Yep — The Social Network cleaned up at the Golden Globe Awards last night, surprising no one, and one of its shiny new statues was for the score, by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. You can watch a really, really shitty-quality clip of their acceptance speech below.

Even though I thought that The Social Network was overrated as a film, it’s hard for me to begrudge Reznor and Ross their success, ’cause the score is really fantastic. And it will be pretty funny if/when these guys take home the Osar next month; as Vince put it, “So many old goths will be so pissed!”

While you wait for that to happen, Amazon is selling the score for just five bucks, so you should go ahead and download that if you don’t already have it. There’s also a pretty lengthy, and totally fascinating, segment on how Reznor and Ross did the score on the DVD and Blu-ray release of the movie; basically, Reznor dicks around for an hour, and then Ross takes said dicking around and turns it into music. Kind of amazing.

-AR

The Social Network has been winning pretty much every critics’ award available to it, and seems poised to score big at the Oscars, too; and the score has made composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross Golden Glob Nominees, and we may yet find them thanking the Academy on February 27.

So it should shock no one to learn that, in a recent interview with The New York Times, Reznor revealed that he and Ross will re-team with The Social Network director David Fincher to score Fincher’s next movie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Click to read more…

The Golden Globes, in case you don’t know, are the film awards handed out each year by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which is exactly what it sounds like. They’re considered to be second only to the Oscars in terms of prestige, which is wholly ridiculous, since a) as opposed to the awards handed out by the various unions (e.g., the Director’s Guild, the Screen Actor’s Guild, etc.), they are almost never a good indication of who will win an Oscar, and b) there’s only like eighty-something people on the HFPA and you’re allowed to throw them parties and buy them things, a.k.a. bribe them to vote for you.

Still, it’s hard to be mad that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have received a nomination for “Best Original Score” for their work on The Social Network. I thought the movie was pretty disappointing overall (this was the most accurate review I read of the movie), but I think Reznor and Ross’ score is pretty brilliant.

Their fellow nominees include Hans Zimmer for Inception (the score for which is going to show up multiple times on musician’s year-end “best of lists” here on MetalSucks, believe it or not), Danny Elfman for Alice in Wonderland, Alexandre Desplat for The King’s Speech, A.R. Rahman for 127 Hours. I have no idea what their chances of winning are, and, again, these awards are pretty meaningless… but it would be pretty funny if they ended up at the Oscars eventually.

You can see the full list of nominees here if you’re interested.

-AR

On the recommendation of a couple of my best enemies, I finally listened to Nine Inch Nails‘ The Fragile from start to finish.

If you’re a somewhat regular reader of this god-awful website, you surely know the respect and man-love both Axl & Vince seem to share for one Trent Reznor, and in absorbing their consistently laudatory analyses of Reznor’s music and savvy business decisions, I will admit I’ve been repeatedly intrigued along the way.  But until now my experience with the Nails was pretty much limited to a couple of their singles, most notably this (which I was always a huge fan of).

And now, having heard what many repute as the best NIN album, I can safely hypothesize that Reznor is a severely masochistic, battle-scarred, honest artist who isn’t afraid to let the pain come through.  The industrialicious musical style is not always my cup of Twinings tea, but there are certainly several solid grooves throughout, and the raw, candid nature of the lyrics offers a precious look inside a tortured soul who’s doing good with his suffering.  I’m not surprised one bit that so many people have connected so deeply with homeboy’s cannon (even though Pitchfork inevitably ripped The Fragile a new one way back when).

A couple of my fave lines from the (Right) album:

“I tried to save myself, but my self keeps slipping away…”

“All I do….I can still feel you.”

No doubt many of us can relate.

Say hello again to a couple of old-school NIN videos after the jump…

Happy Saturday!!

Click to read more…

In case you can’t tell by all the posting I’ve been doing about the soundtrack, I really wanna see The Social Network. It’s just like the story of how MetalSucks was created, only we didn’t go to ivy league schools, we’re not billionaires, and we haven’t sued each other (yet). How dare David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin steal our life story!

Speaking of our life story, here’s how we amused ourselves this week:

• We debuted new music by The Fucking Wrath.
• Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable wondered if America really has any talent, The Red Chord’s Greg Weeks discussed the NFL with Job for a Cowboy’s Charn, and Daath’s Eyal Levi taught us about proper etiquette for being a houseguest.
• We spoke to Eric Guenther from From Exile and the new Daath album.
• We checked out new releases by The Serpent & The Siren as well as Mutant Supremacy, Pyrrhon and Parasitic Extirpation.
• We found out that way more of you like nu-metal than we thought.
• We learned how to look like a hot metal chick.
• We bemoaned the latest batch of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees.
• We watched the new Cephalic Carnage video and now we’re afraid we’ll never get a boner again.
• We got excited about the first awesome tour of 2011.
• We declared Cradle of Filth to be a glam band now.

