Settling Scores: Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
It’s Edition 49 of Laughing Stock, and we’ve finally got round to maybe doing a series of something. ‘Settling Scores’ will see our writers pick some of their favourite film score composers and rank their output from ‘essential’ to ‘don’t bother’, so you, dear reader, can listen to the very best and disregard the rest. Here, resident film buff Will Palmer delves into the oeuvre of the very excellent duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
It’s strange to think of a time when Trent Reznor was just the Nine Inch Nails frontman. When David Fincher picked up the phone to ask him to score The Social Network in 2010, he initially said no. Reznor, having just finished a brutal recording schedule and a long tour, was tired. He’d previously co-produced the soundtrack for Oliver Stone’s visceral Natural Born Killers, but this was mostly overseeing song choices for the soundtrack and contributing some NIN tracks of his own. Something obviously itched at him: Reznor apologised and accepted Fincher’s offer. Fincher had been waiting for him, he only ever had one person in mind. Reznor brought in his long time friend and collaborator, Atticus Ross, and the rest is history.
Despite the film industry’s attempt to imitate their sound, Reznor and Ross resist categorisation. Each score is something wholly idiosyncratic. The industrial distortion of their NIN days is forever evident, but they’ve expanded to everything from synth-inspired scores, to big band, to Americana. With Challengers, the latest film scored by the duo in cinemas now, it’s a good time to assess their body of work. In the first of a (hopefully) new segment for Laughing Stock, ‘Settling Scores’ is my attempt to rank all 16 of their film scores.
Essential Listening
The Social Network (2010) Dir: David Fincher
Looking back, it seems remarkable how groundbreaking the musical choices on David Fincher’s The Social Network were. There’s that trailer, arguably the trailer, backed by that now iconic choral rendition of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’. There were plenty of imitators in the decade after, but none operating on that level. This was Reznor and Ross’ first soundtrack together and arguably their best. A brief listen of the opening track, ‘Hand Covers Bruise,’ with its simple piano sequence over unsettling, trembling strings conjures Jesse Eisenberg’s flip flops in the snow, a flash of Andrew Garfield’s angry strut and Justin Timberlake’s wonderfully punchable face, uttering the line “drop the ‘the’, it’s cleaner.” In the electrifying regatta scene, with the fuzziness of Fincher’s tilt-shift lens, a cover of ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ builds to a crescendo of zippy static like a buzzing overhead pylon. To imagine the film without them is to imagine a tech-procedural, with Aaron Sorkin’s snappy lines softening Reznor and Ross’ sharper, hostile edges. Reznor and Ross set the tone, earmarking its unconventionality and ensuring cinematic immortality for everybody involved.
Stand out track: Hand Covers Bruise
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) Dir: David Fincher
Set in the bitingly dark Swedish winter, Fincher’s adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is proper Nine Inch Nails territory. The tale of sexual degeneracy and murder is all off-key cowbells and clanging metal objects. They scored it as it was shot, sending Fincher pieces to insert over his rough daily edits. The duo never quite knew when the score was finished, with Reznor saying “everything is in flux…hopefully it’ll work out in the end.” There’s a roughness that comes from this way of working that helps create the disquiet and the despair of the score. So many of these tracks are imbued with a mystery that you desperately don’t want to interrogate. Don’t look at what's underneath the rock, don’t investigate that noise downstairs in the middle of the night, don’t open your door to strangers. Listen at your peril.
Stand out track: What If We Could / Under the Midnight Sun
Bones and All (2022) Dir: Luca Guadagnino
On Bones and All, the divine Luca Guadagnino-directed cannibal romance, Reznor and Ross have this uncanny ability to balance the film’s deep dark and gentle light. They approach something close to Americana, shifting between folksy elegies and acoustic guitar, but this is punctured by the guttural cries of the exorcised. Intimate moments, like a tender kiss between Maren (Taylor Russell) and Lee (Timothée Chalamet) are when this score soars with the dramatic pink skies, roadside diners and pastoral greenlands of heartland America. It’s sumptuous, but there’s a wickedness lurking at every corner. You won’t always like what you see.
