Nine Inch Nails

Industrial rock as one-man studio band; Closer is the 1994 crossover single.

Started Cleveland 1988. Pretty Hate Machine and Broken EPs built the live/industrial hybrid; The Downward Spiral and The Fragile are the dense studio peaks—sampling, distorted vocals, programmed drums beside live kits. Closer (1994) is the MTV/radio spike. NIN matters in a guitar-band chronicle as the 1990s proof that rock dynamics can be built from machines without exiting rock radio.