10 Bands Who Released Genre Defining Second Albums

After spending some years as a session musician during the height of the late eighties synth-wave scene, Trent Reznor spent any spare studio time he could find for himself to knuckle down and record his first album as Nine Inch Nails, Pretty Hate Machine, which was released in 1989. The album took the eighties synth-pop sound into a darker place, mixed with heavy distorted guitars in places, and was one of the influential albums in what would become the industrial-rock scene of the nineties.

Nine Inch Nails followed this release with the Broken and Fixed EPs, before recording the true defining release of their career, The Downward Spiral (1994). The album was unlike anything heard before, a complete experimentation in what was possible with industrial rock music, and a strange eclectic journey from start to finish. Trent Reznor and his band of hired musicians produced the controversial hit Closer, the aggressively abrasive Mr Self Destruct and March Of The Pigs, and the stripped back sounds of Piggy and Hurt.

These were in addition to whole number of further intriguing deeper cuts, which blended electronica, rock and metal like never before. Lyrically the album is incredibly dark, dealing with the deep subject matter of Reznor’s addictions and mental health, and The Downward Spiral would ultimately go on to see Nine Inch Nails become one of the highest grossing, and most in demand touring bands in the world.