Nine Inch Nails Drops Surprise New Song, Reveals Release Date & Tracklist for ‘Tron: Ares’ Soundtrack
Nine Inch Nails has given fans something to believe in. The industrial rock juggernaut surprise dropped new song “As Alive As You Need Me to Be” on Thursday (July 17), and also announced that the Tron: Ares soundtrack will be arriving on Sept. 19 via Interscope Records.
The dance-floor ready song — the band’s first new music in five years — invokes electronic duo Justice. The track is co-produced by Boys Noize, who is currently the opening act on NIN’s Peel It Back world tour and also worked with the band to remix the Challengers score.
“As Alive As You Need Me to Be” is the first single from the the Tron: Ares soundtrack, which will feature all-new music from the Grammy-winning band fronted by Trent Reznor. Though NIN did not officially announce the song ahead of its arrival, fans suspected new music was on the way when some spotted a new T-shirt being sold at recent shows — currently in Europe — about 10 days ago, sporting the words “as alive as you need me to be.” The band itself also shared a shot of the T-shirt on its Instagram Stories on July 8 with no further information.
The soundtrack is available for pre-order now, and the film hits theaters on Oct. 10. Along with the new song and release date for the soundtrack, the band revealed the full tracklist:
- “INIT”
- “FORKED REALITY”
- “AS ALIVE AS YOU NEED ME TO BE”
- “ECHOES”
- “THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING”
- “IN THE IMAGE OF”
- “I KNOW YOU CAN FEEL IT”
- “PERMANENCE”
- “INFILTRATOR”
- “100% EXPENDABLE”
- “STILL REMAINS”
- “WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER?”
- “BUILDING BETTER WORLDS”
- “TARGET IDENTIFIED”
- “DAEMONIZE”
- “EMPATHETIC RESPONSE”
- “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”
- “A QUESTION OF TRUST”
- “GHOST IN THE MACHINE”
- “NO GOING BACK”
- “NEMESIS”
- “NEW DIRECTIVE”
- “OUT IN THE WORLD”
- “SHADOW OVER ME”
In addition to brand new music from Nine Inch Nails for the Ares soundtrack, Reznor and musical partner Atticus Ross are scoring the movie for the franchise’s third film. The duo have scored 20 films together, and have won two Oscars (original score for The Social Network in 2011 and Soul in 2021, the latter of which was also shared with Jon Batiste) and three Golden Globes (original score for The Social Network, Soul and Challengers in 2025).
NIN’s Peel It Back world tour will arrive in North America on Aug. 6, and runs through Sept. 19.
Listen to “As Alive As You Need Me to Be” below:
Powered by Billboard.