Originally Posted by
Deacon Blackfire
Correct. By all rights it should be a Null number release and that's basically why I'm less excited about it than I want to be.
Putting aside the fact I haven't seen and have basically no interest in the Tron movies, and the fact that insufferable scumbag / generally terrible actor Jared Leto is actually the STAR... I'm sure the music will be good, Trent and Atticus make great work, and with all the NIN branding and mention of songs it clearly won't be the average TR&AR soundtrack. But I have to be honest, in the midst of this relatively dormant NIN period I was pretty excited for whenever Trent and Atticus got bored of their work-for-hire scoring jobs and flipped back to the creative, personally driven sandbox of Nine Inch Nails work. So the fact that potentially the first full-length Nine Inch Nails release with vocals in over half a decade is another soundtrack they are commissioned to create, but as Nine Inch Nails this time, is a letdown to be honest. What's so exciting about a new release or phase of NIN is not just the amazing new music, it's discovering what new artistic rabbit hole Trent and now Atticus with him are exploring and delving into what they are expressing with the imagery and art direction and lyrics and themes, coming to feel the statement behind it. None of that really applies to a NIN Tron soundtrack. It's a score, and as much as I love film scores in general and their body of scoring work in particular, scores are a piece of a larger artistic work and exist in the service of that work's narrative and themes, so the material for a Tron soundtrack has a lot less to do with what Trent and Atticus are thinking and feeling about things and a lot more to do with the narrative of the second sequel to a movie from 1982.
As I said before, I have no doubt the music will be catchy and well produced, but I don't find it to be an interesting or artistically stimulating project. I require no education about the relationship between art and commerce and am well aware that NIN has always had a commercial side but frankly with how much recent NIN news has basically revolved around them partnering with companies to help them sell things, I just hope Nine Inch Nails doesn't start feeling less like the masthead of a musical artist and more like a brand that is rented out to various entities to lend them greater value and cultural cachet.