Robbed hit of the week 7/8/19 - Nine Inch Nails' "Closer"...
from the album The Downward Spiral (1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #41
Today's song of the day comes from the alternative rock act Nine Inch Nails. Started and mostly carried out as a music project for Trent Reznor, who originally came from western Pennsylvania, but established the act in Cleveland. Recording demos as he worked in a record studio, he eventually got signed to TVT Records, which at that time was most noted for releasing compilations of television show theme songs. The debut album from Nine Inch Nails, Pretty Hate Machine, was a collection of hard-hitting but danceable songs that were promoted initially as a club act like Nitzer Ebb or My Life with The Thrill Kill Kult. The lead single "Down On It", released in 1991, climbed to #16 on both the Modern Rock radio chart and the Dance Club Play list in Billboard magazine. That was followed by "Head Like A Hole", which got to #28 on the Modern Rock chart, #17 on the Dance Club Play tally, and had enough mainstream airplay and sales to "bubble under" the pop Hot 100 chart in America. (It was their first charting hit in the UK as well at #45.) A third release, "Sin", was missed in the U.S. most likely due to its sexually provocative music video, but the song became Trent's first top-40 British hit at #35.
Although Pretty Hate Machine as an album was a big success, becoming one of the first independently-distributed albums to sell over a million copies and "go platinum", Trent and the record label were fighting already over the money and the direction of the act. Secretly recording until his contract was bought out by Interscope Records (and mogul Jimmy Iovine), Nine Inch Nails returned with the EP Broken in 1992. The record would be Trent's first top ten effort, peaking at #7 on Billboard's Album Sales Chart, while lead single "Happiness In Slavery" went to #13 on the Modern Rock radio chart. The second, "Wish", got to #25 on that chart, and earned Trent his first Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance ("Happiness In Slavery" would also win a Grammy for the same thing for their live performance at Woodstock 94 from that concert album).
In 1992, Reznor set to record his second full-length album, and first for Interscope, at the house where the cult members of Charles Manson killed Sharon Tate and friends of hers back in 1969. Working with producer Mark "Flood" Ellis, the resulting work, The Downward Spiral, was put out in the spring of 1994. The lead single, "March Of The Pigs", was an entirely experimental piece of industrial rock that radio simply couldn't play, but due to fan interest had the single climb to #59 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. But that would change with the next release. "Closer", written solely by Trent, was sinister in intent, but this time totally accessible musically. And MTV getting on board with the video directed by Mark Romanek, and Nine Inch Nails found themselves with a hit...
As much as "Closer" was an indelible mark on the music of the year, the single stopped one notch short of the pop Top-40 in America in October of 1994. The song climbed to #11 on Billboard's Modern/Alternative Rock radio chart (spending 25 weeks on it in the process), and even crossed over to their Mainstream Rock format list at #35. The dance remixes of the song helped it rise to #29 on the Dance Club Play list as well. Internationally, the single did hugely in Australia (#3) and Canada (#5), while making it to #12 in Denmark and #25 in the UK.
The next two singles from the album weren't released as singles but simply promoted to radio. "Piggy" made it to #20 on the Modern/Alternative format chart, while his ballad "Hurt", which has come to be a critic's classic even overshadowing "Closer" (with a little help from the Johnny Cash cover), went to #8 on the Alternative rock chart and placed at #54 on the pop Hot 100 Airplay list.
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Here's Trent with Nine Inch Nails performing "Closer" at Woodstock 94...
And live in concert in 2007...
and finally on stage in 2018...
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