It didn't turn out the way you wanted it, did it?

Trent Reznor: the epitome of small-town boy done good; with a drive to be successful and break away from the shackles of his existence. His medium was music, and over the course of the last 25 years he has left an indelible mark upon the industry with his unique brand of electronically-tinged industrial heavy metal music.

Band members have come and gone, music and video game scores have been successfully written, he's produced tracks for the likes of Marilyn Manson on the mercurial 1996 career-defining work of art that is Antichrist Superstar and - as I can personally attest due to having seen him at Reading Festival in 2007 - he can reduce any grown man to tears with his searing rendition of Hurt from the emotionally charged 1991 album, The Downward Spiral. What has remained is the will to innovate, be unique and groundbreaking and take the pain of life's travails and weave it right through his art.

My words here will focus on his lesser revered album, 2008's Ghosts I-IV, which is a collection of musical snippets, ideas, sound collages and emotions across 36 tracks. Despite its commercial failure at the time - ironically being Amazon's most downloaded album of 2008 due to Reznor making it freely available - and partial departure from Reznor's heretofore mentioned style and guitar/drum/vocal assault on the masses, it works. And I will tell you why...

Anyone who can stand almost alone in the creative world and do what Reznor does commands respect. Ghosts I-IV takes you on a very specific journey of his various experiments in the studio with longtime friend and collaborator/band member Atticus Ross, from some simple and yet elegantly played piano chords, to gentle atmospheric samples and some downright agonizing guitar buzzing and scratching.

The general feel of the album moves through a range of emotional states from isolation to desolation, euphoria to pain, from grace to torture and from destruction to creation. Each track has been carefully crafted and the ordering and mastering is so clean and well thought out so as to keep the listener intrigued all the way along. It's actually a bit of an insult to Reznor and his collaborators to write this off as a 'partial' or 'unfinished' project as whilst none of this will make it onto their blistering stage sets, it possesses a beauty and rage in equal measure that cannot be ignored.

There's clearly some strong outside influences on Reznor during the writing of the album; Aphex Twin and Brian Eno being the obvious ones.

Stand out tracks for me are 2 Ghosts 1, 3 Ghosts 1, 4 Ghosts 1, 9 Ghosts 1, 32 Ghosts IV and 34 Ghosts IV. Having bought the original CD it also came with an amazing book which features photos from by Phillip Graybill and Rob Sheridan.

Listen to the whole album on Spotify here. Download the PDF photo book here, it is stunning. Perhaps one of the earliest examples of multi-media usage in an album work to convey the wider message, especially when you consider P2P networking was in its infancy and Reznor defied the industry by releasing to people to download for nothing. The shape of things to come, as it transpired..

Having recently watched the fantastic Netflix documentary series The Vietnam War (originally commissioned by PBS in the United States), it utilizes several tracks from Ghosts I-IV during the 10 episodes cataloguing of the history of the conflict, and Reznor is credited throughout. The music fits perfectly to convey the anger, hurt, rage, intensity, senselessness, brutality and futility of the war.

Being the Electronic music fan through and through - although my penchant for Metal found itself in the early 2000's and NIN was and is one of the mainstays - this album is the one I return to the most. Whilst not pure Electronic music, Reznor could not create what he does without the various trappings of synth, sampler, sequencer, sound modules and drum machines that typify the consummate one-man-band ethos.

Go listen if you haven't ever, and if you have, go listen again. It's beautiful, dark and haunting in equal measure.

I make no apology for this, as it comes directly from Wikipedia, but it is important:

During the five years following the release of The Downward Spiral, Reznor suffered depression, worsened by the death of his grandmother, who raised him. During this period of intense grief, he began abusing alcohol, cocaine and other drugs. In 2001, Reznor successfully completed rehab, and eventually moved from New Orleans to Los Angeles. In a 2005 interview with Kerrang, he reflected on his self-destructive past: "There was a persona that had run its course. I needed to get my priorities straight, my head screwed on. Instead of always working, I took a couple of years off, just to figure out who I was and working out if I wanted to keep doing this or not. I had become a terrible addict; I needed to get my shit together, figure out what had happened."

If you are ever struggling in any way, TALK to someone. Not everybody will experience the depths of depression in this way but if you start to feel or act differently, reach out. Say something. Don't be scared of being judged or feeling small or less of a person. Your friends, colleagues and family would much rather you were here than not, no matter what the inside of your head tells you.

Reznor is living proof, as are many.

Take this with you into tomorrow.

Badger x