The rise of the digital age has laid many benefits upon our average consumer.

File sharing, torrents, video streaming, podcasts, and free concert tickets (Ozzfest, R.I.P.) have made it to the forefront of marketing.  But some major artists have taken it to a brand-new extreme.

Since the ‘name-your-own-price’ concept arose via Radiohead’s remarkable and most-recent studio effort, In Rainbows, and Nine Inch Nails’ front man Trent Reznor’s Year Zero Alternate Reality Game, advertising has reached an unheard of ‘point of no return’.

But while Radiohead’s sales pitch only had people downloading for free more often (sales declined below expected standards), Reznor took on a different approach that had even the RIAA shaking in their boots.  During his tour to promote With Teeth, USB drives scattered throughout restrooms provided some white noise revelations and a musical treat for fans that simply became the tip of a very large iceberg that continues to grow.

The apocalyptic Year Zero was released in 2007 to both critical acclaim and fanbase praise.  The initial single, “Survivalism” hit the Modern Rock Charts like a bat out of dystopian hell - with it’s amazing video running alongside.

Fans and new listeners alike began herding towards faux news sites referring to Year Zero as a real event of the past, and various hidden texts, coded links, and so on gave birth to an intertwining network of government corruption, church/state unions, PATRIOT ACT-like wiretap mania, immoral war efforts, and mass drug-induced hallucinations.  It was a real dream come true for both music lovers and gamers.

Even the binary code on Year Zero’s disc artwork led to another website.

During its marketing campaign, Year Zero was more than just an album - it garnered awards for design of its ARG companion, boasted a possible feature film that instead became a television series in the works (Quentin Tarantino is backing this so keep a look-out), and led fans to wonder how they could ever overlook anything seemingly trivial about a Nine Inch Nails release, again.

Enter Y3ARZ3R0R3M1X3D - the album that finalized Reznor’s contract with Interscope in October of 2007.  According to Trent, he is now a “totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label”.  Not long after, we saw the release of two CDs let out of the bag in traditional digital style - free download.

While his atmospheric, instrumental opus Ghosts I-IV was only partially freed up, his most recent full-length release The Slip was COMPLETELY so - and everyone seemed to like it (even the critics and myself included).  This all points to the big question…

What is up next for our favorite industrial pop powerhouse?

He’s certainly no big ‘Nothing’.

After verbally assaulting Universal Music Group for lack of support over his marketing schematics (the Year Zero ARG), and telling an Australian audience to go out and “steal [his] music, and give it to their friends so their friends can share it,” Reznor has proven that a major artist has the minerals to flip a finger from any venue towards an industry wrought with corporate red-tape and money-hungry officials.  So, what could he possibly do now?

Only time will tell, but as word has it, the Year Zero television mini-series has Tarantino and Lawrence Bender on board for cable network production.  Perhaps we finally get a more visual dose of what Trent was trying to show us before.

As for any upcoming concerts, Reznor has booked a design team of futuristic mentality to stage his “Lights In The Sky” tour (get your tixs now!).  According to Reznor, he wants to “use the stage as an instrument…[he's] entering science-fiction, now.”  With screens that distort both images and instruments as they pass overhead, expect nothing less than phenomenal from Nine Inch Nails this year.

All I have to say is…there’s a presence fast approaching, and everyday after will never be the same.

I, for one, am extremely enthusiastic.

Categories: News
Tags: Nine Inch Nails