Have a good weekend, folks. See ya Monday!

-AR

Trent Reznor may have dissolved Nine Inch Nails, but the coolest rock star in pretty much the history of ever is still keeping plenty busy. Earlier this week, he released the score the co-composed with Atticus Ross for The Social Network, charging just three bucks for a download from Amazon for the for the fist 48 hours; shock of shocks, Deadline reports that it’s been the Amazon mp3 store’s top seller ever since. (As of this writing, the soundtrack is still available for a mere $2.99; it will go up to a whopping $4.99 later today. It’s not metal, but it is fucking great. Go get it.)

Meanwhile, /Film has a fifty-minute (!) audio interview with Reznor regarding the score, in which the always-loquacious goth idol gives some interesting insights into the music. You can stream or download it here.

And as if all that wasn’t enough to scratch your Reznor itch, try this: Remember how Trent wanted to do an HBO series based on his album Year Zero? I can’t blame if you don’t; that was more than two years ago. But lest we forget, the film and television business can move very, verrrrrry slowly. And so I was elated to see that the project is apparently still alive. Reznor tells the Los Angeles Times:

Click to read more…

I’m violating our usual posting schedule for the second time this week because this news is time-sensitive, and my fellow Reznorians will never forgive me if I don’t make them aware of this ASAP.

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score for The Social Network is currently available at Amazon for three bucks… but only for forty-eight hours. After that the price is gonna rise to five bucks, which is still pretty cheap, but, y’know… these are tough times, so why not save the two bucks if you can? And I’m listening to this score right now, and it’s really great, so I don’t know why you’d hesitate anyway.

Also, if you want a higher-quality version of the soundtrack, you can now pre-order a CD, Blu-ray, or 180g vinyl here; all pre-orders come with an immediate download in your choice of format.

And as if all that weren’t enough, Reznor is holding a re-mix contest, natch. The grand prize winner gets a trip to LA to meet Reznor and Ross, and opening night tickets to see the flick. So that’s pretty sweet. The only hiccup is that the deadline is MIDNIGHT TONIGHT, so if you wanna enter, you had better get crackin’. Go here to get all the details and enter.

Finally, I leave you with this interesting observation that Renn Brown made over at C.H.U.D.:

Click to read more…

In other news, Trent Reznor continues to be an awesome dude.

Back in July, Mr. Self-Destruct himself announced that he and his longtime collaborator, Atticus Ross, would be scoring David Fincher’s new film, The Social Network; now they’re taking pre-orders for that score (in a variety of formats, natch), and, at the same site, giving away five songs for free if you’re willing to hand over your e-mail address.

A statement from Reznor regarding the subject reads as follows:

Click to read more…

Back in July we found out that Trent Reznor and his longtime collaborator, Atticus Ross, were composing the score for the upcoming, completely awesome-looking drama, The Social Network; now the movie’s website is live, and there’s some weird, ambient, uh… well, it’s more like buzzing than music, but I know that some people are speculating that it’s part of Reznor and Ross’ contribution to the film. And while we can’t confirm this just yet, it certainly sounds like something Reznor might do. And if it is part of the score for the film, well… holy shit. I guess Reznor wasn’t kidding when he said that the film was really “dark.”

Check it out here and let us know what you think. The Social Network opens October 1 in the U.S.

-AR

[via C.H.U.D.]

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

There weren’t any real hot button topics this week, so we decided to just play a fun game that used to keep Vince and Axl occupied for many a lunch period when they were kids:

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

Click to read more…

A lot of people think that the work of Aaron Sorkin is too treacly and stylized, and while I certainly understand that complaint, I tend think that, overrall, he’s one of the most entertaining (and certainly one of the most distinctive) writers out there these days. Everyone and their mother can quote A Few Good Men, Sports Night was one of the best series ever to get prematurely cancelled by a stupid network, and The West Wing won a shit ton of accolades for a reason. Sure, Studio 60 and Charlie Wilson’s War were a little on the meh side, but his 2007 Broadway play, The Farnsworth Invention, was engrossing and educational.

The Social Network, Sorkin’s script about the creation of Facebook, made The Blacklist (a Hollywood compilation of the most-read and most-enjoyed unproduced screenplays) a couple of years back, and the announcement that David Fincher — he of Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac, and Benjamin Button fame (to name but a few) — was going to direct the film was certainly reason to get excited about it.

More reason to get excited: Trent Reznor has announced that he’s been hired to score the film. From the official NIN website:

Click to read more…

That might be a misleading headline, and I apologize if you came here thinking you were gonna see news of live dates for How to Destroy Angels. Actually, just the opposite – The PRP reports that during a recent online fan Q&A, HTDA  announced that they “have no plans to tour in the immediate future and will instead be focusing on their full-length effort which is expected out early next year.”

