Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Radio & Music >

Nine Inch Nails Viral Marketing for new album

Page: (1)2 3

19:59 / 15.02.07

Anyone else hear about this? Album concept has to do something with futureAmerica becoming a theocracy, increasingly warlike and something about year zero. Apparently there are websites out there that have "leaked" a song found on a usb card in a bathroom in Portugal with a disturbing static sound at the end that when deciphered looks like a hand reaching down. I think one of the songs is named another version of the truth.

21:57 / 15.02.07

interesting, viral marketing or no, i'm a sucker for such things. i looked at the track and here's the aforementioned hand (visible in spectral frequency display):

06:42 / 16.02.07

Wow, April 17th! I think this album could be amazing.

He said this to Kerrang :

"I feel a lot more confident recording this record than I did 'With Teeth'," Reznor reveals. "'With Teeth' was me kind of wondering if I could still even do this and being pretty cautious. And this one, I've got my confidence back. I feel stronger about what I have to say as an artist and I feel a lot less concerned about what people think about it."

"I feel personally that my best work's ahead of me," he adds. "I don't know if that's going to be the case in the public's opinion but that's out of my control, what I can do is try to make the best shit I can and push myself and that's what I think this record is right now."

Roll on the 17th of April.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:51 / 16.02.07

What a fucking great year this looks like becoming! New Jesu album, Grinderman, Young Gods, NIN...

I didn't even KNOW about this. Fanfuckingtastic!

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:22 / 16.02.07

I have, by means devious, obtained a sample of the lyrics of this new opus:

It just takes a minute

And you'll feel no pain

Gotta make something of your life boy

Give me one more vein

You've come to see the doctor

Cause I'll show you the cure

I'm gonna take away the questions

Yeah I'm gonna make you sure

A hit man for the order

When you couldn't go to school

Had a skin job for a hair-do

Yeah you looked pretty cool

Had a habit doing mainline

Watch the dragon burn

No regrets, you've got no goals

Nothing more to learn

Now I know you won't refuse

Because we've got so much to do

And you've got nothing more to lose

So take this number and welcome to

Operation : Mindcrime

We're an underground revolution

Working overtime

Operation : Mindcrime

There's a job for you in

The system boy, with nothing to sign

Powerful stuff, I think you'll agree.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:04 / 17.02.07

The new single, Survivalism, is on their MySpace page.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:58 / 18.02.07

AND IT FUCKING ROCKS.

19:33 / 18.02.07

Thanks Stoatie! It's fucking awesome to hear that he's back.

21:27 / 18.02.07

Pre-With Teeth I heard that Atticus Ross was working with Trent and I got all excited, hoping for some crazy quasi-glitch industrial, but alas, it wasn't to be.

The two new tracks on the NIN myspace are a lot more electronic than most of With Teeth, but it still doesn't excite me... I think NIN had a time and a place in my life, but that's passed now.
I'm sure I'll still buy the album though, 'cause I'm a sucker.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:40 / 18.02.07

Haus... I worry that your love of Queensryche may be clouding your vision.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:53 / 18.02.07

Ooh, there are also mp3s of the leaked track My Violent Heart out there... listening to it now. It's also great. Quite different to Survivalism- the chorus sounds like early Meat Beat Manifesto. This could be a fucking killer album.

02:54 / 19.02.07

If NIN ever covers Queensryche, I will personally wet myself.

Just for the nihilistic fun of it.

07:44 / 20.02.07

I think NIN had a time and a place in my life, but that's passed now.

Yeah I feel the same way. I was 16 when The Downward Spiral came out and it seemed like the greatest thing that had ever happened to me. I was playing it to my girlfriend a few nights ago and found myself laughing at it. I was playing 'I do not want this' and it got to the bit where he starts going "Don't you tell me how I feel! You don't know just what I feel!" and it sounded like a hundred rows with my parents and slammed bedroom doors.

11:37 / 20.02.07

There's quite a bit more to this album than I first thought. Kind of like what a load of Tool fans looked for when they tried bringing out all those wierd theories with 10,000 Days, but this time things are actually being found. (yay)

This NIN wiki has a lot of it covered :

nin.wiki.com

There's another track aswell :

"At the February 19th, 2007 Nine Inch Nails concert in Barcelona, Spain, another plain-looking USB flash drive was found in yet another bathroom stall.

This drive had two MP3 files, One called 2432.mp3, and the other Me, I'm not - the 6th track off of Year Zero."

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:38 / 20.02.07

Yes, it's looking much more like a full-on ARG than just some nifty viral marketing (apparently it's run by the same people as The Beast, the ARG used to promote the movie AI). The rate they're leaking the tracks, though, I'm wondering what'll be left for people to buy come April. I'm starting to think this may not be about NIN so much as it's about The Presence (the people doing the marketing) who have just contracted NIN to soundtrack their game, rather than the other way around...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:43 / 20.02.07

Storywise, so far it feels like a cross between V for Vendetta and the original idea for Bowie's "Outside" album, when they were talking about making it seven episodes, not all of which would be albums. (It was the early 90s... "multimedia" was all the rage, as were short attention spans and a disinclination to carry on doing something if no sod was buying it).

