Head Like a Hole

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"Head Like a Hole"

Single by Nine Inch Nails
Released	March 22, 1990
Format	CD, 12"
Recorded	1989
Genre	Industrial rock
Length	56:43 (US) 16:16 (UK)
Label	TVT Records
Producer(s)	Trent Reznor, Flood, Adrian Sherwood, Keith LeBlanc
Chart positions
#28 (US Modern Rock) #45 (UK) #4 (Hot Singles Sales)
Nine Inch Nails singles chronology
"Down in It" (1989)	"Head Like a Hole" (1990)	"Sin" (1990)
Alternate cover

UK release

This article is about the Nine Inch Nails single. For the band Head Like a Hole, see HLAH.

"Head Like a Hole" (also known as Halo 3) is a single by Nine Inch Nails for the song of the same name released in 1990. "Head Like a Hole" originally appeared on the album pretty hate machine.

1 The song
2 The single
- 2.1 Releases
- 2.2 Track listing
  - 2.2.1 US version
  - 2.2.2 UK version
3 External links

[edit] The song

"Head Like a Hole" was Nine Inch Nails' first popular song, enjoying heavy rotation on the radio at the time.

A music video was made for the "Clay" remix of this song. It was directed by Eric Zimmerman and released in March, 1990. The video became popular on MTV and helped fuel NIN's early success. A slightly different edit of the video was also released for Flood's remix of the song. The video features Nine Inch Nails bandmembers Trent Reznor, Richard Patrick and Chris Vrenna along with guest drummer Martin Atkins performing the song in a cage.

"Head Like a Hole" has been covered by AFI, The Ancient Gallery, Devo, Eric Gorfain, Korn, Chester Bennington, Peter Murphy, Lullacry, Most Precious Blood, Opium Jukebox, Raymond Watts (PIG), Razorblade Smile and Still Remains. Also, Darren Hayes performed a section of this song during a live remix of the Savage Garden single Break Me, Shake Me.

There is a live performance of "Head Like a Hole" on And All That Could Have Been and Beside You in Time.

[edit] The single

Head Like a Hole is the third official Nine Inch Nails release and is a single from the album pretty hate machine. It contains remixes of three different songs from Pretty Hate Machine and is longer in duration than the album itself.

A three-track version of this single was released in the UK. This version contains "Head Like a Hole (Opal)", which is not included on the US release.

"Down in It (Shred)" and "Down in It (Singe)" were previously released on the Down in It single. However, the latter track has been extended by 18 seconds.

The unlisted eleventh track is Kelly Ripa yelling "Let's hear it for Nine Inch Nails! Woo! They're good!" This is a sample from Dance Party USA during a NIN appearance on the show.

The 11 track US version of the single has recently been re-packaged and re-released. This version was also finally released in the UK.