Nine Inch Nails - Satellite
Data trails like fingernails. Eliminate the spread.
Album: Hesitation Marks [eigth album]
Genre: Industrial, Alternative Dance
Album Release: August 30th 2013
Length: 5:03
Producer: Trent Reznor, Alan Moulder & Atticus Ross
Vocalist: Trent Reznor [age 47]
Label: Columbia [US] & Polydor Records
Official Audio
Live on Austin City Limits in 2014
Charts, Streams & Sales
Spotify: Over 3 million
YouTube Music: Over 1 million
Credits & Gear
Bass, electronica, guitar, percussion [all instruments played by Trent Reznor]
Details
- "The unglamorous story is that I owed Interscope a couple of songs for a greatest-hits package. I thought that might be a good excuse to try some new things, and 'Satellite' and 'Everything' came out. It was obvious that I would have censored myself from doing things so minimal and pop in the past. That made me think, 'Let's keep chipping away at the crack in the ice. We might fall through, but that prospect is exciting." [Reznor talking to Spin Magazine]
- The album title Hesitation Marks is a self harm reference about the marks people leave when they attempt to cut but pull away. Early Nine Inch Nails, such as 1994's 'Hurt', were full of similar references but they had declined in frequency after Reznor entered rehab in 2001.
- 'Satellite' was one of the first songs recorded for the album.
- 'Satellite' is about living in the information age when the digital world has crossed into the physical. There's so much information whizzing about our heads that at any moment it seems to be everywhere at once. Satellites cover the planet and send signals from one side to the other in the blink of an eye. Despite its conveniences such technological innovation also creates a surveillance culture that feeds into typical Nine Inch Nails themes such as paranoia and claudtrophobia. The lyrics for 'Satellite' include, 'better watch what you think, what was that you said?' and 'I'm inside your head'.
- The American military have used Nine Inch Nails songs to torture prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center and other such facilities. After repeated exposure, sometimes lasting days, prisoners were reported to have started beating their heads against the wall for relief.
Artwork
