 years! Hot damn!!!

[PhoenixML]

The first time I was conscious about NIN's existence was with the Into the Void video. I probably would have seen some glimpse of Closer or Perfect Drug before, but wouldn't know it was NIN.

I became familiarized with The Fragile and Downward Spiral and thought it was good, there was something special. I bought AATCHB on DVD, and Terrible Lie sealed it for me. NIN became so much more from that point on. Discovering Still afterward and waiting (im)patiently for With Teeth. It had been a nonestop ride ever since with all the releases.

[ryanmcfly]

I know I heard NIN when I was younger. We listened to the local rock radio station so no way I didn't hear them. But I do remember that I fucking loved The Hand That Feeds when it came out back in 2005. My mom and an aunt that I was close to both really liked NIN, so my aunt burned me the With Teeth cd when it came out. I couldn't really get into the whole cd just yet. I was 12 so that makes sense. But I really loved All the Love in the World on that record. Fast forward about two years later and we were at Barnes and Noble looking at the music section. My parents said I could pick something out and I was having a hard time that day. Then I picked up the newly released Beside You in time dvd and decided why not? Took it home, watched it and fairly enjoyed it until I got to Burn, and then everything really clicked for me. Year Zero came out a few weeks later and got that from Hot Topic the day it came out. Didn't really have internet at the time outside of my mom's tiny phone, so that's how I lurked ETS, NINwiki during the YZ arg. Good times.

NIN is so special to me and everyone on here. Being front and center on the rail at Panorama with my mom a few years ago was such a great experience bringing everything full circle.

[barkhammer]

Sixteen years old in '94 here in Australia. We had nothing remotely close to "alternative" radio where I lived.
The only exposure to such music was late night music video shows.
One night I happened to see March Of The Pigs and couldn't believe the intensity of the performance and had to just keep rewatching it.
Helluva gateway drug!

[RobCoz98]

It was a combination of Rock Band (The Hand That Feeds was likely the first NIN song I heard), NBK, The Crow, The Simpsons, Weird Al and a few other things. However it wasn't until I played Wish on Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock which really got me into Nine Inch Nails and doing more research on the band back in about late 2010/early 2011.