Stand out track: I’m With You (You Seem Nice) / The Great Wide Open (Reprise)
Challengers (2024) Dir: Luca Guadagnino
For Luca Guadagnino’s tennis throuple drama, the director briefed Reznor and Ross that he wanted the movie to sound like ‘unending homoerotic desire.’ The duo’s techno score is so pulse-pounding-ly enthralling that it already feels vital to the cultural moment. The self-titled opening track ‘Challengers’ is the most catchy and clearly a future dance floor filler. But it’s ‘Yeah x10’ which worms its way into your subconscious as Reznor’s wife, Mariqueen Maandig, literally says “yeah” ten times over. ‘Brutalizer’ evokes pure humidity: I imagine it coming on in the club and I either become so overwhelmed I need to go out for fresh air and a cigarette or I stay put and lose myself completely in the moment. Much like The Social Network, the score feels as much a part of the film as Guadagnino’s kinetic vision; it’s as essential as his frenzied tennis ball POV sequences or that audacious double split-diopter shot. It’s as much a character as Zendaya’s Tashi, Josh O’Connor’s Patrick and Mike Faist’s Art. The score is Patrick eating Art’s churros, it’s the fact their beds were already pushed together and it’s Tashi’s final, cathartic roar. It’s certainly Reznor and Ross’ most eclectic and rule breaking work since The Social Network and history will likely remember Challengers as its equal. Please listen to it on the big screen.
Stand out tracks: Brutalizer / Challengers: Match Point
Top tier
Soul (2020) Dir: Pete Docter
Reznor and Ross worked alongside jazz composer Jon Batiste to score Pixar’s Soul, winning them a second Oscar. There are two musical worlds here: that of main character Joe, a jazz pianist who’s still hanging onto his dream of playing professionally; and that of the ‘Great Before’ and the ‘Great Beyond’, the limbo of lost souls that Joe finds himself mixed up in. Many will remember Batiste’s ‘It’s All Right’ as the most memorable musical piece and it’s certainly a stand out of the film’s jazz compositions. However, there’s something to be said about Reznor and Ross conjuring otherworldly wonder with majestic voices, strings and twinkly sci-fi beeps for the Great Beyond and the Great Before. It feels like the kind of music they’d play at a planetarium about the mysteries of the universe.
Stand out track: The Great Beyond
Mank (2020) Dir: David Fincher
Fincher brought Reznor and Ross back again for a fourth time for his 2020 biopic about screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he works on the script for what would become Citizen Kane. Given the subject material, this often feels the most classical of their scores, utilising a large orchestra with 1940s-era instruments to ensure the sound felt authentically like the glitz and glamour of golden age Hollywood. Most films tend to romanticise this big studio era of Tinseltown, but Fincher mostly resists this nostalgia with Reznor and Ross similarly embracing that same gnawing bitterness as the score wears on.
Stand out track: A Fool’s Paradise
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023) Dir: Jeff Rowe
Produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and directed by Jeff Rowe, this was Reznor and Ross’ second foray into animation. It’s ludicrously energetic with a real forward sense of momentum, utilising a wide range of influences from dirty synth and jazz to hip-hop beats and electric guitar. It’s like a grungy, garage mix of Soul and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and it’s genuinely so much fun; it almost has no right being this good.
Stand out track: Goochie Goochie Goo
If you’ve got time
Gone Girl (2014) Dir: David Fincher
For a psychological thriller, the Gone Girl soundtrack can feel oddly relaxing. Reznor and Ross found their inspiration for this in the music they play at doctors’ waiting rooms, giving it that sense of uncomfortable inauthenticity. Imagine one of those meditation apps trying to calm you down before you’re strapped to a chair for invasive treatment. I love how there’s a back seat approach to this score and where that doesn’t work as well on The Killer, it suits Gone Girl nicely, elevating it above the merely functional.
