Nine Inch Nails has a new album coming out on April 17th by the name "Year Zero". Instead of the usual single released to MTV or two songs offered on the official website Reznor and his band have taken a far more interesting method of promotion. Ideas ranging from tour shirts with highlighted letters that revealed cryptic websites, to leaving flashdrives in bathrooms of their shows across Europe containing a single unreleased song from the album per country have created a huge amount of buzz within the community. The concept worked great with major fan sites hosted the songs and forums with hundreds upon hundreds of theories and stories coming up concerning the new album. It was interesting, it was effective, and it was too much for the RIAA. Apparently they are threatening to sue anyone who hosts the released songs despite the fact that it was the band's idea to release these songs. The amazing part is the only songs being circulated are the ones directly chosen by Reznor himself. The album hasn't been leaked in its entirety and it seems like most fans are content since they have enough new music to whet their appetite. I fail to see the difference between this and a band's website putting up a few songs off their new album but I guess the RIAA sees far deeper into the issue than I do... In my opinion, this is one of the most well executed promotions for an album I've ever seen. By coming on multiple fronts/formats and making the die-hard fans into a legion of little hype machines, you are able to get major word of mouth while at the same time stay credible. The RIAA is actually hurting the artist they are supposed to be helping by stopping this word of mouth effort. Let's just hope more bands use this style of promotion and that next time the RIAA doesn't mess everything up. For more information click here.
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