Post by Salem6 on Aug 19, 2008 11:51:28 GMT
Trent Reznor Gets Synth, 1980
Growing up in tiny Mercer, Penn. (population 2,391), Michael Trent Reznor took piano lessons and played Professor Harold Hill in a high school production of "The Music Man." But in 1980 at the age of 15, Reznor heard Gary Numan's "Cars" on the radio and heard his future – beyond Mercer town limits. "When that kind of explosion of synth music came around in the early '80s, it was really exciting," he said later. "Sequencers were just coming out. I thought, I love music, I love keyboard instruments. Maybe I can get into synthesizer design."
The young musician surrounded himself with the new machines. He eventually moved to Cleveland, joined a string of new wave cover bands (which would come back to haunt him via YouTube), and took a job at a music store and then a recording studio.
Nine Inch Nails Is Born, 1988
Waxing floors by day and sneaking sessions by night, Reznor was an assistant at Cleveland’s Right Track recording studio when Nine Inch Nails was officially born. After a few opening gigs for Skinny Puppy, the band – and yes, for the purpose of live performance it was a band, even though Reznor made the music solo – fielded many label offers, eventually taking a deal with TVT Records. NIN released “Pretty Hate Machine” in 1989. It wasn’t an overnight sensation, but propelled by the single “Head Like A Hole” – which hit No. 17 on the Hot Dance Club Play Chart the following summer – the album remained on The Billboard 200 for 113 weeks, going on to sell 3.2 million copies.
Lollapalooza, 1991
Nine Inch Nails – who began to be known by the NIN acronym thanks to designer Gary Talpas’ album art – found itself in the lineup of Perry Farrell’s inaugural Lollapalooza tour along with acts like Jane’s Addiction, Ice-T and Living Colour.
It was here that the gaunt, black-clad Reznor’s performance style first reached a wide audience as he destroyed instruments, cursed and raining industrial-strength wrath on the rock-dominated proceedings. Two-year-old “Pretty Hate Machine” rose 20 positions on the Top Pop Catalog chart – from No. 39 to 19 – over the course of the tour.
"Broken" Off, 1992
Dissatisfied with TVT’s handling of “Pretty Hate Machine,” Reznor said he would never release music with the label again. So he holed up in a Miami studio under a fake name with producer Flood. When he emerged with “Broken” – an eight-song bloody shriek of an EP devoid of his debut’s synth-pop leanings – the problem had been solved for him. Jimmy Iovine’s Interscope had signed a licensing deal with TVT for NIN. Iovine romanced the wary star further with the promise of his own imprint on which he could develop other artists. Dubbed Nothing, it would eventually become the home of Reznor’s own Frankenstein’s monster: Marilyn Manson.
Making "The Downward Spiral," 1992
No one really believed it was by chance that Reznor rented 10050 Cielo Drive in Beverly Hills, Calif., to record the full-length follow-up to "Pretty Hate Machine." The house had been the place where Sharon Tate and four others were slaughtered by Charles Manson’s brood in 1969. Reznor dubbed it “Le Pig” – not because the word “pig” had been scrawled on the door in Tate’s blood, he insisted – moved in a studio’s worth of equipment, and set to work on “The Downward Spiral."
He would later admit that his choice of the house was intentional, and that a conversation with Sharon Tate’s sister forced him to rethink it. “I went home and cried that night,” he told Rolling Stone in 1997. “I don’t want to be looked at as a guy who supports serial-killer bullshit.” The house was destroyed in 1994, but not before Reznor removed the infamous door and had it installed in his New Orleans studio.
"The Downward Spiral," Up The Charts, 1994
“The Downward Spiral” was released on March 8, knocking Ace Of Base’s “The Sign” out of the No. 2 spot on the Billboard 200, and kicking off Reznor’s rockiest but most prolific year up to that point. Director Mark Romanek’s artfully deranged, sepia-toned video for expletive-laden second single “Closer,” with its forceful chorus of “I wanna f*ck you like an animal,” debuted on MTV two months later and was eventually added to the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection.
Keeping pace with hard-partying buddies Marilyn Manson (Reznor produced “Portrait Of An American Family” at Le Pig, at the same time as “Spiral”), Reznor’s own descent into substance abuse had begun.
