Reznor going out at top of his game

Though he certainly has weathered his share of trying times -- epic battles with substance abuse and wars with record labels chief among them -- at age 44, Trent Reznor arguably stands taller and prouder today than any of his alternative-era peers.

Twenty-one years after he founded Nine Inch Nails in Cleveland, Reznor not only has avoided creative paralysis or resorted to empty nostalgia, he has made some of the most inventive music of his career in recent years, and he has done it independently on the Net, working hard to create a new model for artists to gainfully distribute their recordings.

Now, like all too few rockers who've tired of the tour/record/tour/record …