Ghosts I–IV
Ghosts I–IV is the sixth studio album by the American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, released by The Null Corporation on March 2, 2008. It was the band's first independent release following their split from longtime label Interscope Records in 2007. The production team included Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, studio collaborators Atticus Ross and Alan Moulder, and contributions from Alessandro Cortini, Adrian Belew, and Brian Viglione.
Ghosts I–IV
March 2, 2008
October–December 2007
109:56
The Null Corporation
Reznor described Ghosts as "a soundtrack for daydreams," a sentiment echoed by critics, who compared it to the work of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp. The tracks are unnamed, identified only by their track listing and group number, and are almost entirely instrumental. Although conceived as a five-track EP, the final release consisted of four nine-track EPs, totaling 36 tracks. The album was released under a Creative Commons license (BY-NC-SA) and in a variety of differing packages and prices, including a $300 deluxe edition, without prior announcement. A YouTube-based film festival was also announced, inviting fans to visually interpret the music and post their submissions, but no mention has been made of the festival since its announcement.
Ghosts I–IV received positive reviews; critics praised its experimentalism and unorthodox release. It reached number 14 in the US, and was nominated for Grammy Awards for Best Rock Instrumental Performance and Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package, the first time music released under a Creative Commons license had been nominated for a Grammy Award.
Ghosts preceded a series of soundtrack albums recorded by Reznor and Ross, including five collaborations with director David Fincher. In March 2020, Nine Inch Nails released two follow-up albums to Ghosts I–IV: Ghosts V: Together and Ghosts VI: Locusts.[2]
Production[edit]
Recording and music[edit]
Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor announced in 2007 that the band had completed its contractual obligations to its record label, Interscope Records, and would no longer be working with the company. He also revealed that the band would likely distribute its next album independently, possibly in a fashion similar to Saul Williams' 2007 album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, which Reznor produced.[3]
Following the Performance 2007 Tour in support of the band's previous album Year Zero (2007), Reznor set out to make a record "with very little forethought".[4] Ghosts I–IV originated from an experiment: "The rules were as follows: 10 weeks, no clear agenda, no overthinking, everything driven by impulse. Whatever happens during that time gets released as... something."[5] Reznor explained, "I've been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn't have made sense until this point".[6]
The core creative team behind the project was Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Alan Moulder. Live-band member Alessandro Cortini and studio musicians Adrian Belew and Brian Viglione also contributed instrumental performances on select tracks.[5] Reznor described the band's early intentions for the project as "an experiment", and explained the group's process: "When we started working with the music, we would generally start with a sort of visual reference that we had imagined: a place, or a setting, or a situation. And then attempt to describe that with sound and texture and melody. And treat it, in a sense, as if it were a soundtrack."[7]
The musicians created the album tracks through improvisation and experimentation. As a result, the initial plan to release a single EP of the material expanded to include the increasing amount of material.[8] Viglione contributed percussion to tracks 19 and 22. He stated that Reznor's instructions to him were to "build a drumkit. Piece together any stuff that you want to bang on; rent what you want to rent. Have fun and... be creative—See where your mind and your ideas take you."[9] Viglione's makeshift drum kit included a 50-gallon trash can, a pair of water cooler jugs, and a cookie tray with a chain across it.[9] Alessandro Cortini is credited on a total of ten tracks from Ghosts for his contributions on guitar, bass guitar, dulcimer, and electronics. Cortini was brought onto the project two weeks into the process, and his involvement evolved from "first recording some extra parts to some tracks" and eventually into "a collaboration on [the] tracks noted in the booklet".[10] Adrian Belew was also brought on for select instrumental contributions, but as the project evolved Reznor expanded Belew's involvement and shared writing credit with him on two tracks.[11]
