The Bass Geek

Not that Nine Inch Nails wasn’t his baby anyway, but here’s another former major label artist taking it on the road for himself, according to this link (there’s no permalink there, so I’ll quote for posterity’s sake):

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.

Even if you’re not a fan of the music (I’m sitting on the fence), the effort Reznor puts into creating awareness for his music (from posting tracks to be remixed via Garageband to the innovative “Year Zero” viral campaign) shows what’s possible for the innovative musician without the assistance (some would say the hindrance) of an outside label.

Again, though, it should be noted that this ability comes after years of exposure via said major labels and the accompanying funds that come from said exposure. I doubt that many independent musicians will have the resources to create such huge campaigns, or will want or be able to create these elaborate sites and storylines. But not all of the fans are looking for that kind of thing, either. The overall appeal, then, is the direct connection between artist and fan.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Music Tech, Music in General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.