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Ross had more previous experience writing film music, though Reznor seems to maintain primary credit for The Social Network. Some of the music they provided for the film consists of re-workings of tracks from their 2008 album "Ghosts I-IV," a product that Reznor considered an ambient soundtrack for daydreams and thus the starting point for this film score. Fans of Reznor and Ross will hear nothing particularly groundbreaking in The Social Network, therefore, and the score is understandably aimed at their collectors rather than those of traditional film music. Original music of significant size was eliminated from consideration, a convenient choice fiscally but also an excuse to attempt one of those "radically different" kinds of film scores that beats you over the head with a murky environment rather than actually accomplish anything musically. As a solo album, Reznor and Ross' achievement for The Social Network has its place. Unfortunately, looking at it as a film score, you can't get help but be reminded that these men are novices in the genre. Apologists will claim that the music, like that of Clint Mansell, is revolutionary, the tell-tale sign that a really awful score for a "different" kind of film is trying to masquerade as something more intelligently conceived than it actually is. Every moment of the music for The Social Network is an exercise in disillusionment, the kind of morbidly drab electronic atmosphere that encourages drug users to dive headfirst into the realm of suicidal thoughts. Sunny outside? Don't bother. Apparently, the sun never shone when Facebook was being created, either. The ensemble consists of keyboarded samples and electric guitars, both of which processed to death in all sorts of obnoxiously artificial ways. Think of all the noises that major household appliances and computer accessories make when they start failing, or the sounds of an automotive body shop and mechanic's bay. Think of the sounds of rail cars being hitched or garbage trucks lifting and banging dumpsters. Think of jackhammers and pile-drivers. Now lower the pitch of all those pleasant sounds, extend their duration three or four times in length, and imagine them as an aimless musical device... abrasive, slightly organized sound effects in a basic loop for four minutes. Behold manipulation upon manipulation of sounds that were, before much of the audience was born, organic.

Vague hints of harmonic ease are perpetually obscured by the haze of dissonant layers of grinding, droning noise. The score's only theme, heard in extremely slow, practically comatose piano renderings over this fog in "Hand Covers Bruise" and several places thereafter, is the ultimate downer. Narrative flow and synchronization points are foreign ideas to these performers, further exposing the score as being better applied to the market as a solo album. In construct, there is nothing in this music to reflect the creation of accidental billionaires, much less the concepts of legal intrigue, interpersonal conflict, or even accurate representations of technology. The score is laced with tones from the 1980's, a completely ridiculous choice of base from which to create music for a film about the 21st Century's first online superstar. The cue "In Motion" is about as wretched as anything to grace a film score in years, taking 80's video game sound effects and old midi music style and resurrecting them for an inappropriate occasion. In Tron: Legacy, these sounds are understandable, but here? Likewise, another laughable moment comes in Reznor's adaptation of "In the Hall of the Mountain King," an amazing feat of torture that must have Edvard Grieg spinning in his grave. Otherwise, a 66-minute album is as redundantly insufferable as any score in recent memory, with no standout cues, no beginning, no end, no suspense, no adversity, and, most importantly, no sense of accomplishment. Sure, the characters aren't likeable, but they're certainly not as two-dimensional as this music suggests. Reznor and Ross may have met Fincher's expectations, but this film could have used more than a time-inappropriate, peripheral Nine Inch Nails album. The film licensed eighteen songs to more accurately convey the less depressing emotions necessary in certain scenes, but none of these songs (including the rare appearance of a song by The Beatles in any film) is included on the soundtrack. That album was released by Reznor's own label, first for free as a five-track download teaser and then commercially in full form. In the end, The Social Network is music for the sake of music, not music for the sake of film. When you watch American football and see players take a blow to the head and lie motionless on the field for five minutes before walking groggily to the sidelines with much assistance, this music is the kind of noise that they must hear in their helmets as their sloshing brains suffer the initial effects of a concussion.  FRISBEE   @Amazon.com: CD or Download