Trent Reznor is a master songwriter. The deep, industrially-throbbing texturalism and despairingly poetic lyricism of Nine Inch Nails quickly built up a reverent fanbase at the tail end of the Eighties that only continues to grow worldwide. Part of the draw, naturally, is how he sings those lines.
Whether through a bestial snarl, a disconcertingly horny moan or a down-spirited coo, Reznor has taken us on an emotional rollercoaster these past 35-plus years. But some of his mic work has triggered our reptile receptors more than others.
With that in mind, we asked our Revolver readers to vote on which Trent Reznor vocal performances are closest to their hearts. They ranked their top five accordingly.
“Right Where It Belongs”
With Teeth’s tender, concluding piano ballad doesn’t feature one of Reznor’s fiercest performances — interestingly enough, most of these picks don’t. Instead, “Right Where It Belongs” features a raw, intimate and aching display of close-mic’ed mastery from the NIN leader, and it feeds the hollowness inside our hearts because of it.
As if pressed right to our ears, Reznor offers a melodious, world-weary whisper asking us to question the nature of our surroundings, contemplate the cages around us and implore whether we’re willing to live through the illusion.
Despite its aesthetic softness — he closes things out with a lullabying falsetto — it’s a gutting, emotive performance that hits us like a 1,000-ton atom bomb.
“Hurt”
The Downward Spiral’s ultra-dejected-and-damaged “Hurt” is another Reznor performance where his seeming reservedness speaks untold volumes.
He hushes himself through some truly downtrodden lines — a broken, emotionally deadening man sitting on his “liar’s chair,” utterly, utterly alone. Its final chorus raises his voice towards a simmering, vocal-fry-heavy self-loathing (“I will let you down”), but its distorted climax appropriately buries his final words beneath the digital dirt. Haunting.
Reznor himself has suggested that Johnny Cash may have sung “Hurt” better on the latter’s American IV: The Man Comes Around, but this remains a legendary NIN performance nonetheless.
“The Great Below”
We’re starting to sense a pattern here: Revolver readers love the way Reznor sings his way out of an album. And indeed, The Fragile’s finale is another concluding stunner.
It takes a while for Reznor’s voice to rise up for “The Great Below” — about 45 seconds, if we’re keeping score — but once he pops through the synthy effervescence, he delivers another hefty-hearted yet sorrowfully soft-sung performance. As on “Hurt,” he briefly needles into a voice-cracking emotional severity, but it’s a round of whispers that eventually disappear beneath the undertow of this nautically-themed crusher.
“Reptile”
“Reptile” is, without a doubt, one of the eternal fan favorites in Nine Inch Nails’ songbook. It’s why this Downward Spiral track has popped up in several NIN-related polls we’ve run over the years. And while the musical arrangement behind this venomous industrial banger is unfuckwithable, Reznor’s vocals are pretty good, too.
As if seeping in blood and honey, his sickly-sweet sneering is extra menacing across the cut. Beyond the lead vocal, “Reptile” is also cross-contaminated with the sound of a second and decidedly more unhinged Reznor apparently jazz-scatting into a broken telephone receiver.
Pure, unfiltered madness.
“We’re in This Together”
Across more than 35 years and dozen upon dozens of industrial-edged classics, it’s become virtually impossible for some fans to pick Trent Reznor’s ultimate vocal performance with Nine Inch Nails. Then again, the grand majority of our readers were in it together on this one: It’s absolutely The Fragile’s emotional zenith, “We’re in This Together.”
The song is one of the most wildly romantic in NIN’s canon, with Reznor powerfully pledging to stick together with his “Queen” through thick and thin and to the ends of the world. He sells the spirit with an unshakeable, tuneful howl that could move mountains and bring a tear to the eye.
For those reasons and more, it’s become the gold standard — and it may remain that way until the very end of us, and until the very end of you.