A full video for Miley Cyrus' NIN cover from Black Mirror is now online.
In the latest season of the Netflix science fiction horror series Black Mirror, the episode Rachel, Jack and Ashley, Too features real pop icon Miley Cyrus as fake pop icon Ashley-O performing On A Roll, a spoof of the classic Nine Inch Nails’ track,Head Like A Hole. Now, Netflix has put out a music video for the song on their YouTube channel, which you can watch below.
Thing is, On A Roll isn’t exactly a cover of Head Like A Hole. Rather, it takes the vocal melody of the track, and puts it against a modern pop melody that gives it a new flavor. Much of the lyrics that Miley Cyrus, or rather Ashley-O, sings are taken from the original track, with a few pronoun changes thrown in like, “No, I can’t take it” and “I’m going to get what I deserve.” In some ways, it feels like this new track is a bit of a response to the original.
The music video itself plays out much like a pop video in the modern day would, featuring dancers in a brightly colored room with Ashley-O singing along to the song. Towards the end, there’s a handful of unsettling elements thrown into the mix, such flickering static, that give it the horror elements Black Mirror is known for.
Check out the music video to I’m On A Roll here:
Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker got the permission from Trent to alter the words, stating, “Trent got it straight away, it was via email and he was really happy pretty quickly. He wanted to see the script and I got to re-write his lyrics in a chirpy way.”
This has all worked out in Reznor’s favor. Since the release of the Black Mirror episode, there had been a whopping 300% increase of views for the music video of Nine Inch Nails’ Head Like A Hole, raking it up 40,000 extra views a day. What better show to have viewers listening to industrial music than a show about technology threatening to destroy everything we value as humans?
Black Mirror Season 5 is now streaming via Netflix.
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