Year Zero

[Nied]

So Nine Inch Nails has a new album coming out in April. Unlike other bands that might be content with a TV commercial or an add in Rolling Stone Trent Reznor has gone and created one of the most bizzare viral marketing campaigns I've ever seen. Rolling Stone actually does a pretty good rundown of the thing (Marketing campaign? Game?) here I would also watch the Year Zero trailer first (watch it at night with all the lights out to get the full effect. Also note that since that RS article was written a new website was found that suggests that what we are looking at are websites FROM THE FUTURE! (you have to say this in your best 1950's sci-fi film announcer voice) sent back in time somehow using quantum computers. This is also the only reason I think I can get away posting this in the "Anime or Science Fiction" forum.

So to open this up, has anyone else been following this? What the heck is this presence thing? And is Trent Reznor brilliant, crazy, stupid or all three?

*note that this thread is to discuss the whole Year Zero phenomenon, it's not a general NIN discussion thread, there's a perfectly good Music superthread in here if you want to do that.

[jenius]

That secure broadcast informatics site is a trip. Who is Carolina and what does the Bible quote seem to imply?? It's chaos I tell you! Chaos. Cats and Dogs, living together! Game over man, game over.

Edited March 2, 2007 by jenius

[anime52k8]

don't drink the water eh.

so does this mean were all going to die?

and what is the damn remote system access password?

[KingNor]

Wackos everywhere, plague of madness?

I havn't seen any of this stuff before, i'll have to wade into it.

[Nied]

don't drink the water eh.

so does this mean were all going to die?

and what is the damn remote system access password?

matt26:45-46 You can see it beeing typed in as you move that section of the login box into place. It actually references a bible verse Mathew 26:45-46 in which Jesus tells his disciples he's about to be arrested, literally "Behold the hour is at hand."

And yeah I got a kick out of the water thing too, shades of my sig.

[Nied]

I just realized the RS article left out two sites. This one went up right after the academy awards. Poor Martin Scorsese, he would have gotten a second Oscar!

Also NIN has three of the leaked tracks up on their myspace page.

[anime52k8]

wow, that was freaky.

I've never really bin a nine inch nails fan, but this stuff is too strange to pass up.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Whatever happened to just making a good album and hoping it sells on those merits?

I guess if video killed the radio star in my teen years then you could say that slick multimedia marketing campaigns killed the video star today. I used to sort of like NIN back when they just where another angry rock act in the early '90s but nowadays like most of the acts that survived from that time period I find they have become too pretentious for my tastes... then again it could just be a sign of the times. Good for them for being "original" and "edgy" but I guess I must be too old for this kind of marketing to work on me... I'm not really all that interested.

[chrono]

Whatever happened to just making a good album and hoping it sells on those merits?

Ummm... that ideal was dead before you were born and was dying when the Beetles hit TV. The last 'good' album I heard was from the early 80's.

As to the oddity of the advertising. Trent & CO. has already realized how poor the idea is or there wouldn't have been intentional leaks.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Ummm... that ideal was dead before you were born and was dying when the Beetles hit TV. The last 'good' album I heard was from the early 80's

Well, don't take this the wrong way but you must not get around. There are tons of good albums being released all the time in every genre... you just have to look for them. It's not an artist's fault if their perfectly good album is lost in a sea of crap generated by an out of control music industry... and all this zany commando advertising stuff only serves to muddle and confuse the whole "getting the album exposed" thing.

Hell, the albums that I listen to the most right now where all released in the last 4 years... and this is from someone who also used to think "the last good albums came out in the '80s".

[Ghadrack]

I think what happened is there is more money at stake now and the bands are trying to find ways to self-promote so they don't have to rely upon old menas to spread the word that are corrupt and require too many kick backs that cut into their profit margin.

I have always been a fan of NIN and really, it is hard to find fault with him for using multi-media to spread the word, Reznor has always been using technology, music and video as part of his medium.

There are still bands that are releasing albums and not succumbing to the marketting plans of the devil, selling their souls to MTV and Clear Channel, again I am biased, but Tool (who you probably find pretensious) don't do any real advertising maketting, get little to no airplay on radio or TV and they do just fine.

I have a copy of everything NIN has released in the U.S., I am really excited about Year Zero.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Tool is not pretentious because they DON'T do all this crazy ninja marketing stuff. Music is about music, playing it, listening to it and enjoying it. To "market" a good album all you should have to do is play the people a snippet of the music, let them say "cool" and watch them buy it. I feel that most people are like me, all they need is to hear a few pieces of a few songs from an album and they can usually say "that's great! I'll take it!" or they'll say "hmmm... not really what I want to hear, sorry!" and they don't really need all these website games and other subversive "pre release" marketing mumbo jumbo. THAT stuff is standard SOP of big corporate music trying to sell you something before you even know what it is.

