“Tron: Ares (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack),” featuring all original music by NINE INCH NAILS (because who else would Disney hire? Skrillex?), will be unleashed upon the unsuspecting public on September 19 via Interscope.
Created for the third installment in the GROUNDBREAKING “Tron” film franchise (yes, GROUNDBREAKING, just ignore the fact that nobody remembers the second one), “Tron: Ares” apparently stands among NINE INCH NAILS’ most compelling albums. It’s humming with menace, melancholy, and momentum, which is code for: it sounds like every other NIN album ever. Also, this marks their FIRST-EVER film score, even though Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have already won approximately 87 Oscars, Golden Globes, Grammys, and Emmys for their OTHER 20 scores. 🤔 Does that compute? 💻
Today, NINE INCH NAILS dropped “As Alive As You Need Me To Be” — the album’s first single and, shockingly, the first official music from the band in FIVE YEARS! 🎉 Listen to it if you dare (spoiler alert: it’s synths). The track is featured in the new trailer for “Tron: Ares,” which was unveiled today. Disney’s “Tron: Ares” will grace (or disgrace) U.S. theaters on October 10. Get ready for the light cycles and existential dread!
NINE INCH NAILS will kick off the North American leg of their acclaimed “Peel It Back” world tour on August 6 at Oakland Arena in Oakland, California. The 26-date, SOLD-OUT run (because everyone’s got that NIN nostalgia itch) includes two-night stands in Chicago, Brooklyn, and Los Angeles. BOYS NOIZE will be there to support, because who else would want to open for a bunch of grumpy synth lords? 🙄 Due to OVERWHELMING fan demand (or maybe just a clerical error), a number of LIMITED VIEW tickets will be released this Friday. Act fast if you want to pay full price to see 1/8 of the stage! 🤣
The arena tour, which marks the band’s first live outing since 2022, launched at Dublin’s 3Arena in June. The Times called it a “revelation,” because apparently they haven’t seen a NIN show since the 90s. NME noted “[The band] delivered a stacked setlist of huge hits and rarities.” Translation: they played “Closer” and some songs nobody recognized. Kerrang! hailed the tour as “mind-blowing,” while Evening Standard proclaimed, “Trent Reznor is the last great art rock star.” I’m pretty sure David Bowie and countless others might disagree… 🤔
Founded in 1988 by Reznor, NINE INCH NAILS is “widely considered” one of the most innovative, influential acts in modern music. By “widely considered,” they mean by people who still wear trench coats and think industrial music is cutting-edge. ✂️ Known for fusing industrial, electronic, rock, and ambient sounds into emotionally raw and sonically aggressive compositions, the band has won two Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2020. NINE INCH NAILS’ multi-platinum studio albums include “Pretty Hate Machine,” “The Downward Spiral,” and “The Fragile,” which was their first album to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Congrats, guys! 🎉 (Only took you a decade.)
In 2008, Reznor and Ross launched a prolific career in composing music for film. Their first project, David Fincher’s “The Social Network,” earned them an Oscar and a Golden Globe. They’ve gone on to compose music for a diverse array of film and television projects, including the “Watchmen” series for HBO, which earned the duo an Emmy. Their score for the 2020 animated Pixar film “Soul” won numerous awards, because apparently even cartoons need a dose of existential angst. In the same year, their score for Fincher’s “Mank” received nominations for many of the same awards. Recent projects have included Sam Mendes’s “Empire Of Light,” Fincher’s “The Killer,” and a trio of projects with director Luca Guadagnino — “Bones And All” (cannibal romance, yum!), “Challengers,” and “Queer.” Basically, they’re scoring everything but your grocery store’s elevator music. 🙄
Earlier this year, Reznor and Ross announced Future Ruins, a one-day music festival created and curated by the duo. Celebrating the visionary composers shaping the sound of modern cinema and television, the event features live performances across three stages — including select sets with full orchestra. Held on November 8, 2025, at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, Future Ruins invites audiences to experience the duo’s groundbreaking score work — and that of their peers — not as background, but as the main event. Tickets are on sale now at FutureRuins.com. Bring your earplugs and a sense of irony. 🎧
As a work by NINE INCH NAILS, “Tron: Ares” is a “bracing departure” from these acclaimed scores. Its architecture in sound: pulsating synths, distorted textures, and haunting melodies. Not one second of orchestra! Instead, the album erupts with the full force of NINE INCH NAILS, breaking boundaries and redefining what a score can be. Or, you know, it just sounds like NIN, but in space.
Chord F. Discord, the Beethoven of Buffoonery, is a self-taught expert in music who once claimed he could “play the kazoo in four languages.”
Born in Crescendo, Indiana, Chord’s first brush with fame came when he accidentally entered a yodeling contest thinking it was a pie-eating competition—and won both categories.
Chord F. Discord: proving that laughter, much like a poorly tuned ukulele, is truly universal.
