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norp

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I am not in the headspace to see rich people be happy

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Hans

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If you’re european and can vote please sign!

In any case, share as much as you can

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when you gaze at your lord a little too fondly during his yap sesh

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just watched a woman in a bedazzled 1800s dress walk by, actively vaping. holy fuck dude

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Trent Reznor by Kevin Westenberg, 1992

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dude whatever. i dont even like trent reznor. i dont even like nine inch nails

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“mr self-destruct”

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Hard to believe Nine Inch Nails' classic The Downward Spiral is 30 years old today! Here is some detail photography I took of the original album cover painting by Russell Mills for the 10th anniversary deluxe edition release, which I had the unique honor of designing, and somehow that is now 20 year old.

Everyone has that one album that hit at just the right moment of adolescence to change their perspective on music and get them through their teenage angst. The Downward Spiral was that album for me, released as it was in 1994, when I was a freshman in high school (and an absolute banner year for music/films/games all around). I must have stared at the artwork for hours over those years, without even much detail to draw from on its tiny 5” CD slip case. So five years later, when I found myself inexplicably working for Nine Inch Nails, it was surreal to see the actual original painting in the flesh, hanging as it was at the time in Trent Reznor’s office at Nothing Studios, New Orleans.

I was struck by how much dimension and texture there was in the artwork that never translated on that tiny slipcase printing, how much detail was happening in the physical materials of the art: Flies, moths, wires, blood… I had been staring at this “painting” for so long, yet suddenly it was like I had never seen it before. I also noticed that it had aged - the wires had wilted over the years, drooping down from their original position as captured in the original album cover (interestingly, judging by the photo posted today by NIN, the piece has since been restored); a tooth was missing from the other main piece.

That experience stuck with me and it was the first thing I thought about when the task of re-imagining the album package fell upon me in 2004. I wanted to re-photograph the artwork, subtly updating the cover to show that ten years had changed it physically, much like our perceptions of art and music and memories change over time with perspective. I also wanted to dig into the previously unseen details of the work and explore it with my macro lens, so that fans like me, old and new, could have new layers of texture to pore over for hours while listening to a legendary album.

Happy birthday, old friend.

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Trent Reznor by Joseph Cultice (Los Angeles 1994)

 The Downward Spiral

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nine inch nails at woodstock '94 by joseph cultice

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Anyone else’s whole existence is flawed or is it just me and that trent reznor guy

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Then Guadagnino brought them Challengers, due for worldwide release in April. Reznor said, “He started us down a path, saying, ‘What if it was very loud techno music through the whole film?’” (This is exactly what it turned out to be.) “I wish I had his notes,” Ross said of Guadagnino. “His notes were so fucking funny on what each piece was meant to do.” “Oh, yeah,” Reznor said. “‘Unending homoerotic desire.’ It was all a variation on those three words.”

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have a plan to soundtrack everything, GQ, april 2024