We’re not sure how it took five seasons for Black Mirror to pair industrial rock with all those spooky technological wastelands, but here we are now! And it is far from spooky! In one of the show’s new episodes, “Rachel, Jack, and Ashley Too,” Miley Cyrus plays a pop megastar plagued by mental demons and terrible management, with her signature bops sounding awfully familiar to Nine Inch Nails fans — and that’s because, indeed, they are Nine Inch Nails songs, which are rearranged (both lyrically and sonically) as Hot 100 standards. As showrunner Charlie Brooker revealed at a press conference today, he got the idea to adapt the band’s songs as he began writing the script, and Trent Reznor, noted mush, was more than happy to grant permission for their usage.
“He got it straight away. It was via email and he was really happy. He wanted to see the script and I got to rewrite his lyrics in a chirpy way,” Brooker recalled. “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.’” Specifically, be on the look out for an unbearably chipper “Head Like a Hole” song transformation, which Cyrus’s character croons like she’s on TRL circa 2008. “He thought it was all very funny. He found all of the dark comedy very entertaining,” showrunner Annabel Jones added about Reznor. “There are lots of dark concepts in the film and we just enjoyed a childish subversion of them.” Quick! Do Radiohead next!
