After over three months of dormancy, Trent Reznor’s Twitter page was resurrected last night as the Nine Inch Nails frontman celebrated the 20th anniversary of his debut album Pretty Hate Machine. “Happy birthday, old friend. Pretty Hate Machine turns 20,” Reznor wrote, his first tweet since quitting Twitter following a July 17th message that read, “I believe I’ve done all I care to do here at this point. Flesh and reality and silence are calling.” Reznor’s call out to his first LP helped make #PrettyHateMachine a Twitter Trending Topic last night.

Check out photos of NIN’s last-ever live gig.

Pretty Hate Machine was released on October 20th, 1989 on TVT Records, introducing music fans to hits like “Head Like a Hole,” “Down In It,” “Terrible Lie” and other synth-goth classics. The New Rolling Stone Album Guide awarded PHM four-and-a-half stars, crediting Nine Inch Nails for being “on to something that no one else had quite figured out yet” and labeling Reznor as “an artist already near the top of his game.” (more…)

Photo via Pink Is the New Blog

Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor married his fiancée Mariqueen Maandig in a ceremony on Saturday, October 17th, E! News reports. Producer Danny Lohner first broke the news of the wedding, writing on his Twitter, “Goths the world over will mourn this day — off to a wedding.” Later in the day, Lohner posted a blurry photo of Reznor and Maandig slow-dancing as husband and wife. Trent over at Pink Is the New Blog was also at the reception, and posted photos of Mr. and Mrs. Reznor at the ceremony, including a couple shots of Reznor in his spiffy suit and silver tie and a bunch of candid shots from the reception itself. (more…)

Photo: Thomann/WireImage

Gary Numan says his collaboration with Trent Reznor will jump from the live stage to the studio: The “Cars” singer told the Quietus he plans to work with the Nine Inch Nails leader in the near future. As Rolling Stone previously reported, Numan joined Reznor onstage during Nine Inch Nails’ final Wave Goodbye concerts in Los Angeles. NIN have quit performing live, but Reznor has vowed to continue working in the studio.

“I think he’s going to be pretty busy for a while,” Numan said, referring to Reznor’s upcoming marriage to former West Indian Girl singer Mariqueen Maandig, “so it’ll either be later this year or early next.” Numan told the Quietus that the collaboration will probably be “just a few songs to start with and see how it goes on. It’ll be cool.” (more…)

Photo: Buckner/Getty

Nine Inch Nails have rescheduled the last two dates of their Wave Goodbye tour after an illness sidelined Trent Reznor last week. Reznor and NIN were supposed to perform their last-ever show on Saturday, September 6th at Los Angeles’ Echoplex, but now the band’s September 10th show at the Wiltern has the distinction of being the final ever NIN concert. The band will also take the stage tonight at Los Angeles’ Henry Fonda Theatre.

According to TMZ, while flying from his farewell shows in Chicago to Los Angeles, Reznor developed a clogged ear. Reznor still performed September 2nd at L.A.’s Palladium, but oversang and strained his voice because he couldn’t hear himself clearly. “Sorry about the hassles with the show not happening last night and tomorrow’s rescheduling. If it would have been possible to pull these off, I would have,” Reznor wrote last week on the NIN.com page. “I appreciate your patience and understanding — we’re attempting to make sure that everyone has the best experience possible and we’re at full power.” (more…)

Photograph by Matthew Drazin

Nine Inch Nails played their last ever New York concert last night at Terminal 5, ending a brief four-show run in the Big Apple. At both of their Terminal 5 shows, Trent Reznor and his soon-to-be-unemployed band welcomed Bauhaus’ Peter Murphy to the stage to perform a handful of songs. The last shows also featured set lists packed with dozens of Nine Inch Nails’ best songs and favorite covers as Reznor waved goodbye to his East Coast die-hards. (more…)

Photograph by Matthew Drazin

Nine Inch Nails began their Wave Goodbye tour with a pair of small venue concerts in New York City this weekend, performing Saturday at the Bowery Ballroom and last night at Webster Hall. Yesterday’s performance was especially noteworthy as Trent Reznor and Co. played their entire 1994 classic The Downward Spiral from start to finish, plus nearly a dozen more of NIN’s greatest hits. As Rock Daily previously reported, these 11 shows represent the last time Nine Inch Nails will perform live.

