Creativities: The Social Network soundtrack
I’m starting a new series of I-don’t-know-how-many posts talking about creativity from the minds of the mainstream. I’ll be talking about videos or articles about popular artists, musicians, directors, and the like and how they talk about some of their best work. I’m sharing the things that I find inspiration in, and maybe they’ll inspire you, too. Who gives a shit?
The first article in this series is about Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails talking about an instrument he used in the soundtrack for The Social Network — a whiptastic movie that if you haven’t seen I’d come through your monitor and smack you right now and tell you to go _____ it. (pick your viewing poison)
In the video, Reznor talks specifically about an instrument called the Swarmatron — a collection of wires and electrical mess hand-built by a couple of doods from Brooklyn. The way that Reznor describes the sound created by this machine is almost poetic. This instrument is so prevalent throughout the movie (and I’ve heard the soundtrack so many times) I can almost hear every note and abstract sound played in the movie’s score coming from the small sample of notes he produced for the video, and to see the guy play with the machine with patience and little-no-remorse in how it sounded or felt is ridiculously inspiring.
Reznor has aged admirably. He may have always been this way, but his mannerisms about his art are quite inspiring to me. When I first heard he was doing the soundtrack for this movie (along with producer Atticus Ross) I was in disbelief, really. I had never really been a strong fan of Nine Inch Nails; not that I didn’t like them, but just that I hadn’t heard much of their music to stand by a solid opinion. After seeing the movie I couldn’t believe that the same guy that made Closer made the tunes that fell behind the dialogue-heavy scenes of David Fincher’s take on The Accidental Billionaires.
Needless to say… I was hooked.
End.
