10 Greatest Anti-Love Songs In Rock Music History
5. Something I Can Never Have - Nine Inch Nails
When Nine Inch Nails first broke onto the scene, you can't exactly say that their sound was the most subtle. Since the mixes of tracks like Terrible Lie and Head Like a Hole felt like peeling the flesh off your bones, Trent Reznor was looking to commit any sort of assault on your senses that he could. All that intensity needs to come down eventually though, and Trent found a void at the end on Something I Can Never Have.
Sandwiched right in the middle of Pretty Hate Machine, this is the kind of unrequited love song that many people have heard a million times from your average synth pop act. When it's put in Reznor's hands though, you can feel something a lot darker at play here, almost as if he can feel his sanity collapsing around him as he sings every word.
The production is the real star here, making the entire piano sound like it's barely holding itself together, almost mirroring the frayed ends of Trent's mind as he sings. Compared to the usual sense of heartache that you get from breakup tunes, Trent doesn't seem to feel anything after he's watching the love is his life walk away from him. The love that he has may in fact be genuine, but not acting on it just makes you see at how hollow everything is on the surface.