Rolling Stone was crammed up near the side of the stage Saturday night at the Bowery Ballroom near an army of crazed NIN fans. Highlights of the two-hour set included a cover of Joy Division’s “Dead Souls,” a crowd sing-along on “Hurt” and a super rare performance of NIN’s 1989 debut single “Down In It.” Before that track Trent addressed the crowd. “This is fucking tiring up here man,” he said. “Usually I have a stunt double fill in and robots. I’m too old for this shit. Seriously, these being the last shows with the band, it’s an honor to be here with you guys tonight. It’s funny being in New York. Back in the beginning of Nine Inch Nails we played some terrible shows in New York. I don’t know if anybody is old enough to have been at those shows. You know it sucked. We’ve done some sucking in our day. Glad to be here right now.” (more…)

Photograph by Joshua Prezant for RollingStone.com
It turns out Nine Inch Nails’ Bonnaroo ‘09 set won’t be Trent Reznor’s final U.S. show ever — today the NIN leader announced on the band’s Website new plans to perform a handful of small venue shows in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. Nine Inch Nails’ joint tour with Jane’s Addiction and their massive set at Bonnaroo were supposed to be the final curtain calls for Reznor and Co. in the States before the band would “disappear for a while,” but as Reznor writes, “Upon reflection, the NIN/JA tour felt like we had to rush through sets due to a limited allotted set length and many shows were in daylight — it just didn’t feel right to end NIN that way.”

So far, Reznor said Nine Inch Nails will perform at New York’s Bowery Ballroom, Webster Hall and Terminal Five; Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom; and Los Angeles’ Wiltern, the Henry Fonda, Palladium and the Echoplex. “These should be cool, unusual and unique shows and I hope you come out — this is it,” Reznor writes of the final shows, strangely echoing Michael Jackson’s canceled “This Is It!” concerts in London, which were meant to be the King of Pop’s final performances in the U.K. (more…)

Photo: Miller/FilmMagic

Despite being partially offered as a free download in March 2008, Nine Inch Nails’ instrumental Ghosts I-IV still became the Amazon MP3 Store’s Bestselling Album of 2008, beating out Coldplay’s Viva La Vida and Death Cub for Cutie’s Narrow Stairs. The achievement is symbolic on two fronts: First, it proves — along with Radiohead’s chart-topping success of the physical release of In Rainbows — that music fans are willing to support artists even if their music is offered up at no cost. Second, it’s more evidence that Nine Inch Nails truly has one of the most rabid fanbases on the planet. (In Rainbows, for what it’s worth, ranked Number 11 on the Amazon chart.)

Even though it was available for free, Ghosts I-IV was a good value even when sold on Amazon: the 36-track album went for $5. Multiple purchasing options were available when Trent Reznor first announced the record’s self-release, and after only a week Reznor revealed he made already made $1.6 million from the album. Ghosts was the first LP Reznor released after his exile from Interscope Records after a long, tumultuous relationship.

Of course, Reznor constantly rewards his fanbase for their support: He practically gave away The Slip in May, and he’s currently promising fans on his Website that “a gift” is on the way. Ghosts was released under a Creative Commons license, which allows fans to remix and share the songs as long as it was for non-commercial use and they credited the original authors of the work.

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• Nine Inch Nails Surprise Fans by Web-Releasing New “Ghosts” Album
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• Nine Inch Nails Release New Album “The Slip” for Free

Trent Reznor’s goals for this summer’s Nine Inch Nails tour — his first major trek since dropping one of the best albums of his career for free in The Slip — are modest. “I want you to leave feeling like your head exploded,” Reznor told Rolling Stone’s Gavin Edwards during rehearsals. Click below for more from Reznor, including why he doesn’t like the pay-what-you-want model for selling albums.

• Tour Preview: Trent Reznor Rolls Out New Nine Inch Nails Tour

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• Nine Inch Nails Bring Darkness and Light for Tour Opener in Seattle

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• Nine Inch Nails at Lollapalooza

The Forum used to be the home arena of the Los Angeles Lakers, but last Saturday, it hosted a very different type of drama: 500 invited guests in a largely empty building got to see the dress rehearsal for Nine Inch Nails’ “Lights in the Sky” tour debuting tonight at the Pemberton Festival in British Columbia, and having its full opening show tomorrow in Seattle at the Key Arena. (Rock Daily will be live at both shows, so stay tuned for coverage).

