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Although Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor became the poster boy for industrial rock in the early 1990s, his '89 debut, "Pretty Hate Machine", actually has a stronger foothold in '80s synth-pop. The guitar-heavy opener, "Head Like a Hole," is the most aggressive track on the album and proved to be the signature song for Reznor's initial breakthrough, but much of the disc sounds like Depeche Mode in a particularly bad mood. All of the tracks on "Pretty Hate Machine" are based on synthesizer lines and programmed beats, with other elements - such as the distinctive bass on "Sanctified" and sampled explosions on "That's What I Get" - filling out the sound. Despite Reznor's morose lyrics, a number of  "Pretty Hate Machine"s finest moments are energetic dance tunes, particularly "Down in It" and the surging "Sin". Oddly enough, Reznor's fiercer - and seemingly less accessible - subsequent work (the "Broken" EP and "The Downward Spiral") led directly to his mainstream success, but "Pretty Hate Machine" reveals where the Nine Inch Nails aesthetic started out.