THE NIN HOTLINE

It's award season, and fifteen years ago, that meant that CDs, DVDs, and other goodies would get mailed out to attract the attention of people who vote in things like the Golden Globes, the Oscars, and so on. That still happens on a much more limited scale, but for us plebes who aren't interested in spending three figures trying to buy a CD that's not supposed to be for sale, these days the studios post For Your Consideration scores online, as Amazon MGM has done for Challengers here.

If you're not familiar, the scores submitted to Oscar voters are different than the commercial releases, as they must be "as heard" in the film. This sometimes means there's music in the For Your Consideration (FYC) album that's not on the official release. Sometimes the music on an FYC score is a more primitive edit of what you've been listening to. And sometimes familiar music cuts off suddenly, because it was written as a cue for a scene that ends abruptly. It can be an interesting peek into the process that goes into taking these film cues and turning them into "songs". And you can listen to all 21 cues from Challengers, online, here. If you're clever with a web browser, you can even figure out how to download them for keeps.

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.