10 Greatest Keyboardists In Hard Rock

By the time rock had reached the '90s, it felt like the era of keyboards was all but dead. After the grunge explosion started to slowly takeover, any chance of a new wave style piano taking over the charts were pretty much inconceivable in the era of Pearl Jam. On the other hand, Trent Reznor found his spot in rock history by being the pure antithesis of the authentic alternative rockers.

Drenching his keyboard and effects in darkness, Reznor's step up to the plate with Nine Inch Nails was a completely different look for the time. As opposed to just using keyboards in the traditional sense, Reznor used his synthesizer to create some of the most off-putting sounds of the modern age, from samples of horror films to notes that sounded like they were coming from the bottom of the crypt. Little did we know we were watching music history about to unfold.

Ever since his inception, Reznor proved himself to be a renaissance man behind the keyboard, igniting the industrial rock movement off the strength of albums like the Downward Spiral and the Fragile. That's not to say he didn't have his shining moments as well, from the borderline dissonant notes of Closer to the soft pad that runs throughout a Warm Place. For as much as the keyboard might sound dorky nowadays, Trent Reznor practically rewrote the rules for what the keyboard's role should be in hard rock.