[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

"I'm happy with who I am now," Reznor told Spin last month. "I feel fortunate to be where I am. We tried arranging the new songs with loud guitars, and it sounded false. Instead, we approached those old emotions in new ways that are subtler, and I think just as powerful." If the contentment that Reznor is expressing explicitly in interviews and implicitly on his latest albums is alarming for old fans, perhaps they can take comfort in Reznor's songwriting and production chops still being in top-flight shape. Years after the imitators nearly exhausted the Nine Inch Nails sound, Reznor still makes bangin' undead goth sex jams — only now those undead goths are holding hands in matching parallel bathtubs.
Besides, the prospect of Reznor screaming about pigs and belligerent fornication in the penumbra of his 50th birthday would not have been a tenable route for Nine Inch Nails. But the sorta-retro, sorta-trendy infectiousness of Hesitation Marks seems like a way forward. Reznor has the potential to be the new Bowie — an elder statesman who's good at staying just cool enough for each new generation to give his old records a courtesy pass. The guy who once made music expressly designed for kids to annoy their parents with can now be the one thing youngsters and Gen-X geezers agree on

Grantland