4 thoughts on “Trent Reznor Digg Interview

  1. Trent Reznor’s approach is working so well for him in large part because of the audience that he built through the traditional channels. It’s unfortunate that so far there isn’t an easy answer for how unestablished artists can get the foothold required, but it’s clear that he is thinking about it at the same thing that he’s pushing the envelope on the larger scale. (Personally, I can only dream of an 18% success rate on a pay-what-you-want model, my experience with that doesn’t even come close to 18%)

    I’ve lost a lot of interest in NIN’s music over the years, but at this point I look up to Trent Reznor as the smartest and strongest voice and influence on the future of music distribution, to the point where his art is irrelevant. The whole world should be watching and listening, because he’s the one guy who sees the entire situation clearly, and is making huge leaps in all the right directions.

  2. Great interview.

    I’ve got to second Bogart’s comments, though. NIN are more interesting as marketers now than as musicians. I’m not sure if their last few albums would merit much attention, if Reznor wasn’t giving them away for free.

  3. One of the best interviews I’ve seen in a while. And it’s a good thing that Trent is pretty articulate… I’ve seen some musicians who can barely string sentences together, or give short little stupid sound bite answers to everything. This actually has content!

    As to recent NIN… I lost all respect for Trent for a while after The Fragile (which I still describe as the sound of one man wanking). But I’ve found bits of Year Zero tracks and The Slip tumbling around my brain from time to time, there are more hooks in recent stuff… I’m starting to like NIN again, though I’ll never be as committed as I was waaay back (probably just as well, since I was a miserable bastard back then… wait, I still am… just a less angry miserable bastard).

    I’m one of the crazies that still buys compact discs. Even with Trent giving things away for free, I don’t feel ripped off with the recent releases. He’s just doing the obvious things you would do to promote music if record companies had never been invented. Really, without looking at it as a competing paradigm to traditional record label distribution and marketing, it just seems like common sense: if you want to sell the whole experience of NIN (live version, studio version, interactive version), give away a slice to lure people to buy the whole pie.

    It’s ironic that the very first answer concerns Wolfenstein 3D: it’s the exact same model of distribution ID used. Give away the first episode, lure people to buy the whole enchilada for a reasonable price.

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