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:55 / 27.02.07

A fourth song has been leaked, and a new website discovered. This is more than just marketing- it's somewhere between an album and an ARG. The whole thing actually IS Year Zero, with the actual CD just one part of it.

This is fucking mental. And the new song, In This Twilight, could be the best so far.

13:07 / 27.02.07

Finally, an ARG that appeals to the obsessive music fan and you actually get something for following along. Stoats, I can't check those links at work, but how do you know that the album and ARG are so closely tied? Is that just a personal supposition? It certainly does see that way, doesn't it?

I would love it muchly if some tracks were released in the game that aren't on the album - that'd give a fantastic reason (apart from the coolness) to follow developments. Anyway, one for the list when I get home, thanks for the heads-up!

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:23 / 27.02.07

It's a bit... Dan Simmons, though, isn't it?

15:51 / 27.02.07

Who, Haus? Tsk tsk, taking sleazy and abusive potshots at Trent Reznor...

16:24 / 27.02.07

I'm starting to think this may not be about NIN so much as it's about The Presence (the people doing the marketing) who have just contracted NIN to soundtrack their game, rather than the other way around...

I've deliberately not looked at the links because the idea worries me, but this isn't going to be Trent's concept album as soundtrack to a video game, is it?

If so, then it's exactly the kind of thing that makes one want to go off and raise sheep in the Outer Hebrides, really. So I hope it's not true.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:51 / 27.02.07

It's a bit... Dan Simmons, though, isn't it?

Erm... I'm not really getting that. For sure, you've got the Islamic terrorists at the Oscars, but then the anti-Muslim crowd ain't getting such a good deal either. So far they've all been murderers (Angry Sniper) and brainwashers (the right-wing white supremacist government).

Surely if it was Dan Simmons we'd have an Islamic theocracy by 2025?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:11 / 27.02.07

Oops... quick look again, I don't think Angry Sniper's particularly anti-Islamic, but the cops DEFINITELY are.

It's not particularly "Dan Simmons", as far as I can see.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:38 / 28.02.07

18:26 / 28.02.07

Yeah! I cracked the puzzle! I usually suck at these games, I guess that was an easy one. I'm not sure what the story is about. Seems to be a bunch of 'hackers' fighting the totalitarian government shenanigans going on. While I'm in admiration of Trent for giving us a bunch of tracks for nowt, I do hope he has somewhere to go with the story, it does seem a bit done-to-death.

Also, we should change the title of this thread to "Stoatie presents..."

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

19:13 / 28.02.07

Didja read the chat on the site you get to from there? Looks like there's time travel involved. And sending an email to Francisco gets you quite a scary one in response...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

19:15 / 28.02.07

Tell you what, though, much as I'm not buying this shit about USB drives being "accidentally" found at gigs... next weekend, when I see NIN, I am SO searching the toilets. Just on the off-chance.

22:05 / 28.02.07

I'm enjoying the image of you scrambling around the filthy toilet floors with all the little cybergothemo kids. It's be a bit like Willy Wonka, only with LED lights and lots of makeup. Take some pics and post them in the thread, why don't you. Interactive fiction yo!1!!1

I'm gonna go send an e-mail once i crack that sodding jigsaw again, sounds fun.

22:13 / 28.02.07

Ooo, it's on the front page. Time-saving. *checks inbox* Innnnteresting... it is a bit 2084 though, isn't it?

Anyway, it's late, and I'm tired. I'll come back one I've had a dig to see if there's much more depth to the story. Anything you'd recommend, stoats?

20:27 / 02.03.07

The phone number (216-333-1810) embedded in the leaked copy of "Me, I'm Not" amuses me to no end:

216.333.1810

This is a great project.

17:46 / 03.03.07

Another leak, but this time it was caught on an American radio station, and no-one seems to know if they should've played it or not. It's not a very good recording, but it might get leaked in a better way shortly.

The Beginning Of The End

I think it's easily my fave yet.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:29 / 11.03.07

Just got back from seeing them. No new clues, unfortunately, nor bits of hardware left in the toilets (probably just as well, as they were about an inch deep in liquid) that I know of. They did, however, rock a snow leopard's ass. The only new ones they played were "Survivalism" and "The Beginning Of The End". My only criticism was that they didn't play "In This Twilight".

"Survivalism", especially, sounded fucking KILLER live.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

01:06 / 16.03.07

Cool.. saw an Art Is Resistance poster up in Stokey today.

16:44 / 18.03.07

Survivalism sounds fuckin boss on full volume, love the scratch sound.

14:53 / 21.03.07

Survivalism video and Year Zero trailer are up. yearzero.nin.com

Page: (1)2 3