The bulk of the pretentiousness I am talking about comes from the galactic success of bands. When they are small, unrecognized indie acts they have to work for their money... they have to turn good albums that sell on the strength of the music... but when some of them get so big and popular they get sucked into the music biz mentality and it becomes more about that sizzle than the steak, more about the "sell" and ramping up interest in the music than it is about the actual music.

[Ghadrack]

Tool is not pretentious because they DON'T do all this crazy ninja marketing stuff. Music is about music, playing it, listening to it and enjoying it. To "market" a good album all you should have to do is play the people a snippet of the music, let them say "cool" and watch them buy it. I feel that most people are like me, all they need is to hear a few pieces of a few songs from an album and they can usually say "that's great! I'll take it!" or they'll say "hmmm... not really what I want to hear, sorry!" and they don't really need all these website games and other subversive "pre release" marketing mumbo jumbo. THAT stuff is standard SOP of big corporate music trying to sell you something before you even know what it is.

The bulk of the pretentiousness I am talking about comes from the galactic success of bands. When they are small, unrecognized indie acts they have to work for their money... they have to turn good albums that sell on the strength of the music... but when some of them get so big and popular they get sucked into the music biz mentality and it becomes more about that sizzle than the steak, more about the "sell" and ramping up interest in the music than it is about the actual music.

Don't get me wrong, I know what youare saying and I agree, there is a lot of crap out there hyped to death and maybe spending so much time developing these marketting ploys is more the focus than the actual music for some of those acts. I just don't think that is the case with Nine Inch Nails in the past, obviously having not heard the new record yet, I'd be a fool to forecast that it is the greatest thing ever and that you are wrong, but given my personal experience with their music over the years, I am pretty confident that I will enjoy the record and I see this marketting stuff as a fun teaser while I am awaiting the official record release.

I am stunned to hear the sales figures for some of the "musicians" around that are popular today, when I find their music terribly annoying, boring, repetetive, lackluster. but putting it all over the radio, the TV and on the PA in the mall works, the formula is proven. But more power to them, it keeps a lot of te idiots away from the shows I want to go to by having something bright and shiny over there to keep their attention.

[jenius]

I was under the impression that artists may enjoy more than one outlet of expression. Why bag on NIN for being artistic in their marketing?

[HoveringCheesecake]

What the? Strange.

Now if I could just find a CD that has "Closer" and "Just Like You Imagined". Apparently NIN hates compilation CD's?

[Nied]

Tool is not pretentious because they DON'T do all this crazy ninja marketing stuff. Music is about music, playing it, listening to it and enjoying it. To "market" a good album all you should have to do is play the people a snippet of the music, let them say "cool" and watch them buy it. I feel that most people are like me, all they need is to hear a few pieces of a few songs from an album and they can usually say "that's great! I'll take it!" or they'll say "hmmm... not really what I want to hear, sorry!" and they don't really need all these website games and other subversive "pre release" marketing mumbo jumbo. THAT stuff is standard SOP of big corporate music trying to sell you something before you even know what it is.

The bulk of the pretentiousness I am talking about comes from the galactic success of bands. When they are small, unrecognized indie acts they have to work for their money... they have to turn good albums that sell on the strength of the music... but when some of them get so big and popular they get sucked into the music biz mentality and it becomes more about that sizzle than the steak, more about the "sell" and ramping up interest in the music than it is about the actual music.

I made a promise David not to let this turn into a general music discussion thread so try to keep this pretty specific. Speaking of which while I agree that a marketing campaign shouldn't overshadow the work itself I'd disagree about that being the case here. One: releasing some of the music from the album is integral to the campaign (the USB keys in bathroom stalls), and two: all the material in the campaign ties into the album itself (according to Reznor it's a concept album about totalitarianism and the end of the world). Now is that pretentious? Of course it is, but this is NIN we're talking about here, every album or single is a numbered "Halo" (Year zero will be Halo 24), and every single album says "Nine Inch Nails IS Trent Reznor" pretension is just part of the experience. Besides the game is fun and interesting, I can't get upset if Trent is entertaining me with something other than music.

Edited March 2, 2007 by Nied

[Nied]

Ummm... that ideal was dead before you were born and was dying when the Beetles hit TV. The last 'good' album I heard was from the early 80's.

As to the oddity of the advertising. Trent & CO. has already realized how poor the idea is or there wouldn't have been intentional leaks.

Actually the intentional leaks are part of the campaign. Half of these websites were found by decoding various bits of information embedded within the leaked MP3s themselves.

[JsARCLIGHT]

As I originally said, I don't have any problems with it outside of my usual thrust against marketing in general being used as "entertainment". I work in marketing and have designed and scoped many campaigns and point of sale spreads. I guess as an insider I have a slanted look on things like this, they just don't strike me as "entertainment"... I lump them in the same group as captain midnight decoder rings and burger king xbox games, it's all to sell product.

