What the pop papers say: Stoked on Trent

The NME this week has done something extraordinary: it's produced a Reading/Leeds preview issue - traditionally the most 'will this do' edition of the year - which is actually of interest if you weren't planning to spend a weekend in a tent.

Surprisingly, it's the first time ever Trent Reznor has appeared on the NME cover. In fact, it's the first time anyone called Trent has been on the front page since Terence Trent D'Arby, inexplicably, got four covers between 1987 & 1989.

(Worth recalling the month's-worth of TTDA issues when trying to create an argument about a golden age.)

And it's a pretty good interview, too. There's been - not that you'd know by looking at the outside - some strong articles on pop music around the world (death metal in northern Europe; protest music in Southern Europe) for example. And there's only been one spurious list issue so far in 2013.

Whereas Krissi Murison's editorship started off strongly and then collapsed, Greg CochraneMike Williams didn't seem especially promising when he first sat down but is doing some interesting things, quietly, inside the magazine.

Trent Reznor hates pretty Pretty Hate Machine

There's been a new reissue of Pretty Hate Machine coughed up by the record label. It's a bit repackaged, and everything.

Trent Reznor advises you not to buy it. Prefix mag explains why:

Reznor took to his Twitter account to make the following statement regarding the new reissue: "NIN fans, don’t waste your money on this version of PHM that was just released." He also called it "a record label bullshit move repackaging the older version" and told fans to "[i]gnore please." He then tweeted a link to the NIN Catalog website that describes the reissue as being very similar to the original and not remastered.

Luckily, the fans will probably have no money left after the last reissue of Pretty Hate Machine, which Reznor did approve of.

Embed and breakfast man: Gary Numan and Nine Inch Nails

For no real reason, let's just enjoy Gary Numan joining Trent Reznor to run through Cars at a London date in 2009:



[Buy: The Pleasure Principle]

Trent Reznor: The miniseries

Trent Reznor is - it says here - turning Year Zero into a mini-series:

"We are in [the development phase of] pre-production with HBO and BBC to do a miniseries," Reznor told the Los Angeles Times's Hero Complex blog. "It's exciting. I probably shouldn't say too much about it except that I understand that there's a thousand hurdles before anything shows up in your TV listing. It's been an interesting and very educational process and it cleared the HBO hurdle a few months ago and now we're writing drafts back and forth. So it's very much alive and incubating at the moment."

If this is a success, ELO's Out Of The Blue is thought to be next up.

Downloadable: Ross and Reznor

A sample for the try-some, buy-some new project from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross:

Naturally, they hope you'll buy the lot. If not, it'll add to Reznor's collection of emails, with which he is running a lucrative viagra business.

[thanks to Michael M]

Trent Reznor helps out on a Facebook movie. No, it says so here.

Trent, man, I thought you were tight with the Twitter team? What are you doing writing songs for a Facebook movie?

It turns out the Facebook year zero film had a script that Reznor couldn't turn down:

"When I actually read the script and realised what he was up to, I said goodbye to that free time I had planned."

Facebook has that effect on people. As you'll know if you've ever spent time waiting for somebody to finish feeding their virtual farm animals before you can take them to dinner.

Ian Astbury: Everyone is a robot EXCEPT ME If destroyed still true

Bloody hell, Ian Astbury's pissed off. If he's not raging at people not letting him do stuff, he's shaking his bony little fist at people who do let him do stuff.

Right now, he's angry that nobody stopped him from having a go at being in "The Doors":

"There wasn't a single American singer who stepped up to the plate and said: 'I want to do this. I'm an American artist – I demand to do this," He tells the HeraldSun. "Not Eddie Vedder, not Dave Grohl, not Trent Reznor, not Perry Farrell. Not Scott Weiland. Not one of them stepped up and fought for it. When The Doors needed that generation to surround them and support them, the cupboard was bare."

Trent Reznor turned down the chance to lead the freshly disinterred corpse of what was left of The Doors? Hard to believe, isn't it?

It doesn't, of course, occur to Astbury that there's a possibility some singers might have loved The Doors so much they felt that pretending to be Jim Morrison would be a bad thing to do. Or that Vedder, Grohl, Reznor and Farrell are from the generation-two-along from Jim and thus don't really have any sense that they 'owe' a few older guys anything when they started up their nostalgia trip pension fund.

Or perhaps they could just spot a shitty stick when they're being handed it.

