Today I wanted to talk about one of the most underrated artists still alive today. A singer/songwriter who's music in my opinion is not only ahead of his time but timeless as well. However his music is very spcific to a certain degree, I would like to raise my opinion to a fact when saying that as good as his music is it is not for everyone. Most people today when they listen to music listen to what I call dancing music or having a good time music. The fetured artist I'm writing about is a complete 180 on "extroverted music." His music is very much introverted or sometime atmospheric, like a soundtrack to your life. He even has the catagory of "headphone" on his remix website, which is a marketing stratagey I'll get to later. This person has pushed the boundries on electronic orientaed music, open ended lyrics, and last but certainly not least he has pushed the boundries on marketing strategies.
The man I'm talking about is Michael Trent Reznor the creator of Nine Inch Nails (NIN) and the NULL COPERATION record label.
After coming and going with a hand full of small time band's Mr. Reznor found a job(s) at Right Track Studio in the city of Cleveland Ohio as an assistant sound engineer (which he went to college for) and Janitor. Another reason Trent is a favorite of mine is what the owner of Right Track said about Michael. Bart Koster owner of Right Track Studio commented "He was so focused in everything he did.When that guy waxed the floor, it looked great." Ah yes, super focused on one projected at a time regardless of what it was. Sounds a lot like an Introvert to me, I should know I'm the same way. INTJ/INFJ...
I could go on and on about this man's incredible life experiences, his up's, his down's his super up's and super down's, but your here for the marketing strategies that Trent and his team came up with so lets start from the past and end up in the present. Well first off his first maketing strategy move was to record under a different name, not exactly a new move and not really effective in terms of its use. The reason I bring up the name change is for his motivation which he used for his marketing tools. His biggest motivation was record labels at the time, they sucked and not just sucked but they litterally ssucked the artist dry of everything: Money, fame, dignity. "All used up..." as Trents lyrics would say.
So with this in mind what Trent did was use early forms of my favorite martketing stratagy Guerilla marketing. He used what he had to his advantage or in this first case what he didnt have. When trent started, he was like most artists who start in the music business, unnoticed. So what he did was go around a varitey of studios and record a song or two under a different name. The studios treated each recording as a one time use option (If you wanted to create an entire album you had to sign a contract, fuck that shit.) So once he gathered all of the songs he wanted one studio at a time, all he then needed was a distributor. BOOM cut right past the album contract and work straight with the distributor. A result of this was an album under his the final name of his choosing: NIN - BROKEN.
After BROKEN being a hit and PRETTY HATE MACHINE being a hit. Trent brought NIN on its us/world tour. However unlike many artists Trent was like the James Cameron of music, creating a really good album every 5-7 years. In between albums Trent loved to colaberate and cover other bands music, which I also beleive is a Introverted personality trait of being a perfectionist. He would gather experience, come up with an idea, gather more experience, revise the idea and do this until he felt he had the best album he could possibly create. This process brought us: The Downward Spiral 1994, The Fragile 1999 (My favorite), With Teeth 2005 (First NIN album I heard that got me into NIN).
Then only two years went by before Releasing Year Zero 2007. This album marked the real start of NINs marketing skills. The idea of Year Zero as Trent mentions was to be about music people would listen to in the future. So what I beleive happend was his marketing team ran with this idea. I can hear the conversation now. "Trent made the album so that the listener will feel like he's in the future, well if Trent wants the listener to be in the future lets make that a more interactive experience." that's exactly what they did. Year Zero Game, Year Zero protest movement, Year Zero fake websites and forums, usb thumb drives found in various places at various concerts, teaser trailers on Youtube.
"The USB drive was simply a mechanism of leaking the music and data we wanted out there. The medium of the CD is outdated and irrelevant. It's really painfully obvious what people want – DRM-free music they can do what they want with. If the greedy record industry would embrace that concept I truly think people would pay for music and consume more of it." -Trent Reznor
Rolling Stone described the fan involvement in this promotion as the "marketing team's dream". Reznor, however, argued that "marketing" was an inaccurate description of the game, and that it was "not some kind of gimmick to get you to buy a record – it IS the art form"
Wikipedia give a great summery on what Year Zero was/is all about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_(album)
Needless to say this gave trent a few ideas of his own. Less than a year after the release of Year Zero trent began to create his own destiny. He created THE NULL COPERATION. Under the Null coperation (from My understanding) a version of the album is free to download.
