With the modern world falling down around us, U.K. TV series Black Mirror is becoming increasingly (and uncomfortably) akin to real life. And that line between fiction and reality is only getting blurrier; in the show’s fifth season, the episode entitled “Rachel, Jack, and Ashley Too” features Miley Cyrus as a bubbly pop star whose repertoire includes Nine Inch Nails songs retooled to sound relentlessly positive.
According to Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker, NIN mastermind Trent Reznor “got it straight away” and was “really happy” about his music being used in the series.
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“Actually every song that she [Cyrus] performs in this, they’re all Nine Inch Nails songs that we adapted into pop standards, that was actually one thing that was in the script early on that we had to get permission from Trent Reznor to do, to re-write some of his tracks as upbeat pop songs,” Brooker told the Independent. “He wanted to see the script and I got to rewrite his lyrics in a chirpy way. I’m not the best lyricist in the world, and there’s one point where she’s singing ‘I’m stoked on ambition and verve’ instead of ‘You’re gonna get what you deserve.’”
Never one to leave a savvy merch concept on the table, Reznor and the Nine Inch Nails team have already crafted a clever limited edition NIN X Black Mirror t-shirt collaboration. Boasting some of the rewritten lyrics on the front in a bubble font peppered with hearts, the shirt looks like something from the BM universe—so I guess you might say they nailed it. Check out the design below.
