Music / Ghosts I-IV

A soundtrack for daydreams.

Ghosts I-IV is the sixth studio album by American rock band Nine Inch Nails, initially released on March 2, 2008, less than a year after their previous album Year Zero. It is the first album to be released by The Null Corporation, an independent label started by frontman Trent Reznor for projects associated with him following his split from Interscope Records.

In a divergence from the band's previous discography, Ghosts I-IV is an almost entirely instrumental ambient album described by Reznor as "the result of working from a very visual perspective—dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams." The album was initially conceived as a five-track EP but resulted as a set of four nine-track EPs; the album's tracks are untitled, identified only by their EP and track listing.

The album was born from an experimental, improvisational process in which Reznor and his team — co-composing producer Atticus Ross and collaborators Alessandro Cortini, Adrian Belew, and Brian Vigilone — gave themselves 10 weeks to create with "no clear agenda" and "no overthinking". The tracks were reportedly inspired by visual references that the band attempted to "describe" with sound, texture and melody such that Reznor summarized their approach to the album as "[treating] it, in a sense, as if it were a soundtrack." The album features a wide variety of instruments^note piano, guitar, bass, synthesizer, marimba, tambourine, banjo, dulcimer, xylophone, etc., with many of them being sampled and modified electronically. Additional percussion, contributed mainly by Viglione, was mostly built out of found objects and household items.

Ghosts I-IV was released in a variety of formats and sizes: digital; 2-CD; 4-LP; a deluxe edition with the two CDs, a data DVD with the multitrack files, a Blu-Ray of the album in HD stereo, and a 48-page photobook. A $300 "Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition," limited to 2,500 numbered copies signed by Reznor, combined the deluxe edition with the vinyl version in a fabric slipcase, with each copy coming with two unique Giclée prints. Each version of the album also came with a 40-page PDF containing a photograph for each of the 36 tracks.

To promote the album, Reznor announced a film festival hosted on the band's YouTube channel, requesting fans to visually interpret the music; although over 2,000 submissions were posted, no mention of the festival has been made since initial announcement. The album was also notably released under a Creative Commons license, allowing anyone to use or rework the tracks for non-profit purposes as long as they provided credit and released their work under a similar license. Reznor explained this as "a stance we're taking that we feel is appropriate" with "digital technology, and outdated copyright laws".

In retrospect, many have considered the cinematic sound and release format of Ghosts I-IV as foreshadowing for Reznor and Ross' joint career as film score composers, starting with The Social Network (which features some reworked versions of tracks on this album).

Following the album's release, Reznor stated that "more volumes of Ghosts are likely to appear in the future." This would eventually come to pass a whole 12 years later when NIN released the fifth and sixth volumes of Ghosts (respectively titled Together and Locusts) on March 26, 2020 in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Among the various places that tracks on the album have appeared in, "34 Ghosts IV" gained a new wave of attention after being sampled on Lil Nas X’s Breakthrough Hit "Old Town Road".

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Tracklist:

Ghosts I

1. "1 Ghosts I" (2:49)
2. "2 Ghosts I" (3:16)
3. "3 Ghosts I" (3:51)
4. "4 Ghosts I" (2:13)
5. "5 Ghosts I" (2:52)
6. "6 Ghosts I" (4:19)
7. "7 Ghosts I" (2:00)
8. "8 Ghosts I" (2:56)
9. "9 Ghosts I" (2:47)

Ghosts II

1. "10 Ghosts II" (2:42)
2. "11 Ghosts II" (2:17)
3. "12 Ghosts II" (2:17)
4. "13 Ghosts II" (3:13)
5. "14 Ghosts II" (3:05)
6. "15 Ghosts II" (1:53)
7. "16 Ghosts II" (2:30)
8. "17 Ghosts II" (2:13)
9. "18 Ghosts II" (5:23)

Ghosts III

1. "19 Ghosts III" (2:11)
2. "20 Ghosts III" (3:39)
3. "21 Ghosts III" (2:54)
4. "22 Ghosts III" (2:31)
5. "23 Ghosts III" (2:43)
6. "24 Ghosts III" (2:39)
7. "25 Ghosts III" (1:58)
8. "26 Ghosts III" (2:25)
9. "27 Ghosts III" (2:51)

Ghosts IV

1. "28 Ghosts IV" (5:22)
2. "29 Ghosts IV" (2:54)
3. "30 Ghosts IV" (2:58)
4. "31 Ghosts IV" (2:25)
5. "32 Ghosts IV" (4:25)
6. "33 Ghosts IV" (4:01)
7. "34 Ghosts IV" (5:52)
8. "35 Ghosts IV" (3:29)
9. "36 Ghosts IV" (2:19)