Which is news that I’m actually okay with. For one thing, it doesn’t say they’ll never tour – just not right now. For another thing, it means they’re working on new music, and even though their EP just came out this week, I could certainly stand to hear even more. And, finally, there’s the fact that the idea of a HTDA live show just doesn’t really get me that excited. Not that I don’t like them – I obviously do – but other than Trent’s usual sweet live light show, I can’t really see this group being all that exciting in a concert setting. It’s obviously very technology-driven music, and in the past I’ve found shows where most or all of the people on stage are playing synths and computers to get kinda tedious after awhile. Of course, I would go see HTDA live and hope I was completely wrong about that – and those aforementioned Trent light shows are always 110% kick-ass – I’m just saying, if I don’t attend a HTDA concert before 2011 or whenever, I’m not gonna bang my head against the wall.

The above photo is from the shoot for the video of “The Space in Between,” by the way, and you can check out more here.

-AR

I know I mentioned this on Friday, but I also know that a lot of you spent the last three days destroying a vast percentage of your brain, so I just wanted to remind you: as of today, the debut self-titled EP from How to Destroy Angels – a.k.a. “Trent Reznor’s new project with his wife” – is available for free download.

As we’ve been saying all along, it’s basically Nine Inch Nails with female vocals – which isn’t a bad thing. The sad news is that the group has already released half the tracks in some form or another, and, unfortunately, I think we’ve already heard the album’s best material. That’s not to say I don’t like the remaining songs; I had just hoped that HTDA had some ace up their sleeve that they were waiting to unveil. But nothing really tops “A Drowning” and “The Space in Between.”

Of course, you may very vocally disagree with me, as is your right to do so; and one way or the other, the album is free, so you really have nothing to lose by at least checking it out. Download it here.

-AR

I will switch teams for Trent Reznor right now and I don’t care who knows it. He really is just making a strong play for the title of “Coolest Dude EVER.”

It was exactly a month ago today that we first heard about How to Destroy Angels, Renzor’s new project with his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, and frequent Nine Inch Nails collaborator Atticus Ross; and it was just a few days ago that we heard that the group’s debut EP would be coming out July 6. Well, that release date either only applies to physical copies of the album, or has been scrapped, or was never real to begin with, ’cause now HTDA have announced that they will be GIVING THE EP AWAY FOR FREE in 320 kbps mp3s THIS TUESDAY, June 1. If you “pre-order” the album right now – pre-ordering in this instance basically amounting to joining an e-mail list – you can download a new song, “The Believers,” right now.

Click to read more…

Well, clearly, Trent Reznor has been using all the downtime from not touring productively. Not only have How to Destroy Angels, his new project, announced a July 6 release date for their six-song debut EP, but he’s now written, recorded, and released his first Nine Inch Nails track of the post-live show era. It’s a theme for the upcoming movie Tetsuo: The Bullet Man, the latest entry in director Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo series.

I’ve been hearing about the Tetsuo movies for years, but I’ve never actually seen one, so, uh, geek fail, I guess. But I know that this latest movie is the first to be filmed in English, and that it got a good reception at the Venice Film Festival last year (before Reznor had actually delivered his contribution) and the Tribeca Film Festival this year (after Reznor had delivered his contribution), so take that for what it’s worth. In any case, the NIN track is – do I really have to say it? – awesome. It’s instrumental, and for large chunks of it my mother would probably argue that “it’s just noise,” and it would be hard to argue with her – if this was the sound of my alarm clock, I’d never hit the “snooze” button again. But it’s epic; awesomely, epicly epic, in fact. You can listen to it below, or just download it from Some Kind of Awesome.

And I’ve put the trailer for after the jump. It certainly looks like Reznor-appropriate.

Click to read more…

I don’t think that Nine Inch Nails have ever made a bad video, and Trent Reznor isn’t about to start now – the new clip for How to Destroy Angels’ “The Space in Between” is provocative, possibly pretentious, morbidly beautiful, and wholly memorable (which is really the entire point of a music video, I suppose). Insofar as what the video “means,” well… I’m not entirely sure I know. Assuming the titular “in between” is some kind of purgatorial state, well… I guess we can interpret the fact that Reznor and his wife/vocalist Mariqueen Maandig are lip synching while clearly “deceased” as being somehow related to said purgatorial state. I’ll have to ponder it some more, though.

Whatever the heck the video is supposed to mean, it is, like I said, morbidly beautiful, and the song is gorgeous. As with “A Drowning,” it pretty much sounds like NIN with a female vocalist… but I have absolutely no problem with that.

