And that includes bathrooms, the stinkier the better. Because fresh from Nine Inch Nails’ official site comes the news that anyone with even a passing interest in the band has been expecting for months:
Hello everyone. I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate. Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008. Exciting times, indeed.
First person to call Trent “the next Thom Yorke” gets a noogie!
nin.com [Official site]
Artist makes music. Label signs artist. Artists gets famous. Artist uses label to resources to build huge fan base. Artist leaves and disparages the system that made him what he is today.
Sure, it’s fun to “stick it to the man”, but how are these artists (as much as I love them) REALLY proving anything?
@PopIsNotDead: Good point. I’ve always crossed my arms whenever someone scolds something that he or she benefitted soooo much from. If it wasn’t for Interscope, NIN would’ve been just another nearly forgotten TVT industrial act.
Lol, after 18 years of being under recording contracts I salute this man.
If you think he is ‘disparaging the system that made him what he is today’ you’ve never signed a record deal yourself.
@Cam/ron: Not sure that’s entirely true. Anyone with half an ear for good songs would be able to recognize that Pretty Hate Machine was head and shoulders above anything TVT had released up to that point. Had he stayed in the semi-major or even in the indie realm, he could probably have compromised even less over the years and would be a happier guy today.
Anyone who thinks the record industry works today the same way it did even 18 years ago hasn’t been paying any attention.
I don’t mind shortsightedness if it’s promising something exciting for NIN next year.
@Jupiter8: I don’t think Trent’s ever really whined about his status as far as sales. While Interscope does appear to have treated him well, I know that he had ongoing issues with the tactics of the parent company — particularly as he tried out new methods of distribution (as the post refers to). He’s actually complained about those deluxe, overpriced versions of albums and singles, so it sounds like he’s aiming for a more consumer-friendly model.
PS: My 16 year old self is having so much fun reading blogs these past couple of weeks. If you need me, I’ll be in the corner listening to “Throwing Copper” on repeat.
I dunno. Any time I’m tempted to admire this little unhappy guy, I have to remind myself how he royally screwed and abandoned his manager/best friend, after emerging from an acoholic haze and seemingly with Iovine’s assistance and support. Dragged him into court complaining about standard and pretty favorable contracts he and his counsel had helped write and then signed. Trent may be a pretty fair artist, but his dark side turns me way off.
Trent Reznor is the next Thom Yorke.
I just really want a noogie.
Say what you will about biting the hand that feeds him (see what I did there?), but if I had to work for a company that had Fred Fucking Durst as it’s VP, yeah, I’d want out too.
I think the point he’s trying to make is that maybe he would have stayed with the labels had they not changed from only slightly screwing artists in exchange for money and fame into manufacturing “music” on an assembly line with a formula, bilking the people actually creating their livelihood while lining their own pockets.
Good for him. This won’t be the last of it either. Right now at all of the majors there is a guy wearing green eye shades and sleeve garters sharpening his quill and calculating projections on how much they will lose next year when major acts start creating their own distribution deals with Apple…
Suck on that. Hard.
@PopIsNotDead: you left out ‘label uses artist’
I dunno, I remember once hearing this guy complain about his contract with TVT and how happy he was to get out of it. Plus, Interscope had a pretty good rep for supporting and developing artists, they gave him his own imprint to sign bands (nothing), they released an overpriced deluxe version of his biggest record a couple years back, he seemed to be able to make videos at will, release EPs, and the machine was still hyping him even up to his most recent release. I sometimes think artists look for someone to blame when their career is no longer what it once was.
I will be impressed when I see a pic of Trent at his sewing machine whipping up shirts for the merch table.
VIVA LA RESISTANCE!!