Johnny Cash charted posthumously with “Hurt”

Hurt Nine Inch Nails

Writer(s): Trent Reznor (see lyrics here) Released: April 17, 1995 First Charted: April 22, 1995 Peak: 54a US, 8 MR, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 41.1 video, 107.95 streaming

Hurt Johnny Cash

Released: March 8, 2003 First Charted: November 1, 2003 Peak: 56 CW, 33 MR, 39 UK, 66 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 2.75 US, 0.6 UK, 3.68 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 347.40 video, 685.51 streaming

Awards for Nine Inch Nails Version: Click on award for more details. Awards for Cash Version: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: In 1995, Nine Inch Nails released the song “Hurt” from their second album, The Downward Spiral. The top 10 modern rock hit references self-harm and heroin addiction, but the overall meaning of the song has been disputed. Some have said it is a suicide note written by the protagonist and others see it as a more uplifting song about finding a reason to live in spite of depression and pain. WK It has also been characterized as “about realizing consequences and regret.” SF Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor has said it is the most personal song he’s ever written. SF Little did he know it would become the quintessential eulogy for one of country music’s greatest legends. Reznor was friends with Rick Rubin who, in the last decade, had served as “the svengali of [Johnny] Cash’s reinvention.” NME Rubin suggested the song to Cash, knowing its vulnerability and expression of pain would match his failing voice. The song didn’t catch Cash’s ear initially, but he eventually called it “the best anti-drug song I ever heard.” SF “The stark, desolate sorrow of the original was translated into harrowing, minimal balladry by the Man In Black.” NME By whittling the song down “to little more than an acoustic guitar and the trembling voice of a dying man,” RS Cash was effectively “writing his own grim eulogy.” PD “His authoritative baritone has all but disappeared, and even his legendary dark humor has deserted him, replaced by painful honesty about life, death, and regret…It’s the crowning achievement of one of the great musical lives of our era; it’s the necessary reminder of age and mortality in the middle of youth and promise.” DS “It’s hard to imagine anyone but Johnny Cash making it sound like a standard.” PD His take on the song captures “the fear and regret we rarely like to acknowledge until faced with our own mortality.” PD Kudos to “Rubin for recognizing that Cash’s genius would transform a ‘90s goth-rock dirge into a classic on par with his ‘50s murder ballads.” AM Reznor was originally angry about the cover, saying it felt invasive, SF but after seeing the video he said, “That song isn’t mine anymore…It really made me think about how powerful music is as a medium and art form. I wrote…about a bleak and desperate place I was in, totally isolated and alone. [Somehow] that winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a radically different era/genre and still retains sincerity and meaning – different, but every bit as pure.” WK The video was directed by Mark Romanek, who had previously collaborated with Nine Inch Nails WK and shot videos for U2, Michael Jackson, and Madonna. SF The video mixed archival footage of Cash with current shots of “one of America’s most iconic figures suddenly looking so vulnerable, so human, so utterly spent.” PD By showcasing “the stark and seemingly cruel reality of the present,” WK the video served as an obituary for Cash, who died seven months later on September 12, four months after his wife, June Carter Cash, who is also featured in the video. Cash’s management wasn’t sure it should be released because it was so intimate, but his daughter Rosanne convinced him. SF It won Grammy and Country Music Assocation Awards for Video of the Year. In July 2011, New Musical Express magazine named it the best video of all time, as did Country Music Television (CMT) in 2004. WK The Country Music Association also awarded it Single of the Year in 2003. In a 2007 BBC poll, Cash’s take on the song was voted the best-ever cover of another artist’s song. SF Resources: AM Atlanta Metromix (11/24/2009). “Best songs of the decade” DS Don’t Stay Up Too Late blog (10/31/2009). “100 Songs of the 2000s” NME NME.com (11/11/09). 100 Tracks of the Decade PD Popdose.com (11/24/2009). “The Best Songs of the Decade” RS Rolling Stone (12/9/2009). “Songs of the Decade” SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 11/18/2019; last updated 7/6/2025.

