Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor is leading the redesign of Apple’s music app

Nine Inch Nails’ leader (and soundtrack maker) Trent Reznor is leading the redesign of an Apple music app, a new report says today.

The Reznor-influenced app is said to be mostly black with shades of gray, with vampire bat icons, and a decidedly “goth” feel.

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Just kidding about that last part. But a report in the New York Times today says Reznor is indeed leading the redesign, and that Apple wanted a real musician in the driver’s seat dictating what the app ought to do, and how.

The app is the front end of the long-expected Apple subscription music service, which the NYT report says is coming soon, citing two Apple employees familiar with the plan.

The service and the app are being built on the intellectual property Apple acquired when it bought Beats Music a year ago. The Apple music app, the report states, will use many of the same features contained in the Beats music app, including curated playlists.

Reznor was the chief creative officer at Beats.

The effort is getting help on the music industry side from former Beats CEO Jimmy Iovine, who was a record company executive earlier in his life. Iovine cofounded Interscope Records with Rick Rubin.

Iovine may help give Apple the leverage it needs to release albums exclusively on the new subscription service.

While Apple has never spoken about a subscription service, it’s obvious that it needs to offer one. Consumers have shown that they prefer buying music via subscriptions.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) says streaming services pulled in $1.87 billion in revenues for the industry last year, and exceeded CD sales for the first time.

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Music downloads, meanwhile, generated $2.6 billion in revenue for the industry in 2014, but that was down 8.5 percent from the year before.