Background
Reznor garnered mainstream attention with his influential second album The Downward Spiral, as well as a widely broadcast live performance at Woodstock '94. From that point onward, Nine Inch Nails was among the most popular music acts of the 1990s. In 1997, Reznor appeared in Time magazine's list of the year's most influential people, and Spin magazine described him as "the most vital artist in music.". However, Reznor's musical output was infrequent, having released only 3 major albums (excluding remixes and the 1992 EP Broken) from 1989 through 2005, with a rough average of five years between each release. During this time, Reznor became increasingly addicted to alcohol and drugs, resulting in erratic behavior, depression, and writer's block.
His 1999 double-album The Fragile was met with generally positive reviews from music critics and was a commercial success, selling over two million copies by the end of the year. However, it failed to attain the success of its predecessor and fell from the top of the Billboard after only a week. Afterwards, the only original Nine Inch Nails material released until 2005 was the 2000 remix album Things Falling Apart, as well as the 2001 single "Deep" from the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider soundtrack. Reznor told Spin magazine in 2005 that "I was going to just drink myself or drug myself out of it. I got back to New Orleans after the Fragile tour, and I'd pretty much lost my soul."
Read more about this topic: With Teeth
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