Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - The Social Network (2010) [Hi-Res]

I know this review is a little late, but later always better than never. Anyway, here we have Trent Reznor making his feature film debut with his friend and collaborator Atticus Ross. A lot of people may think that artists from the popular music scene foraying into film scoring is a new thing, but trust me it's not. Almost every great film composer working today has a band/rock background. Reznor is a bit different because Nine Inch Nails is essentially a one man band. He literally does almost everything since his music is all electronics and sampled stuff. Atticus Ross has been his producer and programmer and Ross has actually started foraying into films. He's worked with The Hughes Brothers on their short for New York, I Love You and then on their next feature The Book Of Eli. Reznor has always been friends with David Fincher and in fact did the opening titles to Se7en back in 1995. Some of his music was also used by his friend Harry Gregson-Williams in Man On Fire.

Fincher is one of my favorite directors and his only weakness in my opinion is the inability to stick with one composer. Howard Shore is the only composer he's worked with twice. I just feel the director/composer collaboration is the most significant and by crafting that relationship over a series of films magical things can happen. I understand Fincher hires composers with different styles because almost every film Fincher has done has been different than the previous one he's done. So do Reznor and Ross fit here? Absolutely.

The Social Network is some of the best electronic composing you will hear, and by electronic composing I mean it. There is nothing organic about the score. In fact the entire score was performed by both Reznor and Ross themselves. The central theme heard in the first track is perfect. It's only 3 notes and communicates everything that needs to be said. It's reused maybe only one or two more times throughout the score so a thematic score this is not. It borderlines between atmospheric and ambient.

The great thing is that it is modern in the best way modern can be. No real source music is used in the score except for 1 iconic piece of music masterfully arranged by Reznor and Ross. The way the score affected me was that at first I felt like it was indeed scoring the character of Mark then as the film progressed I felt it switched to situational scoring. I don't think the characters needed much help from the score because the writing was so damn good. Reznor and Ross did a great job of not having their score trip up over the writing and the dialogue. A hard task by any means.

This score is an amazing debut for Reznor and Atticus Ross brings a lot more to the table than you'd think. I mean the score is almost identical to The Book Of Eli in certain ways so in that respect he has a grounded style to offer. I hope Fincher sticks with these two for The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo because I think they could do a wonderful new take on that source material. The Social Network is definitely one of the best scores of the year to one of the best films of the year.