I voiced my opinion and as usual I seem to be the only one who feels this way. Rather than continue to ruin the thread I'll just wander back out.

[Ginrai]

It's too bad all this "creative" marketing is for a boring concept album that is even more bland than the last NIN album. Excuse me Trenticle, people did not like your work because it was boring rock with a synthesizer instead of a real bass, you know?

[Nied]

As I originally said, I don't have any problems with it outside of my usual thrust against marketing in general being used as "entertainment". I work in marketing and have designed and scoped many campaigns and point of sale spreads. I guess as an insider I have a slanted look on things like this, they just don't strike me as "entertainment"... I lump them in the same group as captain midnight decoder rings and burger king xbox games, it's all to sell product.

I voiced my opinion and as usual I seem to be the only one who feels this way. Rather than continue to ruin the thread I'll just wander back out.

Oh I didn't mean to try to drive you away, I just didn't want to stray to far out of the box on an already borderline topic (though stupid me I forgot you were a Mod). I see your point about "entermarketing" (the Burger King X-Box game is actually a really good comparison), but personally I just can't get too worked up about something that ends up entertaining me. Besides, like I said, all this stuff makes for great supplemental materials for the album.

::edit::

I should add that it I am jumping the gun a little in assuming that all of this will tie into the album pretty tightly. If it does than I think it makes for an awesome bit of supplementary material that also happens to build buzz for the release. If it only loosely ties in then I think you've got more of a point since it really wouldn't be anything more than a cleaver marketing campaign. I guess we'll see in April.

Edited March 2, 2007 by Nied

[Nied]

New USB pens found! Featuring the video for the first single Survivalism (NSFW). Look! It's the "Hand that Feeds" video but on those monitors from the Matrix! With boobies and gay sex (take that MTV)! But of course there's more to this than there seems, hidden within the timecodes shown on the screens are letters which spell out "The water turned to blood" which leads to www.thewaterturnedtoblood.net (click the red car). Which leads to www.judsonogram.net which then leads to cedocore.com. The first two sites actually have passwords for them embedded in the other (I'll post them later if you can't figure them out) which is interesting. While the Cedocore site is simultaneously hilarious and frightening (take the quiz, and pay attention to the side affects at the end).

[jenius]

I'm the only person I know that likes that single... I find it kinda old school for some reason. The video was better than some I've seen but not world rocking.

[Nied]

I'm the only person I know that likes that single... I find it kinda old school for some reason. The video was better than some I've seen but not world rocking.

Well now you know at least one person. I find that song downright addictive, I think people will like it more in concert. It just sounds like one of those songs that was meant to be played live.

I haven't really like a NiN video since "Closer." Although it's a pretty tough act to follow (IIRC VH1 voted it the best video of all time), maybe Trent just decided to rest on his laurels after that.

[SpacePirateNeko]

I like the single and the video ( it sounds oldschool because its more or less "wish")

The video wasnt supposed to be mind blowingly artistic, it was just supposed to be 1984ish scene and i really love it. It has great flow and and a really good ending.

As for the "campaign" as some call it .....well trent said it best himself "This is not viral marketing this is part of the art of the album"

There will be a follow up album next year that continues the story of this album. Trent has also stated there might be a small movie.

I dont see what the big fuss is really , im loving it, i think people have this pretentious view that if music goes beyond just the music then it somehow trivializes music itself. Thats a joke, some of the best music over the last 40 years has had a cinematic appeal to it , not suprisingly since alot of musicians are into art in general. speaking as an artist and musician myself.

What i can say is that as a long time nin fan , trent has already stated many times that he has thrown in teh towel when it comes to mtv and top 40 radio and that he basically does what appeals to him nowadays. I cant tell you how many times in the last ten years hes talked about the importance of including a nice package and art along with the disc and i feel thjis is just an extension of that. This really appeals to my sensibilities , i still love opening albums and putting em in and listening to entire albums as a whole. to me they are like wonderful short books...hell i still collect vinyl. The disposable mp3 age just doesnt do it for me ....sans b sides , live rareities etc.

I just see this whole thing as an extension of what bowie or marc bolan were doing in teh 70s, i dont think trent has any preconcieved notions that suddenly people are gonna run out and buy the album who werent fans before , he knows he has his fans . I mean to release almost half the album so far....5 songs released so far , wouldnt be too good a move for "marketing"

I wouldnt be suprised if the whole thing gets release before its "release"

Just the way i see things i guess..

[Dante74]

...hell i still collect vinyl.

I'm more an ABS man myself, although I hear POM is getting to be really popular these days. Yamato are even going to change some parts from ABS to POM just to ride the hype.

