*beg for the reznor, who would no doubt beg for me.

I was gonna jump all over the comment that Cash wrote this song, but apparently it's already been done, and is an old comment. but just for clarification:

Nine Inch Nails (Trent Reznor) written in 1994. Released on Downward Spiral.
Johnny Cash covered in 2002. Released on American IV: The Man Comes Around.

Reznor is most definitely the author of this song, and Cash is not the first to cover it either.

Tori Amos frequently sang three or four lines of the song as an introduction to other songs during her Dew Drop Inn tour in 1996, most frequently "Caught a Lite Sneeze", and then again in 1998, as an improvisational bridge.
Breaking Benjamin
Sheryl Crow covered the Cash version on the television special Tribute to Johnny Cash.
Fightstar
Matthew Good, acoustic tour 2006.
Gregorian arranged the lyrics into a medieval Gregorian chant.
Kermit the Frog is featured in an unauthorized parody called "Sad Kermit".
Aaron Lewis of Staind covered the song during his 2007 Have Guitar, Will Travel solo acoustic tour.
Luna Amara
Jeff Martin
Montezuma's Revenge
Placebo, at the House of Blues in California in 2003.
Damien Rice, by inserting lyrics from the song into his live performances.
Underoath played it acoustic live
Sevendust did a cover as a tribute to Johnny Cash.
Howard Stern had his own version for his show, called "Private Hurt". He played the song while mixing in sound clips from his film Private Parts.
Westside Connection sampled the main riff for their song "The Gangsta The Killa and The Dope Dealer".

Tags for this video have been changed from 'industral metal trent reznor' to 'industral metal, trent reznor' - edited by kronosposeidon

Yes, I'm quite torn on the whole issue myself. My dilemma is that I want to support artists and performers who are talented, but I feel opposed to the studios who produce them. My opposition comes because of the business practices of the fat cats behind it. I won't go into them because I'm sure all of you know what I'll say. I wish there was an easier way that I could support those I see contributing and ignore those I see as parasites.

The world (and especially the movie industry) needs more people like Trent Reznor, Radiohead, and Courtney Love who are interested in taking a risk to make a system that works for (almost) everyone.

I have a very hard time believing that Trent Reznor had anything to do with the video.

Using media to fight media. Godspeed to Trent Reznor.

His former piano teacher Rita Beglin said "Reznor always reminded me of Harry Connick, Jr." when he played.

Reznor later confessed, "I don't want to give the impression it was a miserable childhood."

At the Mercer Area Junior and Senior High Schools, Reznor learned to play the saxophone and tuba. He was a member of both the jazz and marching band. Former Mercer High School band director Dr. Hendley Hoge remembered Reznor as "very upbeat and friendly". Reznor also became involved in theater while in high school. He was voted "Best in Drama" by classmates for his roles as Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar.

Also he dropped out of college while studying computer engineering in 1983.

He was a janitor for studio owner Bart Koster, who commented that Reznor was "so focused in everything he [did]. When that guy waxed the floor, it looked great."

Reznor often travels under the assumed name "Steve Austin" from The Six Million Dollar Man.

END TRANSMISSION

"God is dead, and no one cares"
Trent Reznor

I downloaded it pretty much the minute the download link arrived in my inbox. This is absolutely the best I have felt about buying an album EVER! Not only do I absolutely love the band and the music, I'm also in love with the way they are going about this; and the download is even DRM-free. To say that this is HUGE is an understatement -- this is changing everything. Apparently Trent Reznor and NIN are going the same way too.

Farhad. It's not really a marketing gimmick. I mean, there are even clues to the meta game in the songs themselves, on the cd. Reznor wanted it to be an experience. He came up with the whole idea, and sat there and based his songs around it. If it were marketing, the game would be based around the album. Instead, the album is based around the game and it's storyline.

Crushbug, I just copied and pasted that from youtube. Although I guess it is my fault for forgetting to quote it.

Mgshadow, the top of the CD is layered. The only problem arising from this is that sometimes the CDs might be all white instead of black, and the CD having a brown background instead of black, both of these due to production issues. But yeah the data itself is fine because of the layers. The original purpose of this color change was when you listened to the album enough, the heat from the player reading the CD would make the CD change color and you'd be like "OMGWTFBBQASS" and etc.

Oh btw. The album IMO is really good.

You don't see it? I'll switch the video to one you can see clearer. When the cd is exposed to heat, the design changes due to the cd being covered in a material called thermachrome. So if you put the cd in your cd player and play it for a definite amount of time, (Some say around 40 seconds) the design changes into the white design you see in the latter part of the video. The design is binary and is actually a part of a meta game created by Trent Reznor and 42 Entertainment. More information on the meta game itself can be found here: http://www.echoingthesound.org/ and here: http://www.ninwiki.com/Main_Page
and 42 Entertainment's website can be found here: http://42entertainment.com/

Shamelessly posted sometimes' link.

keep in mind that up until animals MM was basically reznor's other personality... animals, for me, was manson's 'coming out', as it were. i honestly haven't liked much of his older stuff (though i love all the older NIN stuff) with the exception of portrait. okay, so i'm probably exaggerating a little, about the reznor link and about his older stuff. but in general...

anyways, yeah... MM should be taken for what he is on stage, and that is a performance artist, shock rock... it's the fans that take it too far, and carry the character, rather than the idealism, with them after the concert.

Yes it was used in Natural Born Killers, and part of it is on the soundtrack, which was put together by Trent Reznor, and is possibly the best movie soundtrack ever.

Cash transmuted the rage of a young man into the regret of man at the end of his life. It gets even more power the more you know about Johnny Cash's life, and how he survived being an angry young man, survived being a drug addict and through the love of a great woman recovered and continued making music until he dropped.

Hopefully, at some point, Trent Reznor will perform this song in concert in the same manner as Cash - just to put an end to all the arguments over which version is better. Hopefully Reznor will live as long as Cash did, and will have the opportunity to have the same perspective gained.