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Trent Reznor Plans New Nine Inch Nails Songs for 2014 Compilation

Trent Reznor

Trent Reznor has been teasing the possibility of new Nine Inch Nails material since shortly after his 2011 Academy Awards victory. Now, the New Yorker reports a best-of compilation will arrive the year after next, potentially with new songs. In an extensive profile, Reznor also reveals that his partnership with Dr. Dre’s headphones venture Beats Electronic centers around a music-streaming service that could be available within a few months.

Here’s the exact language that made it past the magazine’s generally impeccable fact-checkers: “In 2014, Interscope Records will release an edition of the band’s greatest hits, to which Reznor intends to contribute two new songs. Then he plans to write music for a new record.” So, the best-of seems like a sure thing, and we’ll just have to hope Reznor follows through on his plans and intentions for fresh material.

When Reznor recently announced he’d be working with Dr. Dre’s headphones company Beats Electronics, SPIN’s Kyle McGovern speculated the NIN mastermind might be helping with a music recommendation service. It turns out that wasn’t far off the mark. Reznor told the New Yorker’s Alec Wilkinson the project is a music-streaming service that differs from Spotify and Pandora by adding a human element to song suggestions. With a working name of Daisy, the service is planned for an early-2013 rollout.

Reznor memorably compares Spotify to the Internet before Google, with plenty of content but no reliable way of searching through it. “‘Here’s 16 million licensed pieces of music,’ they’ve said, but you’re not stumbling into anything,” Reznor told Wilkinson. “What’s missing is a system that adds a layer of intelligent curation … As great as it is to have all this information bombarding you, there’s a real value in trusted filters. It’s like having your own guy when you go into the record store, who knows what you like but can also point you down some paths you wouldn’t necessarily have encountered.” (Call it groupthink: Last week, Spotify announced plans to roll out more robust music discovery and recommendation features.)

It’s worth reading the full story, which spans from Reznor’s childhood to his recent work with How to Destroy Angels, but one highlight comes as he’s describing winning an Oscar last year for his score to The Social Network. “Then, 2010 [sic], it gets up to the Academy Awards day,” he’s quoted as saying, “and you’re intimidated and favored and nervous, and you’re cold from being in the air-conditioning, and you haven’t eaten in seven hours because of the way the day’s structured. The entire time in my mind, it’s ‘Just be cool, you’re not going to win, but you’re going through the checklist of what you need to do anyway, and remember, kiss your wife, don’t stumble.'”

He continued: “Then you hear ‘And the winner is,’ and time starts slowing down, and you’re walking, thinking, Don’t stumble, and I’m on the stage after an impossibly long walk, and there’s Nicole Kidman, and God damn, she’s 10 feet tall, and you look out and every face you see you recognize, and they’re all looking at you.”