Today is April Fools’ Day, the one and only day a year when you can’t trust everything you see in the news or read on the internet. Tragically, we have reached the point in human history where April Fools’ pranks are so ingrained in our culture that, when the day approaches, we see them coming. In fact, we’re on such a constant lookout for anything suspicious that even if somebody puts in the effort and sets up a well-executed ruse, we’re not going to fall for it and experience the enjoyment that we should.
In that sense, April Fools’ Day is sort of over, in terms of it consistently being an occasion of shock and belly laughs. (The exception, of course, is young people pranking their poor unsuspecting parents and making them crash out on TikTok.) But we can always look back, and there have been some fantastic pranks to mark the holiday over the years, from across the spectrum of media and culture. In 1957, the BBC aired a supposed news story about spaghetti trees in Switzerland. The April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated featured a now-classic article titled “The Curious Case of Sidd Finch,” which told the fictitious story of an eccentric, just-discovered baseball player who could throw a ball 167 miles per hour. In 2008, YouTube helped the practice of Rickrolling gain more mainstream attention by redirecting all video links on the site’s home page to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” music video (here’s an article with more information on that).
There have been a bunch of other excellent music-related April Fools’ gags beyond the internet-dominating ’80s favorite. In 2013, Justin Bieber got revenge on TMZ for their unflattering coverage of him by telling fans he was taking their phone calls, but sharing the number to TMZ’s tip line instead of his own. In 2022, comedian Demi Adejuyigbe claimed to have uncovered a rare Lana Del Rey single and even had the vinyl record (of what ended up being a Del Rey soundalike singing about Stuart Little) to prove it.
Perhaps the best one ever, though, comes from, as most great pranks do, an unexpected source: Trent Reznor, the Nine Inch Nails leader who once sang “I hurt myself today / To see if I still feel / I focus on the pain / The only thing that’s real,” the man whose resting face has been in a scowl for the better part of the past 40 years, and the guy who once said, at least somewhat seriously, that “an integral part of any relationship is knowing that you could be killed in your sleep at any time.” Clearly, though, he has a sense of humor, even if his joke seems to have come from a place of disdain. In 2009, Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell released Scream, his third solo album. It would end up being the biggest record of his non-band career, his first to peak within the top 10 of the Billboard 200 chart. But, the project ditched Cornell’s usual rock sound in favor of pop-leaning production from Timbaland. Calling the critical reception “mixed” would be generous, an April Fools’ joke of its own.
Reznor felt let down by the album and he made sure the world knew about it, as he tweeted, “You know that feeling you get when somebody embarrasses themselves so badly YOU feel uncomfortable? Heard Chris Cornell’s record? Jesus.” In a later Rolling Stone feature following Cornell’s death, Reznor elaborated on his feelings: “Seeing Chris do that record felt like a blow to me. I thought, ‘He’s above that, man. He’s one of the ten best vocalists of our time.'” He also told the publication he “immediately regretted” his tweet. Not immediately enough, it would seem, to forgo using Scream as the apparent inspiration for a new “project.”
On the morning of April 1, 2009, less than a month after Scream, Reznor tweeted, “I’ve been busy. Brand new FULL LENGTH NIN record available now.” The post included a link to the website for Strobe Light, a new album produced by, naturally, Timbaland. The album cover featured a simple photo of Reznor, offering a basic crossed-arms pose while wearing bright white shutter shades. The tracklist was even more immaculate. Between “Intro Skit” and “Outro Skit” were a number of collaborations, most notably “Everybody’s Doing It” featuring “chris martin, jay-z AND bono” and the timeless Sheryl Crow link-up “Pussygrinder.” The page also played a simple drum loop, seemingly pulled from some sort of GarageBand-like music production software, in the background, which isn’t heard on archived versions of the page but was this.
The page noted that the album was available for download, with the word “free” crossed out. Indeed, acquiring the project was costly in more ways than one. The page noted that, after entering your email address, “a download link will be sent to you immediately. Your credit card will be charged $18.98 plus a $10 digital delivery convenience fee. Your files will arrive as windows media files playable on quite a few players with your name embedded all over them just in case you lose them. You will also receive an exclusive photo and a free email account with our partner Google’s Gmail service.” It concluded, “Your email will be kept confidential and will not be used for spam, unless we can make some money selling it.”
Anybody who read those terms and was satisfied enough with them to enter their email and hit the submit button was greeted with a Windows-style “blue screen of death” featuring an error message titled “Aprl_Fls.” Of course it wasn’t real. “ACIDDANCE,” as the file for that drum loop is named in the page’s HTML, is about as close as we’ll ever get to hearing this project that doesn’t actually exist. It is kind of almost real, though: On April Fools’ 2019, the tenth anniversary of the joke, a fan went ahead and released their own version of Strobe Light, their high-effort take on the album that has versions of every track, complete with samples of the featured vocalists.
While the initial prank itself may have been surprising, Reznor’s motivations for it were not, as he has long had issues with the music industry and pop music. It should be noted, though, that Reznor seems to have softened his stance, at least a little, on the latter. Nine Inch Nails collaborated with Halsey on her 2021 album If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power. In 2023, Reznor admitted to tearing up while listening to Dua Lipa’s “Levitating” because “it was just a really well-done piece of music.” In more general softening news, there’s of course also the time he was performing and diverted his attention mid-song to point out “a fuckin’ rainbow.” As of late 2025, Nine Inch Nails were working on new music. So, this April Fools’ Day, nearly 20 years after Strobe Light, hopefully Reznor has reached a more pop-accepting place where working on new music includes actually recording “Laid, Paid and Played” with Fergie and Al Jourgensen.