Nine Inch Nails The Downward Spiral released

The Downward Spiral Nine Inch Nails

Released: March 8, 1994 Peak: 2 US, 9 UK, 13 CN, 12 AU Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 4.0 US, 0.10 UK, 4.44 world (includes US and UK) Genre: industrial rock

Tracks: Song Title [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Mr. Self Destruct [4:31] Piggy (Nothing Can Stop Me Now) [4:24] (12/24/94, 20 MR, 23 DF) Heresy [3:54] (27 DF) March of the Pigs [2:5] (2/25/94, 59 BB, 45 UK, 21 DF) Closer [6:14] (5/7/94, 41 BB, 35 AR, 11 MR, 25 UK, 2 DF) Ruiner [4:58] The Becoming [5:31] I Do Not Want This [5:41] Big Man with a Gun [1:36] A Warm Place [3:22] Eraser [4:53] Reptile [6:52] The Downward Spiral [3:58] Hurt [6:16] (4/22/95, 54 BA, 8 MR, 1 DF) All songs written by Trent Reznor. Total Running Time: 65:02

Rating: 4.169 out of 5.00 (average of 22 ratings) Quotable: “An industrial-rock gem” – Blender magazine Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

The Recording of the Album Trent Reznor “wrote and played the entirety of” TB Nine Inch Nails’ first two releases – the debut album Pretty Hate Machine in 1989 and the Broken EP in 1992. For his third release, The Downward Spiral, Reznor recruited a number of session musicians – including guitarist Adrian Belew, who’d worked with David Bowie, King Crimson, Talking Heads, and Frank Zappa. The album was recorded in the Los Angeles house on Cielo Dive where Sharon Tate was murdered by the Manson family. Reznor claimed that “When I rented the place, I didn’t realize it was that house.” 500 “Visitor Tori Amos concluded the house was cursed.” RD Themes of Gloom and Doom Regardless of what he knew or didn’t, Reznor crafted a record in which “horror soaks through the songs,” RD creating a “cauldron of one’s deepest fears.” TM It was “nastily, noisily, suicidally glum.” RD “Its narratives follow disturbed characters as they attempt to extract themselves from the grip of various psychosis.” TM Reznor described it as being about “somebody who throws away aspect of his life – from relationships to religion. [It] also looks at vices as ways of trying to dull the pain. I’m talking about myself…Not that that’s any great leap for me.” RD “Reznor’s raw intensity and sonic experimentation dive deep into themes of self-destruction and despair.” OH His “preening self-absorption and serpentine sexuality seemed directly descended from Jim Morrison” SH while his “nihilism often seemed like a reaction against some repressively extreme standard of purity.” SH It all led to a “pounding soundtrack to the drug-fueled psychosexual persecution drama that played out in his head.” EW’12 “Reznor spat out a suicidal concept record with industrial metal roots.” CQ An Industrial-Rock Gem The “musically complex, lyrically bleak” BL album “has its share of Reznor’s trademark industrial corrosiveness” 500 but connects “the cudgel-like bluntness of industrial rock…to more ornate – and sometimes surprisingly beautiful – orchestrations.” TM The album is “an industrial-rock gem” BL that established Reznor as “industrial’s own Phil Spector” SH and “a synth antihero.” BL It “remains Reznor’s greatest artistic success and also the biggest selling Nine Inch Nails album.” TB The album “is full of striking sonic juxtapositions and sudden about-faces in tone, which make for a fascinating listen.” SH It finds Reznor “painting detailed, layered soundscapes from a wide tonal palette,” SH “taking some pop aesthetic from…[the] dance-oriented Pretty Hate Machine and grinding it up” CQ with “the crashing metal guitars of Broken.” SH He also “integrated…several newfound elements – expanded song structures, odd time signatures, shifting arrangements filled with novel sounds, tremendous textural variety [which] can be traced to the influence of progressive rock.” SH A Wide Range of Genre Influences Reznor “spearheaded a wave of industrial pop, nu-metal, mid-’90s alternative, and the like, all alongside a leviathan called grunge rock.” CQ The album “distills wide-ranging styles and mesmerizing sound effects into his singular brand of brooding computerized art-rock.” UT The album combines “soundscapes inspired by David Bowie’s Low” 500 with “a series of tense and often troubling scenes pumped up to Pink Floyd-esque grandeur.” TM Reznor is also “fluent in King Crimson, knows death metal of the late ‘80s, can do a wicked power-ballad guitar solo when necessary (see Ruiner), and, surprisingly, has a healthy admiration for the droning synths of ‘80s mope-rock.” TM Song Highlights “More important than craft in turning Reznor into a full-fledged rock star, however, was his brooding persona. Grunge had the mainstream salivating over melodramatic angst, which had always been Reznor’s stock in trade.” SH “During the harrowing opening moments of March of the Pigs, he throws you in headfirst. The overdriven, serrated-edge guitars and equally distorted vocal shouts bring you to a place where the order of things means nothing.” TM “On I Do Not Want This, a sociopath expresses the desire to ‘do something that matters.’ He could be referring to anything from rape to a random act of heroism.” TM “The aggressive Closer,” OH which samples drums from Iggy Pop’s “Nightclubbing,” RD ended up being a “left-field hit.” SH It made Reznor “a postmodern shaman for the ‘90s, obsessed with exposing the dark side he saw behind even the most innocuous façades.” SH The “album ends on an affecting emotional peak” SH with “the tentatively hopeful (and intensely personal)” 500 as well as “haunting Hurt. ” OH It “mingles drama and introspection in a way Reznor had never quite managed before. It’s evidence of depth behind the charisma that deservedly made him a star.” SH Johnny Cash covered the song a few years later, calling it “the best anti-drug song I ever heard.” RD “You know you’re awesome when Johnny Cash makes one of your songs his own personal, unplanned eulogy.” CQ Notes: The 2004 deluxe edition adds a second disc of bonus tracks – “‘Burn’ comes from the soundtrack to Natural Born Killers; ‘Closer (Precursor),’ ‘Closer to God,’ and ‘Memorabilia’ from the Closer to God maxi-single; ‘Piggy (Nothing Can Stop Me Now),’ ‘Hurt (Quiet),’ and ‘The Downward Spiral (The Bottom)’ from the Further Down the Spiral remix EP; the covers of Joy Division’s ‘A Violet Fluid’ and Soft Cell’s ‘All the Pigs, All Lined Up’ from the March of the Pigs maxi-single; and ‘Dead Souls’ from the soundtrack to The Crow. The final three tracks are previously unreleased demos of the album tracks ‘Ruiner,’ ‘Reptile,’ and ‘Heresy.’” WR

Reviews: SH AllMusic.com review by Steve Huey WR AllMusic.com review of deluxe edition by William Ruhlmann BL Blender (10/08). “100 Greatest American Albums” CQ Consequence.net (9/12/2022). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” RD Robert Dimery (2006). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Quintet Publishing Limited: New York, NY. Page 748. EW’12 Entertainment Weekly (9/27/2012). “Top 100 Albums” TM Tom Moon (2008). 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. Workman Publishing Company, Inc.: New York, NY. Page 552. OH One Hit Thunder (2/10/2026). “The Thundred: The Top 100 Albums of All Time” 500 Rolling Stone (2020). 500 Greatest Albums of All Time TB Thunder Bay (2005). Albums: The Stories Behind 50 Years of Great Recordings. Thunder Bay Press; San Diego, CA. Page 274. UT USA Today (12/5/2003). “Top 40 Albums – the USA Today Way” Related DMDB Links: First posted 3/28/2011; last updated 10/7/2026.