"Only" is a song by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, released on July 25, 2005 as the second single from their fourth studio album, With Teeth. The song reached No. 1 on the BillboardModern Rock chart, where it stayed for seven weeks, and on the UK Rock & Metal. It was the band's second most successful release in the UK, peaking at No. 20.
Singer Trent Reznor said the song is about the music business clashing with his artistic desires:
When you get on this path of trying to sell records it becomes about selling more records and playing bigger venues. ... It's like, 'Wait a minute!' The goal has to be about making the best music possible or else it becomes something that will make you implode. ... Should I say yes to that Microsoft commercial because I could use a new house? Or do I say no because this is something precious that would be tarnished if I did that? I find myself saying this to record labels and business manager guys, and they're like, 'You won't do what because of what?'[2]
Like "The Hand That Feeds", "Only" was released as a GarageBand multitrack file, as well as for DigiDesign Pro Tools, Ableton Live, and Sony ACID Pro. A fan remix community page was set up on MySpace.[5]
The music video for "Only", directed by David Fincher and relying almost entirely on CGI created by Digital Domain,[11] shows various objects in an executive's office, such as pin art, Newton's Cradle and laptop screen saver coming to life with the propulsion of the song and was released on July 12, 2005, at NIN.com.[12]
The main focus is Reznor's face in the pinscreen that sits on the desk, which is the only way he appears in the video. The only non-CGI components of the video are a person's hand[citation needed] (Fincher's, who owns the PowerBook in the video[citation needed]) and the cars in the background[citation needed].