Nine Inch Nails: The fear that drives the band

What is it that keeps Trent Reznor going? A face in his head, that's what:

Now when I’m offstage, I’m not same guy onstage but it’s driven by the same place. I’d never want to be Gene Simmons, an old man who puts on makeup to entertain kids, like a clown going to work ... In my paranoia, I fear that if I don’t stop this, it could become that. Because it’s nice to get a paycheck, and now the only way to get a paycheck is to play live, so it’s all those things swirling around in my head.

Reznor is pretty sharp on the challenges facing people who rely on music for their paycheques:

It’s a kind of Mafia-type run business .. They have systematically taken advantage of artists over the years from The Beatles onwards. You [the artists] do all the work, they loan you money to make records, then you pay them back and they own everything. To see that system collapse is an exciting thing. There isn’t a clear answer on what the right thing to do is right now, and as a musician you’re up against a pretty difficult scenario: most kids feel it’s OK to steal music, and do freely ... The good news is that people are excited and interested in music ...

It's perhaps disappointing to hear him use the RIAA phrase "steal music"...

As an artist it’s your job to capitalize on that. It means generally swallowing a bitter pill and saying, ‘Hey, people don’t want to buy music, so let me give it to you. I’ll find another way to make money but I want you on my side and hearing my music. So let’s get rid of this walled garden of having to pay to hear it, here it is, give it to your friends. Hey, try to come to our show if you can, or you can buy this T-shirt of ours if you like, and that will help us out. Or, here’s a nice version of our album that we put in a cool package for a premium price and we’re only selling a couple thousands of them.’

... because it's clear that what he means is not that people are stealing at all; they're just not placing any cash value on the digital product. It's not theft, it's the market exerting its logic, Trent - which is what you show by your responses.

Trent Reznor: Retweet

Everyone seems delighted at Trent Reznor's return to Twitter earlier today.

Well, everyone except The Independent, who only got around this morning to telling its readers that Reznor had quit social networking "for good".

The Reznor's edge: Trent quits

Just as Tim Westwood tweets that "I'm feelin bad", Trent Reznor decides it's time to wind up the Twitterage:

I approached that as a place to be less formal and more off-the-cuff, honest and "human". I was not expecting to broadcast details of my love life there, but it happened because I'm in love and it's all I think about and that's that. If this has bummed you out or destroyed what you've projected on me, fair enough - it's probably time for you to leave. You are right, I'm not the same person I was in 1994 (and I'm happy about that). Are you?

So, for a while, Twitter was like this kind of Eden-y place. So what was the serpent?

Metal Sludge. Who they, Trent?

Metal Sludge is the home of the absolutely worst people I've ever come across. It's populated mainly by unattractive plump females who publicly fantasize about having sex with guys in bands. Kind of like a role-playing game where people NOBODY will fuck make up stories about their incredible sexual encounters with people they WISH they could fuck. It would be kind of funny in a sad and pathetic way except the fun doesn't stop there - hate and good old-fashioned outright blatant racism are also encouraged to spice things up and remind you how truly ugly these scourges are. TRULY ugly on the inside (the outside is obvious).

The throwing of "plump" onto that list of failings jars somewhat.

Anyway, Metal Sludgers are now popping up on Twitter, and so Trent is sloping off elsewhere:

I will be tuning out of the social networking sites because at the end of the day it's now doing more harm than good in the bigger picture and the experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule.

Does Reznor have an answer?

I had thought a while ago about attempting to start a mainstream public forum that required real verification of it's participants for purposes of context. The idea was to have a place where you can actually discuss whatever and have some idea of who you're conversing with. For example, if we were discussing drumming techniques and you can see that someone participating in the discussion is a drum instructor vs. a 13 year old kid Googling answers, you'd have the proper context in which to have a potentially valid discussion. If we were discussing EDLC's heart condition and a real cardiologist speaks up, I'd value his opinion over, say FredFuckFaceWhateverHisLastFuckingNameIs's "opinion". Know what I mean? Anyway, we're in a world where the mainstream social networks want any and all people to boost user numbers for the big selloff and are not concerned with the quality of experience.

The question, I suppose, is how do you 'prove' your experience? And the knock-on one of how do you help others to weigh the value of that experience - sure, the examples Reznor offers are pretty clear-cut. But if, say, you're looking for a steer on the tube strike, how would you know if should give more weight to a Tweet from someone in the Mayor's office against a member of the RMT negotiating team? It might have been nice had Trent kept some of his energies for working on an answer to that sort of question, rather than just withdrawing.

