You know what makes me love Trent Reznor even more than I do now? The fact that he embraces fan-based remixes instead of spurns them, like oh-so-many snobby musicians (*cough* Metallica, we’re looking at you! *cough*). He never ceases to amaze me, though. A few days ago, while perusing the NIN website, I came across the downloads. In it were copies of Nine Inch Nails’ current singles in ‘garageband’ format (GarageBand is a software application that allows users to create a piece of music, developed by Apple Computer for their Macintosh computers.) along with this message:

Well, the experiment of releasing The Hand That Feeds in garageband format was a resounding success. For those of you unaware, I essentially gave away the master multitrack sessions for that song for you to remix / reinterpret / ruin. Last I checked there were hundreds of remixes and info posted here alone.

I’ve enjoyed and cringed at what you’ve done with my song. Thank you (I think).

So …

Here I offer you Only, the new single. This time, I’ve expanded the idea from just offering the song in garageband format to four different formats that include Windows users as well.

Again, there is no agenda here other than for you to explore, experiment, and have fun with it. Depending on how this goes we may construct a more formal community for remix postings and/or possibly some sort of “official” endorsement by means of an EP or something.

I’m looking forward to hearing what you come up with…

trent reznor

How insane is that? I’ve been gleefully downloading oodles of remixes from the website which is right here if you’re interested. They range from the spectacular (Only - Butchered Goth Remix by GTB) to the craptacular (take your pick, there’s hundreds ;)).