Nine Inch Nails - Tron: Ares (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have scored more than a dozen films together, but never as Nine Inch Nails. TRON: Ares is the first time the band's name has gone on a soundtrack, and it follows two of the most distinctive scores in science fiction: Wendy Carlos's work on the 1982 original and Daft Punk's for TRON: Legacy. Where both predecessors leaned on orchestras, Reznor and Ross built this one entirely from electronics.

The result runs to 24 tracks and plays like a Nine Inch Nails record as much as a film score. Cold, precise synthesizer pieces sit alongside full vocal songs, with Reznor singing on four of them. "As Alive as You Need Me to Be" is the centerpiece, a driving single that would fit on any of the band's studio albums, and "Who Wants to Live Forever?" pairs him with Spanish singer Judeline. Boys Noize and Hudson Mohawke contribute production throughout, giving the low end a club weight the duo's earlier scores rarely reached for.

It landed well beyond the film itself. The album reached the top five of the Billboard 200 and topped the rock and dance album charts, reviews widely singled out the music as the best thing about the movie, and "As Alive as You Need Me to Be" won the Grammy for Best Rock Song.

This standard edition presents the full soundtrack as a 2LP set on black vinyl.