Nine Inch Nails

If you want to nail down the moment when the rock & roll of the 1980s gave way to the rock & roll of the 1990s, consider October 29, 1989, and the release of the first Nine Inch Nails album, Pretty Hate Machine. Working nights in a borrowed recording studio in Cleveland, multi-instrumentalist Trent Reznor (b. May 17, 1965) poured his heart and talent into a collection of songs that articulated the frustration, ambition, and righteous fury of a generation whose dreams had been lost between the narcissism of the baby boomers and the selfishness of the Reagan era.