Nine Inch Nails
By Daniel Kreps for Rolling Stone on May 14, 2007
Reznor, long at odds with parent company Universal Music Group (UMG), has done his part to try to ensure that his newest album, Year Zero, would shift units. First, he shook up the conventional ways a CD is promoted by creating an internet-based alternative reality game that helped enhance the listenerās Year Zero experience. Then he changed the way the CD looks by employing a color-changing disc and implanting hidden messages in both the music and the liner notes. Now heās criticizing the way his own labelās Australian division milks his hardcore audience. In an angry message posted on the official NIN website, Reznor says that despite all his efforts to reimagine the album release in a post-Napster era, his label is conspiring against his fans. Reznor recently found out that Year Zero sells for .99 in Australian dollars, or .10 U.S. By comparison, Avril Lavigneās new album sells for .99 AU (.21 US). The reason, as a label rep told Reznor: āWe know you have a real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when you put something out - you know, true fans. Itās the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy.ā And the record industry wonders why album sales are slumping?
This brand of intentionally screwing the fans is just one root of a big tree of problems plaguing major labels. In another attempt to prevent his fansā wallets from being exploited, Reznor has banished a planned European maxi-single for the song āCapital G,ā opting instead to release a Year Zero remix album in the future. This way, the fervent U.S. fans wonāt have to spend + to import a two-song single that includes one new remix. Who would have guessed that Trent Reznor would emerge as the Ralph Nader of the music industry?
Transcribed by Lt. Randazzo