But then he has other things to focus on:

With all of that said, I have business in the real world to attend to including wrapping up the live version of NIN, DOING some cool new shit and spending as much time as possible with the most amazing woman in the world.

Web 2.0's loss is music and romance's gain.

Just one question, though: could he not have just blocked people on Twitter who he felt were Sludge? You don't have to follow everyone back, after all - isn't it your choice how many signal follows to noise follows you have?

Nails hammer Apple

To be frank, ranked in the list of Apple embarrassments, the Nine Inch Nails u-turn won't really make the top ten (it's no Newton) but the decision to restore Nine Inch Nails' app to the app store is quite important. It suggests that Apple have managed to get back a bit of perspective after the wobble post-baby shaker.

Curiously, Cupertino have nothing to say about the change of heart:

Apple have refused to explain their change of heart, saying: "It's not something we comment on."

- but they were happy enough to comment on the time they reversed their decision and did ban baby shaker. So, still a small problem with consistency, there.

Apple pulls Nails

The Nine Inch Nails iPhone app was something a triumph for everyone involved - it showed Apple's mobile platform was capable of sexy, alluring, grown-up uses; it gave Trent Reznor reach into a different market. It was wonderful.

Was. Apple have now yanked it because of 'offensive content'. Presumably, in the same way that post-Brand, the BBC have gone compliance crazy, having had its reputation tarnished by the baby shaking monstrosity, Apple are now hitting the delete button as soon as anything that would upset the faintest of maiden aunts is discovered.

Twittergem: Trent_Reznor

Trent was online last night. Trent, not "Trent", as he explains:

Asshole alert: @trent__reznor is a fake.
about 8 hours ago from web

1 underscore = me (occasionally an asshole), 2 underscores = NOT me (full-time, internet-style, coward asshole)
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

In all seriousness, I have met a number of fragile personalities over the years who have had lengthy online friendships with impostors.
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

... that shit MAKES ME MAD.
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Then they're pissed at me because I'm not who they've been talking to!
about 7 hours ago from TweetDeck

And why am I telling YOU and who am I talking to right now?? -losing my shit here. Step away from the TweetDeck, sir.
about 7 hours ago from TweetDeck

OK, just one more. FYI I can stop doing this any time I want to.
about 7 hours ago from TweetDeck

I figure as long as I TWEET (I feel stupid saying that) LESS times per day than @davenavarro6767 and @amandapalmer I'm OK. Right? Yeah.
about 7 hours ago from TweetDeck

SEE! She couldn't HELP but tweet. RT @amandapalmer: @trent_reznor good god. feeling your pain, brother.
about 7 hours ago from TweetDeck

And I know somewhere Dave's palms are sweaty... finger hovering over the RETURN button.
about 7 hours ago from TweetDeck

OKFUCKITMANIJUSTWENTANDSAWTHISMOVIESINNOMBREANDDRANKAWHOLESHITLOADOFDIETCOKEAND
I'MWIREDASALLHELLANDICAN'TSTOPMYSELFFROMBABBLINGONABOUTNOTHIN
about 7 hours ago from TweetDeck

[Follow: twitter.com/trent_reznor. One underscore.]

Cornell bites back with vague New Testament references

Yesterday, Trent Reznor was less-than-flattering about Chris Cornell's new album.

Cornell wasn't going to take that lolling about like a barely-coherent buffoon. Or at least he'd try not to not to, shooting this back:

“What do you think Jesus would twitter,” Cornell asks. ” ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’ or ‘Has anyone seen Judas? He was here a minute ago.’ ”

It's almost certain that Jesus would be posting sarcastic tweets to defend an indefensible record. What's less clear is why Cornell believes that Reznor is one of his disciples.

Trent tweets; NME reports; we blog

... and all because Chris Cornell's album is rotten:

“You know that feeling you get when somebody embarrasses themselves so badly YOU feel uncomfortable? Heard Chris Cornell's record? Jesus.”

Wonderfully, NME spins out the 140 word tweet into a full page, with a headline which tells you what the tweet said; a standfirst which tells you what the tweet said, an introductory paragraph which tells you what the tweet said, and the tweet itself.

