1. "Hurt", written by Trent Reznor, originally appeared on which Nine Inch Nails' album?
From Quiz A World of Hurt
Answer:
The Downward Spiral
The album was released in 1994 during a period when Reznor was fighting demons of depression, substance addiction, bouts of writer's block and a compulsive quest to achieve perfection in the recording studio. Eerily the opening lines of the song "Hurt", "I hurt myself today. To see if I still feel", and the album's title, "The Downward Spiral" combine to become a reflection of this. If this is by design by Reznor it is remarkable. One cannot begin to imagine the battle and the frustration of having writer's block in one corner and a quest for perfection in the other. In moments like these it wouldn't be too difficult to want to place anything on paper or vinyl or disc, so to succinctly nail the moment in two brief sentences speaks volumes of the man's artistry. If you don't look hard enough it would be easy to identify only the despair in the track, however, "Hurt" proves to be a song of hope. "You can have it all, my empire of dirt" implores Reznor as he paints a picture of a man looking to shed his shackles of sadness and seek a reason to face another day.
"The Downward Spiral" and the band's subsequent "Self Destruct" tour to support it would launch the band to a much wider audience. Initially critics were not enamoured with the album's layered soundscapes and extended song structures but history has been much kinder to it and it is now seen as one of the most important releases of its time.