THE NIN HOTLINE

While Trent Reznor continues to focus on the future - rightly so - the fans are picking up the slack on celebrating milestones. Here are a few highlights:

If you're not already following nindivinedebris on Instagram, you should. And if Reddit's more your thing, he's posted a UK press kit there in high resolution, which gives the interesting perspective of the 1991 release of Pretty Hate Machine by Island Records. It's an interesting illustration of how different the music industry was over three decades ago: Nine Inch Nails had been touring for three years at this point, and the album had only been available overseas as an import.

On Threads, Rob Sheridan reflects on reimagining the artwork for the 20th anniversary edition. It's a bit of a recap from the longer story he tells on his Patreon page, about how the original artwork was lost.

And on the Bluesky account for the NIN Hotline, I shared the solution to an old question: What exactly is that on the cover of Pretty Hate Machine? It is, unmistakably, a huge diesel generator from the 1930s. Is it the one that's on display in Vista, CA? Hard to say, as it's entirely possible one of these monsters was kicking around the ruins of Cleveland in the late 80s - but maybe Gary Talpas made a stop on a road trip between LA and San Diego.

Okay, okay, I'll get to the headline. On Echoing the Sound, a post showed up today asking if these clips on Soundcloud are rare. The clips in question are of a demo version of Sin, but a different clip from the one Martin Atkins provided all those years ago. Much more interestingly though, is what sounds like a studio recording of "Maybe Just Once" - which has previously only been known as a "live in the studio" performance on the bootleg most commonly known as "Purest Feeling" - named after another pre-PHM NIN track that appears on that album.

Just when I think there's nothing else out there to chase down... there's always more. Do you know anyone who has early NIN or pre-NIN stuff that's not out in the wild?

Happy birthday, Pretty Hate Machine.

HBO's new series, The Franchise just debuted, and the pumping music underscoring the whole first episode is by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Film Music Reporter dropped this knowledge last month but unfortunately I don't think there's enough of a crossover between our audiences, so I learned about it from echoing the sound a couple of days ago.

The Franchise is a satirical comedy television series created by Jon Brown, and executive produced by Brown, Armando Iannucci and Sam Mendes. It depicts a "behind the scenes" look at a film that’s part of a larger superhero film franchise. And I definitely I lifted that description from Wikipedia.

Jeff Cardoni is apparently handling scoring duty for the rest of the series; Trent and Atticus are responsible for the theme song, which is used mostly at the beginning and the end of that first episode.

Sony Music Soundtracks announced on Instagram that the Boys Noize [Mixed] version of the Challengers soundtrack is getting a tennis-ball-colored vinyl release for Record Store Day Black Friday. In the US and Canada. Check with your local record store to see if they're participating, and bug them to get your copy - but if you're out of town, don't sweat it: this isn't an "RSD Exclusive" release, it's just "RSD First" which indicates that it will see a wider release as well.

That said, don't hesitate once it's out there. I remember briefly hesitating on spending the $24 on Amazon for a copy of The Slip on vinyl, because the CD/DVD was (and is) the superior format - but thankfully I went for it anyway. You never know when something not explicitly marked as "limited edition" just disappears from the market.

You didn't need to sign up for a mailing list, it's not a pre-order hidden behind a password or anything like that, Milan Records is taking pre-orders for $33.98 + shipping. The release date is November 1st - let's see how it goes.



(The vinyl-exclusive extras are trading cards and a Phil's Tire Town bumper sticker - not new music)

Mixing my metaphors on this sporting topic, the inside-baseball buried lede here is in the credits. Yes, it's good to see John Crawford in his role as creative director, but of note, Sara Newkirk Simon is listed as management for Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross. In fact, Sara is also an executive of With Teeth, the multi-disciplinary storytelling company first name-dropped in the April 2024 GQ interview; she had a long and impressive career with William Morris right up until the pandemic scrambled everything, and I think it will be interesting to see how that background and depth comes to bear on the next chapter of Nine Inch Nails.

Sony Music Soundtracks posted to the dying social platform Twitter that "vinyl details are finally dropping this week". Back in May, some international retailers accidentally published release dates in June and July - those dates came and went without anything actually happening. Seeing this posted from an official Sony account gives new weight to the rumors, but when it comes to any kind of physical release - it's only real when it's in your hands. Stay tuned.

As part of an 81-track career retrospective compilation, Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry has released a new track in collaboration with, among others, Trent and Atticus.



Previously, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross crossed streams with Bryan Ferry when scoring The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which had a cover of Ferry's "Is Your Love Strong Enough" featuring Mariqueen Maandig Reznor on vocals.

Watch the music video for 'Star' on YouTube. 'Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023', out 25th October 2024. Available on Super Deluxe 5CD, double LP, CD and digital - and you can buy it from all kinds of places.

Over a month ago now, NIN and Dr Martens announced a collaboration celebrating the 30th anniversary of The Downward Spiral, dramatically misjudged the demand, and immediately sold out of every single boot produced. It was a lot. Some people hated the boots before they even saw them, some people hated that they haven't even had the chance to see the boots, let alone own them. Folks who were able to secure a pair were posting excitedly about what they landed. I got a pair of boots too, but given all the emotional responses to the event, I was feeling bashful about them. And like most everyone else, I also didn't get boots.