Deluxe DVD Bonus Tracks

1. "37 Ghosts" (2:20)
2. "38 Ghosts" (4:51)

Musicians:

• Trent Reznor: Most instruments
• Atticus Ross: Programming
• Adrian Belew: Guitar (3, 4, 7, 10–11, 14, 16, 21, 25, 27, 31, 32, 35), electronics (25), marimba (30)
• Alessandro Cortini: Bass (4), guitars (4, 11, 17, 20, 24, 28), dulcimer (22), additional electronics (19, 22, 29, 33)
• Josh Freese: Drums (38)
• Brian Vigilone: Drums (19, 22)

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Tropes I-IV:

• Background Music: This whole album is this for daydreams, according to Trent Reznor.
• Boléro Effect: Multiple tracks are music loops that gradually add more instruments and sounds:
  • The first track, after the first minute, becomes a loop of piano chords that adds more ambiance until everything stops except the piano loop before Fading into the Next Song.
  • "13 Ghosts II" is another piano loop that adds percussion, ambient synths, and breathing.
  • "21 Ghosts III" is a xylophone loop that adds drums and synths as it progresses.
• Book Ends: "1 Ghosts I" starts out as a Lonely Piano Piece. "36 Ghosts IV" is primarily a Lonely Piano Piece.
• Breather Episode:
  • "9 Ghosts I" is a sparse, piano-based track that is sandwiched between the heavy "8 Ghosts I" and the avant-garde "10 Ghosts II".
  • The lighter "21 Ghosts III" comes after the Drone of Dread-based "20 Ghosts III".
  • The relatively upbeat "29 Ghosts IV" is sandwiched between two more melancholic tracks.
• Drone of Dread: Appears on several tracks, with "20 Ghosts III" being the most prominent. "2 Ghosts I" has it in the background of a more ethereal-sounding piano piece.
• Epic Rocking: Averted. The longest track ("34 Ghosts IV") is less than ten seconds short of six minutes.
• Fading into the Next Song: Several tracks:
  • The piano chords of the first track fade into the drones of the second.
  • "4 Ghosts I" fades into the spooky ambiance of "5 Ghosts I".
  • "24 Ghosts III" fades into the dark ambiance of "25 Ghosts III".
• Freaky Electronic Music: "24 Ghosts III" feels like a trip through a dark alley in a futuristic setting with some shady characters lurking about.
• Hell Is That Noise: At least half the tracks are built on disturbing ambient sounds that give the feel of something horrifying waiting to happen… if it didn’t already happen.
• Hidden Track: "37 Ghosts" and "38 Ghosts" are exclusive to the deluxe data DVD, in which they need to be assembled from the multitracks.
• Instrumentals: The entire album is instrumental, aside from occasional wordless vocals and distorted samples.
• Lonely Piano Piece: "36 Ghosts IV" is a melancholic track consisting simply of a piano with some quiet field recordings in the background.
• Leave the Camera Running: "6 Ghosts I" is the most minimalist track, consisting of a sparse ambiance over four minutes of a xylophone loop.
• Longest Song Goes Last: "18 Ghosts II" (5:23) is the longest on the second volume and first CD.
• Machine Monotone: "16 Ghosts II" has an indistinct robot voice in the background.
• Minimalistic Cover Art: A light shining on a sand dune at night.
• Miniscule Rocking: The majority of the tracks are under three minutes, most notably "7 Ghosts I" (2:00), "15 Ghosts II" (1:53), and "25 Ghosts II" (1:58).
• New Sound Album: An all-instrumental ambient album that foreshadows Trent Reznor's film score work with Atticus Ross.
• No Ending: "9 Ghosts I" ends the first volume abruptly, though it segues into "10 Ghosts II" on the CD.
• No Title: The tracks have no proper titles, being referred to only as "[position on album] Ghosts [volume]". However, "35 Ghosts IV" and "14 Ghosts II" were reworked in The Social Network soundtrack as "A Familiar Taste" and "Magnetic", respectively.
• Sampling:
  • "24 Ghosts III" samples "Get the door, get the door" from The Mothman Prophecies.
  • "30 Ghosts IV" samples Saddam Hussein banging on a table at his trial.
• Scare Chord: "4 Ghosts I" has loud, distorted guitar chords that disrupt a melodic guitar riff.
• Song Style Shift:
  • "20 Ghosts III" is a Drone of Dread track that morphs into a rock number near the end.
  • "34 Ghosts IV" starts out as a banjo-driven acoustic track, then turns into a piano piece for a little while before synths and percussion effects come in.