Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails go free

It appears that Trent Reznor's Australian outburst last month was a precursor to something much bigger. Hot on the heels of Radiohead opting to distribute its new album digitally, Reznor has pulled the plug on his band's contentious relationship with Interscope Records. Not only that, but he hopes to keep his band a completely independent entity henceforth.

Yesterday, the following message appeared on NIN.com from Reznor:

"Hello everyone. I've waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate. Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008. Exciting times, indeed."

The message prompted over 1,000 comments from supportive fans.

"Finally, Trent Reznor has been liberated of his Chains," read one anonymous post from Spain.

This year's release of Year Zero fulfilled the group's recording contract with Interscope, where Reznor and his cohorts had resided since 1994. The marketing campaign for the album, orchestrated primarily by Reznor, made use of several "direct to consumer" tactics, including a web-based puzzle adventure so elaborate and sprawling that it requires its own Wiki to decipher. All the while, Reznor was leaking tracks off of the album itself, and eventually allowed it to stream in its entirety after someone illegally leaked it to the Web. Year Zero went on to sell 187,000 copies in its first week, debuting at No. 2 on the Billboard charts.

The buzz that this campaign generated far surpassed that of any traditional record label marketing scheme, and proved that Reznor had the artistic clout to pull off such a stunt and keep his fanbase enraptured. Now he joins Radiohead on the vanguard of 21st Century distribution methods. Since Reznor has hinted in the past that Zero was to be the first of two concept records, expect a similarly exhaustive campaign for a new album in the years ahead. Are the major labels quaking in their boots yet? Well, not enough to stop beating up on fans.

Related links:
Paste: Year Zero review
Paste: Trent Reznor pitching/planning television show
YouTube: Nine Inch Nails' "Survivalism"

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