In a 2023 conversation with producer Rick Rubin on the Tetragrammaton podcast, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor reflected on the wide-ranging musical education he received as a teenager in 1980s America. He described discovering Frank Zappa's profanity-laden 1979 album Sheik Yerbouti in a mall record store as a "life-changing" moment, recalling being baffled yet thrilled by what he was hearing. The recollections offer insight into the formative influences behind one of modern music's most acclaimed and innovative songwriters.

Reznor explained that his path towards rock began with Kiss, whose "larger than life" appeal led him to abandon a piano tutor's suggestion that he pursue a career as a concert pianist, a route the 13-year-old decided "didn't sound like it was any fun". He also credited the Columbia Record Club mail-order service, which sent him Billy Joel's 52nd Street (1978) — an album he did not want but played relentlessly because he had paid full price for it — and he conceded there was "some Barry Manilow in there along the way" in his songwriting. Reznor lamented that today's culture of skipping and shuffling deprives listeners of the "learning curve" of persevering with unfamiliar records, noting that many of his favourite albums he "didn't understand at first". He has also recently cited David Cronenberg's psychological thriller Dead Ringers as an influence on his music.