The author had a bad case of writers block. if you want to know more please send a message his way. Thanks you.
The man I'm talking about is Michael Trent Reznor the creator of Nine Inch Nails (NIN) and the NULL COPERATION record label.
After coming and going with a hand full of small time band's Mr. Reznor found a job(s) at Right Track Studio in the city of Cleveland Ohio as an assistant sound engineer (which he went to college for) and Janitor. Another reason Trent is a favorite of mine is what the owner of Right Track said about Michael. Bart Koster owner of Right Track Studio commented "He was so focused in everything he did.When that guy waxed the floor, it looked great." Ah yes, super focused on one projected at a time regardless of what it was. Sounds a lot like an Introvert to me, I should know I'm the same way. INTJ/INFJ...
I could go on and on about this man's incredible life experiences, his up's, his down's his super up's and super down's, but your here for the marketing strategies that Trent and his team came up with so lets start from the past and end up in the present. Well first off his first maketing strategy move was to record under a different name, not exactly a new move and not really effective in terms of its use. The reason I bring up the name change is for his motivation which he used for his marketing tools. His biggest motivation was record labels at the time, they sucked and not just sucked but they litterally ssucked the artist dry of everything: Money, fame, dignity. "All used up..." as Trents lyrics would say.
So with this in mind what Trent did was use early forms of my favorite martketing stratagy Guerilla marketing. He used what he had to his advantage or in this first case what he didnt have. When trent started, he was like most artists who start in the music business, unnoticed. So what he did was go around a varitey of studios and record a song or two under a different name. The studios treated each recording as a one time use option (If you wanted to create an entire album you had to sign a contract, fuck that shit.) So once he gathered all of the songs he wanted one studio at a time, all he then needed was a distributor. BOOM cut right past the album contract and work straight with the distributor. A result of this was an album under his the final name of his choosing: NIN - BROKEN.
After BROKEN being a hit and PRETTY HATE MACHINE being a hit. Trent brought NIN on its us/world tour. However unlike many artists Trent was like the James Cameron of music, creating a really good album every 5-7 years. In between albums Trent loved to colaberate and cover other bands music, which I also beleive is a Introverted personality trait of being a perfectionist. He would gather experience, come up with an idea, gather more experience, revise the idea and do this until he felt he had the best album he could possibly create. This process brought us: The Downward Spiral 1994, The Fragile 1999 (My favorite), With Teeth 2005 (First NIN album I heard that got me into NIN).
Then only two years went by before Releasing Year Zero 2007. This album marked the real start of NINs marketing skills. The idea of Year Zero as Trent mentions was to be about music people would listen to in the future. So what I beleive happend was his marketing team ran with this idea. I can hear the conversation now. "Trent made the album so that the listener will feel like he's in the future, well if Trent wants the listener to be in the future lets make that a more interactive experience." that's exactly what they did. Year Zero Game, Year Zero protest movement, Year Zero fake websites and forums, usb thumb drives found in various places at various concerts, teaser trailers on Youtube.
"The USB drive was simply a mechanism of leaking the music and data we wanted out there. The medium of the CD is outdated and irrelevant. It's really painfully obvious what people want – DRM-free music they can do what they want with. If the greedy record industry would embrace that concept I truly think people would pay for music and consume more of it." -Trent Reznor
Rolling Stone described the fan involvement in this promotion as the "marketing team's dream". Reznor, however, argued that "marketing" was an inaccurate description of the game, and that it was "not some kind of gimmick to get you to buy a record – it IS the art form"
Wikipedia give a great summery on what Year Zero was/is all about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_(album)
Needless to say this gave trent a few ideas of his own. Less than a year after the release of Year Zero trent began to create his own destiny. He created THE NULL COPERATION. Under the Null coperation (from My understanding) a version of the album is free to download.
The author had a bad case of writers block. if you want to know more please send a message his way. Thanks you.
