THE NIN HOTLINE

2017 seems like a couple of lifetimes ago. After an American election that shook the world, we were still digesting "Not The Actual Events" and the announcement that it was part of a trilogy, Trent and Atticus released a 4x vinyl edition of their score for "Before the Flood," a Fisher Stevens documentary about the effects climate change, and not long afterward, announced that music they had written for piano was being played nightly in a large scale Banksy installation in Bethlehem, "The Walled Off Hotel" - initially a temporary work, it stayed open through 2023, due to "major developments in the region". Bit of an understatement.

A single track, "green-lines", was made freely available on the website for the hotel - and in the metadata for the MP3 file, it was listed as track 8 of 11. It was one of several that are "performed" on a player piano in the hotel. In 2018, Ryan from NIN Live (which, if you haven't been in a couple of years, has been massively updated) finally got the chance to meet up with Trent and the band, and took the opportunity to ask about The Walled Off Hotel. "It's some of our strongest work and we are both very proud of it. We are hoping to release it on vinyl [...]."

We talked about it on ETS at the time, and even in 2020, we were speculating about what might have become of the project.

Last week, photographs of a promo CD, along with track information, got posted to Discogs by a user who's added an impressive collection of obscure promos during their three years on the platform.

What happened to the release? I don't know, but I can speculate. As per the wiki article on the hotel, some critics called the hotel "war tourism" that profits off the tragedy in the region, despite Banksy's intention of raising awareness to the conflict in the region. In 2018, it might have been controversial to sell records pressed with music from this hotel. In 2025, I can't even begin to fathom how the reception would be to a commercial project with such close associations to a mind-bendingly fucked up situation that is indelibly linked to this era of history.

Will the music ever be heard outside of the hotel? While it seems like an ideal "Ghosts" release, it seems unlikely that, barring a leak (and the owner on Discogs is not interested in your begging so please don't bother them). But now we know it exists!

Nobody does hyperbole like the entertainment press. (Did I hit that note right?) Some actual phrases from the headlines that turned up in my Google News over the last week include "From bad to worse," "Even bigger bomb than we thought," "Wildly cringey" and so on.

Meanwhile, whether it's the algorithm or not, on Threads, I keep seeing posts from people who really enjoyed seeing Tron:Ares in the theater. Whether going all out at an IMAX 4DX experience, seeing it in a more standard IMAX theater, seeing it in 3D, or just in the cinema, even the critics trying to one-up each other's language about how disappointing they feel this terrible movie was - everyone says it's an unmatched sonic experiene, and most say it's a spectacle too.

Putting aside Jared Leto (the driving force behind making the movie) and all the baggage there, something that all the marketing seems to have overlooked is that Tron films are Disney sci-fi made for a teenage audience, that function primarily to showcase state of the art video and sound. Going into Tron expecting strong acting and dialogue is setting yourself up for disappointment. I'd even argue that the marketing sets it up to be something it's not. (The same thing happened with another film with a Leto acting credit: Fight Club - which 'only' made $100M during its initial theatrical run) Would the box office numbers be different if the economy wasn't super fucking weird, if Disney didn't just get dinged for briefly acquiescing to Trump over Jimmy Kimmel, or if Leto would have produced but otherwise kept a low profile? No one actually knows. You're stuck in this timeline with me, and everything's a goddamn fight.

To that point - Tron Ares is leaving the big, big screens this week. By Friday, most IMAX theaters will move on in their programming, because the ticket sales are just not happening. If you want to see the film as a huge spectacle, you're not going to have another chance like this for a long, long time. I've seen it described as a feature length Nine Inch Nails video - sneak snacks in with you, buy a bucket of soda, and have a fucking fun time out of it, I say.

Earlier today in Los Angeles, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross joined Jeff Bridges for a Q&A after a screening of Tron:Ares, and since Trent Vanegas landed a good seat, you can watch the half hour session on YouTube. It's a delightful little session, and a real treat to get to see for all of us who aren't able to make it to LA for these events. Thanks for taking the time, Trent. (Trents?)

Invitations have been emailed for the Monday, October 6 premiere of Tron:Ares in Los Angeles, as seen in this Reddit post. What does it mean by "with appearances by Nine Inch Nails + Boys Noize"? We'll find out in a few days, and hopefully someone's there to document it!

Remember Billboard Magazine? When people bought records, they counted it all up and gave us numbers, and it's still kind of like that, but the last LP that NIN put out was 12 years ago, and things have changed a bit.

Regarding the Billboard 200, "The band’s soundtrack to the film TRON: Ares debuts at No. 5 (the highest debut of 2025 for a soundtrack) with 45,000 equivalent album units earned." Ah yes, equivalent album units. Those 45,000 units translates to 39,000 sales, plus 6,000 SEA (streaming equivalent album) translating to 8.37M streams. The 39,000 sales (physical sales? Quboz downloads?) is what puts it at #2 in Top Album Sales. This is the highest chart debut of 2025 for a soundtrack, and was no doubt bolstered by the physical variants available at indie stores, Target, and the official store.

I know my perspective is warped, but with 7,000 members of in the "Collecting and Trading" Facebook group alone, an official Discord with 30,000 members, and SIX HUNDRED EIGHTY SIX NIN HOTLINE FOLLOWERS ON BLUESKY, and a sold out arena tour - 39,000 album sales seems kind of off. What do I know?

I got the NIN exclusive vinyl, and made a non-contributing purchase of the weird Japanese 'floppy disk' packaging, but when I walked to my local indie record shop, Creep Records, they only had Broken in stock on vinyl, and weren't expecting Tron records or posters, which is probably just as well for me, in this economy.