PRETTY EIGHT MACHINE: NINE INCH NAILS IN 8-BIT

I thought the whole rendering metal tracks in 8-bit fad died off a couple of years ago. Not that I ever truly tired of it the way I tired of, say, mash-ups, but it just felt like people had had their fill. Not so, apparently: last week an 8-bit cover of Animals as Leaders’ “CAFO” blipped on our radar and now this, an 8-bit rendition of the entirety of Nine Inch Nails’ classic album Pretty Hate Machine compiled by Inverse Phase.

At first listen it’s remarkable how well this works, but when you really boil it down to its essence it makes a whole lot of sense: NIN’s industrial undertones and dark moods lend themselves perfectly to the digital bloops, hisses and skronks of the NES sonic palette. NIN is mechanical music in nature in a way not too much different from the precision of Animals as Leaders. Music’s got to be somewhat mechanical and precise to work in 8-bit; like, I just can’t see an 8-bit rendition of Sleep’s Dopesmoker or Black Sabbath’s Paranoid working by any stretch of the imagination.

Listen to Pretty Eight Machine below and download it via Bandcamp. Love the computer-inspired re-jiggered song titles.

-VN

Thanks: Joey S via Destructoid