“Head Like a Hole” by Nine Inch Nails

"Head Like a Hole" came out on Pretty Hate Machine, the 1989 Nine Inch Nails debut, on October 20 of that year, and it later became the album's second single. It's industrial rock with its teeth bared: a pounding, mechanical groove, synths that snarl like power tools, and Trent Reznor howling over the top as if he's trying to kick the walls of the studio down.

The credits read like a one-man show, with Reznor writing the music and words, singing and recording it, and producing it alongside Flood. Keith LeBlanc mixed it, and a crew of engineers, Doug DeAngelis, Kennan Keating and Ken Quartarone among them, helped bolt the machine together.

It got heavy radio play in its day and reached number 9 on Billboard's Bubbling Under Hot 100. Devo, AFI, Buckcherry and Korn have all covered it, and it was even rewritten as "On a Roll" for the Black Mirror episode "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too", sung by Miley Cyrus as her character Ashley O.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.