There's no reason to not report interesting stuff found on Twitter. But the way you report on it might need a few tweaks.

Trent Reznor goes a bit Kanye West

Breaking off from lambasting his former label for closing down the planned 3D concert tour, Trent Reznor apologises for going a wee bit Kanye:

This was an amazing tour and production - certainly the best thing I've ever been involved with and likely the final tour for NIN on this scale. Thank you to those that came out to see it and forgive me for having a Kanye West moment, but this was FOR SURE the best show of the year and any bullshit end-of-the-year poll you may read in the next few weeks that says otherwise simply has it wrong. Those of you who saw it know I'm right.

It seems when you go down with a touch of the Kanyes, it can be really hard to fight off the infection.

Head like a hole; throat liked a splintered, debarked willow

You can give away your music. You can even make the bits to remix it available free. But even then, you can't protect your throat from market forces. Trent Reznor has canceled shows, and croaked out an apology:

"Just want to personally say how sorry I am to have to do this. I never take postponing a show lightly and if there were any possible way I could pull this off I would. This is a very frustrating and maddening situation for me and I appreciate your understanding. I'll make it up to you."

"I'll make it up to you" makes it sound less like he's an unwell man who's pulled gigs and more like a husband who's decided to play golf rather than going to see his wife's choir performance.

Now Trent Reznor takes on Ticketmaster

Having had a bit of chip away at the record labels, Nine Inch Nails are now trying to shake up online ticket sales. Or at least make them a bit more fan-friendly. Yes, you have to be registered to gain access, but unlike Glastonbury, where the registration confers upon you nothing more than the right to compete with everyone else to buy tickets, being registered with NIN comes with benefits: presale access, mostly. You pick up your ticket on the door, and go straight in - supposedly bypassing the risk of scalpers.

It'll be interesting to see how it works - and also what happens to the tickets which don't get sold this way. Will it mean genuine but unregistered NIN fans end up having to pay more for touted tickets in a tighter market?

Trent Reznor calls Radiohead

Although there might not seem to be too much difference between Trent Reznor and Radiohead's pay-if-you-like models for album releases, Trent Reznor reckons he's actually purer that Thom Yorke, on the grounds that the Nine Inch Nails downloads are of a superior audio quality:

"What they did was a cool thing; I think the way they parlayed it into a marketing gimmick has certainly been shrewd," he told ABC's Michael Atkin. "But if you look at what they did, though, it was very much a bait and switch to get you to pay for a MySpace-quality stream as a way to promote a very traditional record sale."

"There's nothing wrong with that - I but don't see that as a big revolution [that] they're kinda getting credit for."

"What they did right: they surprised the world with a new record, and it was available digitally first. What they did wrong: by making it such a low quality thing, not even including artwork ... to me that feels insincere."

'Not including artwork' - yes, because a small thumbnail of an album cover to pop up on coverflow really does add something to the experience. And since Radiohead allowed people to pay what they believed the downloads were worth, surely you can't argue that people didn't get what they paid for? The very opposite, surely?

Reznor launches new album on Pirate Bay

Trent Reznor's new, label-free career has launched, with a nine-track sampler from his new record popping up on Pirate Bay and other places that, if you visited, would make the BPI want to steal your computer.

Yes, a nine-track sampler. The new album, Ghosts, actually has thirty-six tracks. Which is more than you'd get on a normal, RIAA brand album, too.

Reznor says:

Now that we're no longer constrained by a record label, we've decided to personally upload Ghosts I, the first of the four volumes, to various torrent sites, because we believe BitTorrent is a revolutionary digital distribution method, and we believe in finding ways to utilize new technologies instead of fighting them.

We encourage you to share the music of Ghosts I with your friends, post it on your website, play it on your podcast, use it for video projects, etc. It's licensed for all non-commercial use under Creative Commons.

We've also made a 40 page PDF book to accompany the album. If you'd like to download it for free...

...Undoubtedly you'll be able to find the complete collection on the same torrent network you found this file...

...but if you're interested in the release, we encourage you to check it out at ghosts.nin.com, where the complete Ghosts I-IV is available directly from us in a variety of DRM-free digital formats, including FLAC lossless, for only $5. You can also order it on CD, or as a deluxe package with multitrack audio files, high definition audio on Blu-ray disc, and a large hard-bound boo

For five bucks? Blimey, that's cheaper than Wal-Mart