[Cruel Angel's Thesis]

This has come up on another web site I visit. According to snopes a teacher taking cell phones from his students in class. They were listening to a phone call where a girl is killed. Later they would recieve text messages saying about them being killed or the person that was killed was following them. It was starting to freak them out. It turned it out it is more of the viral for Year Zero. Here a couple links to NinWiki about it.

http://ninwiki.com/U.S._Wiretap

Talking about the event offhandly

http://ninwiki.com/12163331810

The event. Links for the audio at the bottom of the page.

Cruel Angel's Thesis

[Dante74]

Looks like their 'marketing' idea is taking a nasty turn.

RIAA chases P2P distributors of 'promotion' singles

Edited April 8, 2007 by Dante74

[Nied]

Looks like their 'marketing' idea is taking a nasty turn.

RIAA chases P2P distributors of 'promotion' singles

I heard about this. Absolute stupidity, it's like if I gave you a car and then Chevy sued you for not paying for it.

[drifand]

Read about a German fan paying up to the RIAA because he couldn't afford the costs of going to trial. HOWEVER, the case was resolved afterwards once the idiots were informed. Fan was reimbursed and presented with a NIN backstage pass. Whatever.

The music is pretty good. On first listen I was having a hard time giving any track less than 3/5 stars. A lot more coherent effort than WT.

[Nied]

It's out! Listened to the whole album with my wife last night. Much like WT I think it's going to take a couple of listens before I can decide weather I like it or not. The story is definitely interesting, we do get a better idea of what the Presence is and what is going on. The CD itself has it's artwork printed in thermal sensitive paint, which I thought sounded lame when I read about it last month but it's actually pretty cool. I had forgotten about that when I opened it for the first time and put the all black disc in our CD player to listen to it. I was surprised when the album was over and I hit the eject button to get an all white disc with bits of binary code on it (fitting since the last words on the album are "just zeros and ones"). Also if any of you buy the album make sure you call the Bureau of Morality number on the back, it's a treat.

[Graham]

Never heard any NIN before, at least I don't think I have.

My metal tastes are somewhat more old school, e.g. Iron Maiden, Dio, WASP, Black Sabbath, early Metallica and early Megadeath.

The buzz on this Year Zero seems pretty positive, so I'm wondering if I should give it a try.

I like stuff about post apocalyptic and distopian futures, so maybe I should try it?

Graham

[drifand]

Graham, you can have a free listen at NIN's myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/NIN

Standout tracks for me are:

- Survivalism

- The Good Soldier

- Capital G

- The Warning

- The Greater Good

- Zero Sum

[LePoseur]

While Nine inch Nails does trend towards metal sometimes, it's always be more of an industrial band. This release especially more so than some of the ones before. So if you are looking for a old school heavy metal headbanging album, I think you might be disappointed.

Having said that however, I think it's an awesome album. Easily the best album for me from Trent since Pretty Hate Machine. (I'd have Broken at #2 if we're counting all releases) BTW, Graham, if you are looking for a more heavy, close to metal sound, Broken might be the place to start.

[Nied]

Never heard any NIN before, at least I don't think I have.

My metal tastes are somewhat more old school, e.g. Iron Maiden, Dio, WASP, Black Sabbath, early Metallica and early Megadeath.

The buzz on this Year Zero seems pretty positive, so I'm wondering if I should give it a try.

I like stuff about post apocalyptic and distopian futures, so maybe I should try it?

Graham

Well this is more pre-apocalyptic than post (that's the sequel), although it's very heavy on the dystopia. Essentially it's the story (a surprising coherent one) about how humanity's own hubris dooms itself. You might want to check out the websites I linked at the beginning of the thread although honestly so many new sites have been posted I'm having trouble keeping up. And of course now a select few got to go to a very special NIN concert that got interrupted in the middle by a police "raid." The Ninwiki is probably the best clearinghouse for info on what's going on now.

[Excillon]

Not to big on this album, seems NIN is trying really hard to ax the Industrial thing, but not so much as to alienate their fanbase. Trent's just gotten a little too Dead Kennedys for my taste lately. Though it is a lot better than "With Teeth". I'll just listen to the new VNV Nation CD for my industrial fix. Furthermore, I hate too say it but NIN, no matter how many albums sell, will always be a second rate fanboy by-product when compared to Ministry, Skinny Puppy, VNV Nation, Front 242, or any of the other groundbreaking artists from that genre. However, I guess it's OK by "pop" music standards, and it is better than Marilyn Manson. Here's a list of better recent releases to check out :

Skinny Puppy:Mythmaker

Ministry: Rio Grande Blood

VNV Nation: Judgement

Imperative Reaction: As we fall

God Module: Let's go dark

Assemblage 23: Meta

Mindless Self Indulgence: Rip off