song: zoo station (u2 cover)
album: ahk-toong bay-bi covered
band: nine inch nails
usa - 2011
i’m ready
i’m ready for the laughing gas
i’m ready
i’m ready for what’s next
i’m ready to duck
i’m ready to dive
i’m ready to say
i’m glad to be alive
i’m ready
i’m ready for the push
+: q magazine commissioned the album to commemorate the 20th anniversary of achtung baby’s original release and q’s 25th anniversary.
nine inch nails comercials
the fragile era
00.00 the fragile spot
00.31 the fragile spot
01.00 things falling apart spot
song: somewhat damaged
album: the fragile
band: nine inch nails
usa - 1999
how could i ever think
it’s funny how everything you swore would never change is different now
like you said you and me make it through
didn’t quite fell apart
where the fuck were you?
+: happy 12th birthday, still wrapped.
song: only
album: with teeth
band: nine inch nails
usa - 2005
+: directed by david fincher and was largely created using advanced cgi by visual effects company digital domain. the video was almost entirely computer-animated, with reznor filmed live in front of a green screen and then mapped onto the pin art. it is reported that the only parts that were live-action were the hand at the very beginning (that of fincher) and the bowl of apples at the end.
“only” contains a verse that is very similar to a verse in the song “down in it.”
“down in it”:
just then a tiny little dot caught my eye it was just about too small to see
but i watched it way too long it was pulling me down.
“only”:
well the tiniest little dot caught my eye
and it turned out to be a scab
and i had this funny feeling
like i just knew it’s something bad.
song: sunspots
album: with teeth
band: nine inch nails
usa - 2005
sunspots cast a glare in my eyes.
sometimes, i forget i’m alive.
i feel it coming and i’ve gotta get out of its way,
i hear it calling and i come ‘cause i can’t disobey -
i should not listen and i shouldn’t believe but i do,
yes i do.
she turns me on,
she makes it real.
i have to apologize
for the way i feel.
my life, it seems has taken a turn.
why, in the name of god, would i ever want to return?
peel off our skin,
we’re gonna burn what we were to the ground.
fuck in the fire
and we’ll spread all the ashes around.
i wanna kill away the rest of what’s left
and i do,
yes i do.
she turns me on,
she makes it real.
i have to apologize
for the way i feel
and nothing can stop me now -
there’s nothing to fear,
and everything that ever was
is inside a tear.
woah, woah, woah, woah, woah
inside a tear.
now, i just stare into the sun
and i see everything i’ve done.
i think i could have been someone,
but i can’t stop what has begun
when everything is said and done,
and there is no place left to run.
i think i used to be someone -
now, i just stare into the sun.
song: march of the pigs
artist: josh freese drumming live with nin
2008
+: his discography
song: just like you imagined (feat. mike garson)
album: the fragile
band: nine inch nails
live @ henry fonda theater, la - usa september 08, 2009
song: somewhat damaged
album: the fragile
band: nine inch nails
live @ bowery ballroom, nyc - usa august 22, 2009
stream nine inch nails ‘pretty hate machine’ reissue (2010)
including ‘get down, make love’ queen cover
@ nme.com
when we began the pretty hate machine remaster project, trent discussed with me the idea of tweaking the original artwork a bit to reflect that this was a different version of the album, updated from its original release. we talked about maybe just changing the color scheme a bit – trent was keen on losing the distinctly 80′s hot pink color, for one. it seemed like a fairly straightforward project, as i certainly didn’t want to try and radically alter an album cover i’d been looking at since i was a teenager, and that some fans had known very well for more than two decades.
i tried a number of different approaches – i even got some various mechanical parts from hardware stores and arranged them in a way that resembled the shape of the cover image (i’d remembered reading long ago that the original image was taken of some sort of factory machine, with spokes that looked like ribs), and photographed it in different ways, then attempted to push the contrast of the photos and pull shapes out of them. nothing was working out very well though. it either looked too far away from the original cover, or like a weird, sad imitation of it.
finally, i decided to painstakingly recreate the original cover as closely as possible. using my scan of the original as a template, i digitally painted the image in extremely high resolution, the same way i’d approach an illustration. i used a meticulous set of masks to recreate the “interlaced” horizontal line effect of the original cover. after a lot of trial-and-error, i eventually finished with a new version of the original artwork, created in a very different way, but retaining the same spirit.
the font, a stretched-out version of helvetica, looked dated to me, but i wanted to be respectful of the original design and not mess with it too much. when trent saw what i’d done though, he wanted to try a new approach to the title text, as he felt the font was just too dated and could use a more modern look for this remaster. so i went back to the original album and looked at the font that had been used for the credits and lyrics, which turned out to be a slight variation of a font gary talpas later used in the downward spiral. putting the phm title in that font was way too similar to the downward spiral, but when i put it in caps it created an odd mix of vintage nin and modern nin – perfect for a 2010 remaster of a 1989 album.
to push the art a bit further, i got the idea of printing the image out at a very high dpi and photographing it with a narrow depth of field, allowing parts of it to fall out of focus. this gave a new depth to the previously flat artwork, and it turned out to be exactly what the image was missing.
for the remainder of the package, i was cautious not to add much extra artwork and overdo it. the original sleeve was extremely minimal, only using type on black amidst a few variations of the cover image here and there for the internal art, so i wanted to preserve that. (…) the only other piece of art in the original insert was a photograph of trent. revisiting that, trent wasn’t incredibly excited about including it in this version, and we didn’t have the original photograph anyway, so we left it out.
throughout this process, i was very concerned with being respectful to the original artwork. this is not my album, and as a fan for many years, i have the same attachment to the original art that many other fans do. so my tendency was to play it safe, but it was trent who felt a bit less precious about the original art, and he pushed me to do something that was visually further away from what i had originally intended. i think in the end we found a great middle ground, and we’re both really pleased with how it turned out.
- rob sheridan
+: read the whole interview here (sleevage: album cover design blog)