I was overthinking this. Friends were telling me that if anyone deserved a pair of fan exclusive NIN boots, it was me. I came around to the idea that it's pretty fucking cool to have these, and sharing that is not in any way bragging. There's a lot of work that was put into these, so I decided to take some nice photos, and wrap them in some storytelling. If you want to skip the storytelling and go right to the photos, I put a link at the bottom of that article for you to skip to. It's a Flickr link, because that's how old I am, and because I think that's the best way to share very big photos like this.

And since you're still reading this, I'll wrap by giving a shout out to John Crawford and the team at Doctor Martens for putting all this together. Regardless of whoever projected sales figures around the end result, it was evident to me that this was a crew of thoughtful people who were excited at the opportunity to create something fun to celebrate a landmark work of art that's a core element in so many of our lives.

On the first night of D23, a Disney fan event that honestly seems pretty killer, the next Tron movie got a big announcement - a teaser trailer shows Jared Leto bringing the world of Tron into the real world, against a booming soundtrack that, to my ears, sounds a little bit like a reimagining of "Something I Can Never Have" from Pretty Hate Machine. As the trailer finishes, red lasers blast through the venue to a pumping score and an instantly recognizable scream, as the lasers etch out a NIN logo. As the lights go up, two figures are seen on stage - Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

Nine Inch Nails' social media has updated with an animated poster announcing a release date of October 10, 2025, along with the tagline "You're going to get what you deserve."

While we wait for an official trailer to be released, a shakycam recording is up on Reddit.

I was staying up to write an article about the NIN x Dr Martens collaboration, but that'll have to come another day. This is pretty great news, even if we're over a year away from the scheduled release.

Sage Anderson spoke with NIN's creative director, John Crawford, about the new NIN x DM collaboration. This is the first write-up that gets into the process a bit more, with choices like the height of the soles and choosing textures - as well as some info about price - these start at $160. (I'm putting that price in here so when in the year 2050, someone on the internet is saying Doc Martens price went up 100% in the last five years, someone can point out that, counting inflation, there have always been Docs available around the same price point)

Nice size product pics are out there too, so you can get a closer look at the details before these hit select stores on Friday.

Hypebeast is revealing details about the collaboration between Nine Inch Nails and Doc Martens, a release that celebrates 30 years of The Downward Spiral with four different styles of custom boots, embellished with details from the album artwork and with nods to the Self Destruct tour.

Last week on Reddit, John Crawford and the Doc Martens crew opened up an AMA - Ask Me Anything - where over 1700 respondents threw questions at the design team - five people were selected at random to win a pair of the fan-exclusive boots, and today he's gone back and answered a bunch of questions about the process of putting these together.

Online shops in South Africa, the Netherlands, and in Poland seem to have prematurely posted information about the CD version of the Challengers soundtrack. The release date on the South African site is listed as Friday, June 7, 2024. In Poland, the date is Friday, July 12, 2024. However, until you see something on nin.com - or Milan Records - it's best to treat this as just speculation at worst, or mistakes in handling product data at best.

Writing for The Wrap, Drew Tayler spoke with Alexander Ridha about how the continuous mix of the Challenger soundtrack came about. Described as a "last-minute request", Ridha's approach to Trent Reznor's request to remix the album evolved with a few iterations, after being encouraged to put more of his stamp on the end result.

The [MIXED] take on the soundtrack dropped ahead of the original score, and having listened to both (which I bought on HDtracks for 24-bit/96khz versions, also available on Qobuz), as much as I enjoy the score as-is, I find myself returning to the [MIXED] version as more of a daily-driver. This added context of how it came together is a nice treat, given the way this version dropped without much explanation.

That's it, that's the tweet. I'd link you to the tweet, but that platform is garbage.

waves_and_static replied to the Milan Records announcement for the soundtrack on Twitter, asking "CD or VINYL release?" to which the social media manager at Milan replied, "Working on both." Good news for fans of physical media, whether listening at home or DJing at the club.

On that note, from MGM's YouTube channel, here's an official 'music visualizer' for Compress/Repress. Not to be confused with a music video.

Danny Hyde, who worked with Coil and is responsible for a several posthumous Coil releases, posted a test pressing of Uncoiled to eBay. This itself is not unusual, Danny often sells interesting things on eBay, but when I clicked through, I noticed a sticker at the bottom with a manufacturing date of February 20, 2024. I went over to the Amazon listing for Uncoiled, and vinyl copies are selling at inflated prices - a pretty clear indication that it's been out of print for a while. It has also been, if the internet is to be believed, ten years since Cold Spring Records released Recoiled.

So if you've been thinking about getting a vinyl copy of these 90s-era-style remixes of 90s-era NIN songs, if you hold out, you may soon be able to pick one up without spending a three figure sum.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, this write-up at NIN.wiki will bring you up to speed.

There's a new interview - text and video - with Trent and Atticus over on Variety, where they talk about how the score came about, and collaborating with Luca Guadagnino on the musical direction for the upcoming film, "Challengers" - and at the bottom of this article by Steven J. Horowitz, there's this nice detail:

"While the “Challengers” score will release in tandem with the film, a different version entitled “Challengers [Mixed]” hit streaming services on April 12, featuring a special mix of songs remixed by Boys Noize. A rendition “Compress / Repress,” which features Reznor’s vocals and was co-written with Guadagnino, was included on “[Mixed],” but viewers will have to wait until the end of the film to hear the original version."