Nine Inch Nails - Head Like a Hole ( S1.1 )

 

Music and lyrics

"Head Like a Hole" has been classified as an industrial rock and electronic rock song, and recognized as an "industrial dance anthem". The tempo is 115 BPM, and it is played in the key of E Minor.

The chords of this song are similar to the project's debut single, "Down in It". In contrast to "Down in It", "Head Like a Hole" has a longer intro, lasts roughly one minute longer (the song is five minutes long in its aggregate length), is heavy metal music-oriented, and has no rapping. "Head Like a Hole" is also the opening track on Nine Inch Nails' 1989 debut album, and is one of the two Nine Inch Nails songs produced by Flood to appear on Pretty Hate Machine.

Release and reception

Labeled as "Halo 3", Head Like a Hole is the third official Nine Inch Nails release, containing remixes of three different songs from Pretty Hate Machine. The single release is longer in duration than the album itself. The single peaked at #28 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart.

A three-track version of this single was released in the UK containing "Head Like a Hole (Opal)" which is not included on the US release. This version begins with a sample of "Tamborine" by Prince, taken from his 1985 album Around the World in a Day and incorporates a drum loop sampled from "Release It" taken from another Prince record, the soundtrack to the Prince-directed movie Graffiti Bridge (1990). The saxophone in "Release It" can be heard before the drum loop begins. 

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