HTDA will release a six-song EP sometime this summer. Longtime NIN collaborator Atticus Ross is also involved in some capacity; he’s the dude smoking a cigarette and watching T.V. in this video.

-AR

It was just a few months ago that Trent Reznor announced that not only was he working on some new material for Nine Inch Nails, but also some new material for “something else that isn’t Nine Inch Nails.” Of course that got us all foaming at the mouth – What non-NIN project could Trent be working on? WHAT NON-NIN PROJECT COULD TRENT BE WORKING ON???

The answer, it would seem, is How To Destroy Angels (a process that is apparently quite different from training your dragon), a new outfit he’s starting up with his wife, Mariqueen Maandig. There’s already an official website for the group, which is very NIN in design, and word of an EP to be released this summer.

I wasn’t really a fan of Maandig’s last band, West Indian Girl, although my problem with them wasn’t her vocals – it was just that the music wasn’t my pace. But the below teaser video for the group would suggest that HTDA is going to sound more or less like late-era NIN, presumably with some combination of Maandig and Reznor on vocals – which is fine with me. The last time I can recall hearing Reznor doing vocals with a woman was when he did some backing stuff for Tori Amos on her song “Past the Mission,” which I thought was pretty swell… so I’m game for whatever.

-AR

Trent Reznor might be a rockstar prima donna doucheturd in real life, but he’s certainly managed to maintain the appearance of being a cool, down-to-earth dude – whether it’s because he’s telling fans not to pay for his albums that the record labels are charging a ridiculous markup on, or giving shit away for free, or publicly criticizing his peers that have gone soft.

No wonder his fans follow suit – the dude is leading by example. First, after Nine Inch Nails performed The Downward Spiral in its entirety as part of the “Wave Goodbye” tour, some fans who had filmed the concert edited it all together in a semi-professional package so all the world could share in the goodness (and Reznor actually endorsed their actions, calling it “the best concert film of the year” and offering it for free download on their site). Now, a group of fifteen-plus fans who also happen to be professionals in various audio, video, and other media fields have put together NIN: [after all is said and done], a concert film of NIN’s three-and-a-half-hour (allegedly) final live performance. And they’re selling it on DVD and Blu-Ray for a whopping ten bucks, none of which is actually for profit – they just wanna share the love with their fellow NIN devotees. How awesome is that?

The group call themselves A Tiny Little Dot, and you can order a DVD or Blu-Ray from them here (and, yes, I did just order one). The trailer is above. The footage looks pretty incredible, and the show featured guest appearances by Gary Neuman, Dave Navarro, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and more… plus, it’s Nine Inch Nails, who absolutely kill(ed?) live. So this is totally worth your money if you’re fan. Go get it.

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato is ripped. But it would never even occur to me to accuse the dude of taking steroids, for the following reasons:

1. He might kick my ass.
2. To make an accusation like that requires something known as “evidence,” and I have none. In fact, I’ve never even heard a rumor about the guy taking ‘roids.
3. He might kick my ass.
4. It seems perfectly feasible to me that Puciato spends the hours and hours of downtime that come with touring working out.
5. He might kick my ass really, really bad.

None of these issues gave pause to James Montgomery, though. I have no idea who Montgomery is, but in what has to be the stupidest act of 2010 so far, he’s written a piece for MTV in which he accuses ten musicians – including Puciato, Trent Reznor, and Glenn Danzig – of taking steroids. “Proof?” Montgomery actually bothers to raise the issue in his intro. “Who needs it when you’ve got pure suspicion?”

As far as I know, Reznor and Danzig haven’t weighed-in (no pun intended) yet about this absolutely moronic article – but Puciato has, and he ain’t happy about. He tells our friends at Noisecreep:

Click to read more…

When Trent Reznor waved good-bye to touring last year, he never said he was waving good-bye to Nine Inch Nails, too; he was basically just going the “studio only” route. So I’m not surprised that Reznor is working on a new Nine Inch Nails album for 2010.

The second part of this statement from the NIN website, in which he announces new music from NNIN (Not Nine Inch Nails), does kinda surprise me, though:

Sorry I haven’t been around much lately, I’ve been working on not working for a couple of months, which for me is hard work. 2010 has a number of things planned including new material from nine inch nails and something else that isn’t nine inch nails.

“Something else that isn’t Nine Inch Nails.” What could it be? I’d love for that Tapeworm album to finally see the light of day, but that can’t be it. And I imagine talk of that collaboration with Dr. Dre probably died right around the time Eminem got famous.

Wait, I know what it is, I KNOW WHAT IT IS!!! Trent Reznor is the new singer for Velvet Revolver!!!

No, wait, that can’t be right.

Hopefully we’ll get more details soon…

-AR

[via Metal Insider]