NIN's Trent Reznor working with Apple on new, secretive music service

When he's not busy fronting Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor has plenty of solo music projects to work on, as well as countless collaborations with other artists. Talking to Billboard about -- amongst other things -- his upcoming fiftieth birthday, Reznor revealed that he is currently working with Apple on a music venture of some sort. He was unable to give much in the way of detail but we do know that it is "in the world" of music delivery.

Apple is famously secretive about yet-to-be-released products and services, so the fact that Reznor is being tight-lipped at this stage is not surprising. Throughout the course of the Billboard interview he makes several references to music streaming, and it's fairly safe to assume that the up-coming service is in this area.

Trent Renzor has form in the streaming arena. He previously held the position of chief creative officer at Beats Music's, and Apple then acquired Beats. The collaboration between the musician famed for his industrial output and the most valuable brand in the world was all but inevitable. At the same time, he has previously advised his fans to steal his music and given away music in the style of Radiohead and U2. Speaking of the Irish rockers, Reznor understands the backlash that followed giving away Songs of Innocence:

As an artist, when I make a piece of music, I'd like you to know it's out there. I don't want to force it down your throat, but I would like you to know that if you'd like to, you might brush against it -- it exists somewhere... I think the misstep was the wording: If it would've been, "Here it is, if you want it, come grab it..." I am assuming the momentum of that situation led to the oversight in not thinking that people might feel intruded upon.

Talking about his current work with Apple, Reznor explains that it is related to his previous role at Beats. He said that Apple "expressed direct interest in me designing some products with them" and that it "is very creative work that's not directly making music, but it's around music". If you've noticed a drop in output from him recently, that's because the Apple project is taking up his time; it "does mean some compromises in terms of how much brain power goes toward music and creating".

Throughout the course of the interview, Reznor dropped a few more hints that suggest the direction of the Apple project. "I think the right streaming service could solve everybody's problems" is pretty to the point, and a cloud-based music delivery service seems to be what he has in mind:

Ownership is waning. Everybody is comfortable with the cloud -- your documents, who knows where they are? They are there when you need them. That idea that I've got my records on the shelf doesn't feel as important even to me as it used to. I just think we haven't quite hit the right formula yet.

But the question is, can even someone as innovative as Trent Reznor devise a music streaming service that is different enough from what is already out there?