Stand out track: Sugar Storm
Before the Flood (2016) Dir: Fisher Stevens
Hugo from Succession directed this climate change documentary and Reznor and Ross scored it with some help from the likes of Mogwai. It’s a decent ambient listen, one to save for a rainy afternoon reading on the sofa. But, given Reznor and Ross’ usual ambition, it’s a score that should have more urgency, especially given the documentary’s subject matter.
Stand out track: A Minute to Breathe
Mid90s (2018) Dir: Jonah Hill
Jonah Hill’s directorial debut about skateboarding and growing up hasn’t aged well, but there’s something that works well alongside Hill’s choice of a predominantly hip-hop inspired soundtrack. This one is short, spanning four tracks in total and the droning hallmarks of what we’ve come to expect from a Reznor and Ross soundtrack are largely only apparent in the final track. But it’s simple, even blissful at times and it mostly works.
Stand out track: Big Wide World
The Killer (2023) Dir: David Fincher
Fincher again collaborated with Reznor and Ross for his gig economy assassin movie, starring a bucket hat-wearing Michael Fassbender. This one is likely to be remembered more for its many Smiths needle drops than Reznor and Ross’ mostly industrial score. On an individual level, I don’t think there’s anything in this that you can’t get from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for example, but it serves the film’s purpose and that’s perfectly fine.
Stand out track: Trailer
Don’t bother
Patriots Day (2016) Dir: Peter Berg
This Mark Wahlberg Boston marathon bombings drama is very much Reznor and Ross by the numbers. There were some issues on the creative process with the duo only brought in once the film had already been shot. On this one, they sound more like composers-for-hire rather than equal creative partners.
Stand out track: We Forget Who We Are
Bird Box (2018) Dir: Susanne Bier
Remember in 2018 when everyone was obsessed with Bird Box? The straight-to-streaming Sandra Bullock vehicle seemed to become a water cooler moment that spawned memes and internet challenges, despite how awful the whole thing is. Unfortunately, the worst thing I can say about Reznor and Ross’ score is that it's uninteresting, and I'm not the only one. Reznor said their time scoring the film was “a fucking waste of time,” citing issues with the editor and sound mixer whose mastering of the score changed its complexion. There’s a running theme of production companies hiring the duo for their cultural cachet and name recognition, only to then bring them on too late in the creative process and dull their innovation.
Stand out track: N/A
Waves (2019) Dir: Trey Edward Shults
Trey Edward Shults’ character driven family drama is a story of two halves. It’s a painful, ambitious and colourful film that eventually crumbles under its own weight. Reznor and Ross’ score can sometimes feel like a mixed bag too. My residual memory of the movie was grief and longing but also hope, mainly because of its deep blue shots of Florida and Frank Ocean singing ‘Godspeed’ over a very Instagrammable trailer. Reznor and Ross’ soundtrack feels totally divorced from that, which of course is what we sometimes expect from them, but like Patriots Day and Bird Box before this, they were brought in too late, like someone doing a lacklustre tribute to a Reznor and Ross soundtrack.
Stand out track: Feedback Loop
Empire of Light (2022) Dir: Sam Mendes
Olivia Coleman. Roger Deakins. Reznor & Ross. This had all the makings of a classic. Sam Mendes’ seaside tale of a troubled cinema attendee was supposed to be his grand love letter to film in a year particularly overstuffed with them, from Steven Spielberg’s The Fablemans to James Gray’s Armageddon Time. It’s well-made, but Reznor and Ross barely seem interested - and who can blame them? Mendes’ outdated retreading of racial tensions and unsympathetic portrayal of mental health makes for strange and sterile viewing. There’s so little warmth to the film that the score can’t help but feel hollow too.
Stand out track: Washed Out
There you have it, Reznor & Ross’ scores settled. Feel free to tell us what we got wrong in the comments below.
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