Mud and Woodstock, August 13, 1994
When Nine Inch Nails took the stage in Saugerties, N.Y., caked in mud and particularly agitated, the band wasn’t expected to be the biggest attraction of Woodstock. But by the time Reznor had preened, growled and reveled through the band's 16-song set on the very big stage, NIN had become the defining performance of the festival, attracting over 250,000 spectators live and via Pay-Per-View. Following Woodstock, the band saw a sales spike that lifted “The Downward Spiral” from No. 61 to the Top 25 for the next six weeks; and later won a Grammy (“Best Metal Performance” for “Happiness In Slavery”).
VIDEO:- www.billboard.com/bbcom/moments/2008/nin/7.shtml
Natural Born Killer, 1994
During the 'Self Destruct' tour shortly after the release of “The Downward Spiral,” filmmaker Oliver Stone – fresh from the furor from conspiracy-theorizing “JFK” – approached Reznor to create the soundtrack for his latest movie, “Natural Born Killers." Scripted by Quentin Tarantino, "Killers" was a font of blood, sex and depravity. Reznor set up a mobile Pro Tools studio and invited producer/editor Charlie Clouser on the road with him to splice dialogue and music together, creating a soundtrack that was more like a score, completely enmeshed with the film. Released just 10 days after Woodstock, the soundtrack peaked at No. 19 on the September 24 Billboard 200 chart, with “The Downward Spiral” just below it at No. 21.
Reznor Quakes, 1996
Nine Inch Nails finished up 135 dates in support of “Spiral” in February 1995, and Reznor immediately felt the pressure for a follow-up. Instead, he decided to do video game work creating sounds and music for “Quake,” a user-modifiable game that spawned a successful franchise. There was even an early instance of in-game branding: The protagonist’s ammo box was emblazoned with the “NIN” logo.
Marilyn Manson, "Superstar," 1996
Instead of giving in to the pressure to create another NIN album, Reznor started production work on Marilyn Manson’s “Antichrist Superstar.” The album made the ghoulish rocker a star in his own right, but the process forced a gap between the longtime friends. When David Lynch approached both bands to work on the soundtrack for “Lost Highway,” Reznor and “Antichrist” co-producer David Ogilvie took the gig, before the Manson record was done and reportedly without Manson’s knowledge. The two stopped talking, and Reznor kept putting off that follow-up.
Trent…And Dilbert?, 1997
Amidst the schism with Manson; the death of his grandmother, who raised him; crippling writer’s block; and a real sense of emptiness – “Where maybe it was alright to flirt with the idea of depression before, it now developed into a black hole I couldn’t get out of,” he told NME – Time magazine named Reznor one of its 25 Most Influential people in 1997, alongside Tiger Woods, Madeline Albright and Dilbert.
“Reznor wields the muscular power of Industrial rock not with frat-boy swagger but with a brooding, self-deprecating intelligence,” Time wrote.
Reznor checked himself into rehab, and upon emerging, started work on “The Fragile.”
Double "Fragile," 1999
“The Fragile” was released on September 21, five years and 100 theoretical miles away from the mud-soaked perfect storm of “Spiral” in 1994. It was a double album, dense with textured sounds and moods rather than the arena-ready, instantly lucrative juggernaut that Interscope – already sailing the treacherous seas of the new MP3 reality – probably wanted. It debuted at No. 1 – a first for the band – but fell to No. 16 the next week, staying on the Billboard 200 chart for only 19 weeks. It did, however, go on to sell 952,000 copies. Reznor has said he funded the subsequent world tour himself.
Heroin and Sobriety, 2000
On July 1, NIN cancelled its London Arena show, purportedly because of the drummer’s stomach flu. Years later, Reznor would reveal the real reason: He had overdosed on heroin, one particular drug he had always denied doing. The tour ended the following week, and Reznor disappeared for five years. When he finally reemerged in 2005, sober, he entered the most prolific three-year period of his career, one that yielded more new music than the entire 17 years prior.
Johnny Cash Gets "Hurt," 2002
While Reznor privately battled his addictions, another icon who had already been there and back borrowed one of his self-destructive monologues. Johnny Cash had a modest hit with an acoustic version of “Hurt,” the closing wrist-slice on “The Downward Spiral.” It was one of Cash’s final recordings before his death in 2003. The Mark Romanek-directed clip spliced scenes from Cash’s life with current footage of the ailing legend, creating a visual symphony of regret to match the aural one. Reznor has said he cried when he first saw it.