Ghosts I–IV is an almost entirely instrumental album, with only a few tracks containing sampled vocals. Reznor described the album's sound as "the result of working from a very visual perspective—dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams."[12] PopMatters' review of the album compared its musical style to that of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp, ultimately categorizing it as "dark ambient".[1] The review went on to describe the music as "a tonal painting, a collection of moods and not all of these moods are good ones."[1] NPR compared the album to the music of Erik Satie and Brian Eno. Rolling Stone also compared the album to the work of Brian Eno, specifically the album's sound to the instrumentals of Another Green World (1975) and the rhythm collages of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981).[13][14] Robert Christgau also compared the album to the work of Brian Eno, summarizing Ghosts' sound as "mental wallpaper".[15]
Ghosts I–IV features a wide assortment of musical instruments, including piano, guitar, bass, synthesizer, marimba, tambourine, banjo, dulcimer, and xylophone, many of which were sampled and distorted electronically.[16] Percussion instruments, contributed primarily by Brian Viglione, were constructed largely out of found objects and household items.[9]
Artwork[edit]
Rob Sheridan acted as the album's art director, in collaboration with Artist in Residence. Sheridan was also art director for the previous two Nine Inch Nails studio albums, With Teeth (2005) and Year Zero.[5] Since Ghosts was released in a variety of versions, some of the versions feature somewhat differing (or additional) album art and related artwork. A 40-page PDF comes with each version of the album and contains a photograph for each of the 36 tracks. These photographs are also embedded into the ID3 tags of every downloadable track.[17]
Commercial performance[edit]
The album's initial release on the official Nine Inch Nails website suffered problems as the website was inundated with traffic, and was not fully operational until extra servers were added to handle the influx of downloads.[28] A week after the album's release, the official Nine Inch Nails site reported over 780,000 purchase and download transactions, amassing over $1.6 million in sales.[55] Pre-orders of the $300 "Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition" sold out in less than 30 hours of its release.[56]
The physical release of the album debuted at number 14 on the US Billboard 200 with 26,000 copies sold in its first week.[57] The album also topped Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums chart.[58] It had sold 149,000 copies in the United States by May 2013.[59] Internationally, Ghosts peaked at number three in Canada, number 15 in Australia, number 26 in New Zealand, number 58 in Austria, and number 60 in the United Kingdom.[60][61][62]
Influence[edit]
"02 Ghosts I" has been featured in the 2012 documentary film Kony 2012.[63] Portions of the album were used as the soundtrack to the 2014 documentary film Citizenfour.[64][65] The 2018 documentary series The Fourth Estate features variations of songs from Ghosts I-IV, in addition to the series' opening sequence being scored by Reznor and Ross.[66]
"34 Ghosts IV" was sampled by music producer YoungKio for a beat subsequently used on the 2018 Lil Nas X song "Old Town Road," with Reznor's and Ross' writing credits. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 2019, and stayed there for a record-breaking nineteen consecutive weeks.[67][68] The song also earned both Reznor and Ross a Country Music Association Awards nomination for Musical Event of the Year.[69]
Follow-up albums[edit]
Reznor wrote in 2008 that "more volumes of Ghosts are likely to appear in the future."[5] In a 2009 interview with Trent Vanegas, he repeated his intention to make another Ghosts album in the near future.[70]
The release of Ghosts I–IV foreshadowed a stream of soundtrack albums, recorded and labeled by Reznor and Ross, apart from Nine Inch Nails catalogue. The duo's three consecutive collaborations with director David Fincher: The Social Network (2010), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), and Gone Girl (2014), were followed by a collaboration Before the Flood (2016), and subsequent scores for Patriots Day (2017), The Vietnam War (2017), Mid90s (2018), Bird Box (2018), Watchmen (2019), Waves (2019), Mank (fourth collaboration with Fincher, 2020), Soul (2020), Bones and All (2022), Empire of Light (2022), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023), and The Killer (fifth collaboration with Fincher, 2023).
On March 26, 2020, as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the band released the previously unannounced Ghosts V: Together and Ghosts VI: Locusts, for free download on the band's website, YouTube channel, and streaming platforms.[2]
Album credits adapted from the liner notes of Ghosts I–IV:[71]