Everything For A Reason

Nine Inch Nails “As Alive As You Need Me to Be”

I’ve never seen either of the Tron movies and it’s unlikely that I’ll watch the forthcoming movie featuring Jared Leto, but I appreciate that Disney is cementing “get an auteur electronic act to do the entire soundtrack” as a defining feature of the franchise – first Wendy Carlos, then Daft Punk, and now Nine Inch Nails. And no, not another “Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross” score – the two of them as full-on, real deal Nine Inch Nails.

The most immediately striking aspect of “As Alive As You Need Me to Be” is how very Nine Inch Nails it sounds. Specifically it’s NIN in Pretty Hate Machine/Year Zero synth-heavy industrial mode, which is something Reznor and Ross haven’t done much over the past 12 years or so. But it doesn’t feel self-conscious or contrived – it’s more like gravitating to core competencies and responding to the demands of that primary synth part on the verses, the part that somehow sounds blood red and incandescent. It wants to be a banger, it wants to be huge and dramatic. Bow down before the riff you serve, you know?

Buy it from Amazon.

Fcukers “Play Me”

I highly doubt Fcukers know who I am and there’s zero chance they’re specifically trying to please me with their music, but sometimes it feels like that’s actually what they’re trying to do. “Play Me” is a more dubstep-y iteration of their indie dance aesthetic, which mostly comes down to the funny contrast of Shannon Wise’s shy cool girl shtick and Jackson Walker Lewis’ extremely extroverted production style. I love how the music sounds so ruthless in its efforts to get you to dance, but also so cold and aloof. Instead of canceling out, it ends up sounding playful and flirty.

Buy it from Bandcamp.