Back, "With Teeth," 2005
Clean-cut and newly muscled, Reznor reentered the public eye with the comparatively sparse and straightforward “With Teeth,” his most band-oriented album to date (Dave Grohl even played live drums on a few tracks). Simplicity and organization were the watchwords for the sober star, who admitted to needing structure in order to create, and survive.
"A lot of [‘With Teeth’] was [about] my relationship with myself, the world at large, and where I might fit into that," he told MTV.com. “Also [it's about] my relationship to a disease that's going to kill me if I don't deal with it, and I came very close to that. Hopefully disguised enough that it's not a terribly boring record about recovery and addiction and that nonsense."
The album debuted on No. 1 and spent 43 weeks on the Billboard 200. Reznor toured the world from March 2005 to July 2006, working on new music the entire time.
Malm v. Reznor, 2005
When the “With Teeth” tour stopped in New York, Reznor spent the two-day stint testifying in court against his former manager, John Malm. Malm, who had been with NIN since the Cleveland days, had signed Reznor to what seemed like a standard 20% management deal except that Malm was getting 20% of the gross, not net earnings. When he sued Reznor for unpaid commissions, Reznor countersued, claiming he had been duped. He also admitted that his career-long drug abuse had made him an easy target, and that he was only now starting to get his financial affairs in order. On June 1, the court sided with Reznor and awarded him $2.85 million.
"Year Zero," 2007
“Year Zero” was Reznor's concept album about what the country’s future just 15 years down the line might be like if it stayed on its current course. “The erosion of freedoms that seems like we're experiencing, and the way we treat the world and our own citizens felt like something I needed to comment on,” Reznor wrote on his blog.
The album was one spoke in a large, viral hub of hidden URLs and secret codes and flyers, USB cards and phones handed out on city streets, all part of an alternate reality, post-apocalyptic game created by cyber marketing think-tank 42 Entertainment. The scope and intricacy of the program was unprecedented in music marketing. (Although it didn’t necessarily translate to sales: “Year Zero” sold fewer copies than “With Teeth.”)
Reznor told the New York Times this June that he was working with Lawrence Bender, longtime Quentin Tarantino producer, on a “Year Zero” cable TV series.
Remix This, 2007
Reznor fulfilled his major label contract with “Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D,” a set of 14 “Year Zero” tracks re-imagined by everyone from Ladytron to Bill Laswell to NIN fans Pirate Robot Midget. The album also prompted a tussle between artist with a label: Because of an ongoing legal battle with Google and MySpace.com, Universal refused to host a Reznor-championed NIN microsite which would allow fans to download provided stems and upload their own remixes of selected tracks. The potential for such remixes to contain content not owned by Universal exposed the company "to the accusation that they are sponsoring the same technical violation of copyright they are suing these companies for," Reznor wrote on his blog. That December, Reznor launched the site himself – bearing all legal responsibility – at ninremixes.com.
Seeing “Ghosts”, March 2, 2008
With his next move, Reznor declared his independence, supported the digital revolution, and made a case for the survival of tangible product, all at once. “Ghosts I-IV,” a 36-track, darkly ambient instrumental set made over the course of 10 weeks, hit the band’s site on the evening of March 2. Fans could download part of it for free, all of it for $5, or order hard copies in various configurations, included a limited edition $300 set. All 2,500 sold out the same week. In total, the site logged 800,000 transactions in the first week, for a combined $1.6 million in revenue. Major media outlets poured ink all over Reznor, who quickly became one of the poster boys for Big Music defiance.
Reznor Gives Fans "The Slip," May 5, 2008
Two months after “Ghosts,” Reznor posted yet another entirely new, complete album, and this time, made it entirely free. “The Slip,” 10 more traditional NIN tracks with vocals, was finished on Wednesday May 1, then sequenced, mixed and packaged the same week. It was also timed to coincide with the on-sale dates of the band’s upcoming summer tour.
“Thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years: This one's on me,” read Reznor's post on the site.
As with “Ghosts” before it, “The Slip” was released under a Creative Commons license, allowing open use and manipulation of its content for any “non-commercial” purpose. It also showed a logical honing of NIN’s self-release model: Reznor told the New York Times that the elaborate distribution and database software created for the album projects would soon be made publically available as well.
www.billboard.com/bbcom/moments/2008/nin/index.shtml