Before the show, Trent Reznor came out in a gray hooded sweatshirt and addressed the crowd, explaining that they were trying out various material, so some parts of the show might not ultimately make it on tour, and that there might be some technical glitches: “Lots of things are going to happen that aren’t, let’s say, intentional.” He concluded, “I’m going to go backstage and throw up, and then I’ll see you guys.”

The two-hour show was astonishing, covering a wide range of Nine Inch Nails’ material, from “Head Like a Hole” through new songs from The Slip and instrumental pieces from Ghosts, which Reznor had never planned to play live. About a third of the way through the concert, Reznor deployed some video screens, but not to enlarge his face for the cheap seats: sometimes the band played in front of a desert backdrop, sometimes the screens responded to the music with colored bubbles (like Guitar Hero in reverse), sometimes the musicians vanished behind a wall of static.

“On stage, it’s very easy to tell when you lose people’s attention,” Reznor told RS later. (more…)

Last week, Trent Reznor snuck up on everybody when he unleashed the new Nine Inch Nails album The Slip on the Internet for free. Click below to find out how Reznor pulled it off, the technology behind it and what other artists might be indulging in this model in the future.

• Nine Inch Nails Surprises Fans With Free Online Album

• Album Review: Nine Inch Nails’ The Slip

[Photo: O'Reagan/Retna]

A mere two months after surprising fans with the web-released Ghosts I-IV and two weeks after surprising radio stations with new single “Discipline,” Trent Reznor and his prolific Nine Inch Nails announced this morning that their hinted-at new album The Slip was available as a free and immediate download. According to Reznor, the album is being given away for free as a “thank you to our fans for your continued support.” The album features ten tracks and is once again licensed by Creative Commons, allowing fans to remix it, repost it and do what they wish with it. Reznor also promises CD and vinyl copies in July.

[Photo: Getty”

The prolific Trent Reznor is back at it. Less than two months after web-releasing the instrumental Ghosts I-IV, Nine Inch Nails sent a brand new song, titled “Discipline,” to radio stations simultaneously around 2:30pm EST today. Reports say the song was just mastered yesterday. And unlike the Ghosts fare, this song actually contains Reznor on vocals. But here’s where things get strange: Venturing back over to nin.com, a post dated April 21st reads “2 weeks!” This “two week” message echoes a similarly mysterious message posted in mid-February that ultimately resulted in the release of Ghosts I-IV. Does Reznor have another new album up his sleeve to accompany “Discipline?” We’ll find out in thirteen days.

[Photo: Getty]

More and more superstar acts are departing major labels to sign deals with other promotion companies (like Madonna’s partnership with Live Nation) or heading out on their own to deliver their music directly to fans (like the recent emancipation of Nine Inch Nails). For the details of the latest deals, as well as the effect this trend will have on the rest of the industry, click here, plus check out our exclusive Q&A with Billy Corgan.

[Photo: Walter/Getty]

Trent Reznor has gone public with the sum total of all the money he made in first week sales after self-releasing his instrumental album Ghosts I-IV: $1,619,420. The album, released on March 2nd in a multitude of different formats at nin.com, “immediately sold out” of its run of 2,500 “Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition” versions (complete with vinyl, deluxe packaging and a Reznor autograph), each with a $300 price tag. In all, 781,917 transactions were made for the album, with people either downloading a quarter of the album for free, downloading the entire album for $5, purchasing a physical copy for $10 or getting the non-ultra-deluxe limited edition version for $75. Unlike Radiohead, who have still not released the total numbers and dollar figures from their In Rainbows experiment, Reznor likely revealed his first-week stats as a way to show fellow artists in the same weight class how successful they can be without the help of a major label. We’re sure Reznor and Thom Yorke will have a nice laugh about all this if they do in fact headline Lollapalooza. Ghosts I-IV is still available for download on NIN’s site, with double-CD sets due in stores on April 8th.

Related Stories:

• Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails Expected to Headline Lollapalooza
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[Photo: Getty]