Like breaking back into jail

or like running back into a burning building

hahahahahahaha... so much for your poster boy and all the "labels are evil" nonsense... this pretty much puts and end to that... carry on...

Wow, looks like this is The Beginning of the End for Mr. Self Destruct himself. But I guess he wasn't the Only person to ever Bite the Hand That Feeds while being Down In It. One might even say he had a Head Like A Hole about the God Given Terrible Lie.

Oh well, all I Wish for is that he doesn't Give Up after being Somewhat Damaged by the DIY World That Went Away.

Honestly, guys, I'm just going to stop. I could go on forever.

This is rad

This just made my day!

Maybe there were no posters up on Prague because no one gives a turd about NIN. I heard they were relevant circa early 90s.  Going back to the major label means NIN couldn't hack it alone. Again because nobody who is anyone cares. 

Yeah because there are so many other artists releasing better music than NIN.

Great and very simple point. 

That's pretty much it.  Trent and NIN still gets plenty of ink on the major blogs, websites, and magazines.  

Unlike Radiohead I stopped paying attention to his music years ago because it was increasingly not good (imo).  His being on a major or not won't change that reality for me.

That's great that you don't like NIN and do like Radiohead (I like both, but neither obsessively at this point)... BUT I think Trent's point is valid. He's used to having a marketing team, and wasn't interested in creating his own when he was DIY, and would prefer to let the label do it for him. He wants to be huge in Prague, and noticed that he was when he had a label and isn't now without a label. Problem -> Solution. Pretty basic sound logic in my opinion.

FURTHERMORE, RADIOHEAD RELEASED ONE ALBUM FOR FREE AND THEN THEY ALSO WENT BACK TO THE LABEL MACHINE. So honestly, Trent stuck it out with DIY a lot longer than Radiohead did. So why does he deserve less respect? Just because you happen to not enjoy his music as much?

Exactly.  We'll hear Reznor whining about Sony not promoting his "latest release" for more than 2 weeks next - the typical album teaser 2 weeks before release and then after the choir he's preaching to downloads the album on day-of-release Sony will have already moved on to something else by then.  Maybe if he's lucky Sony will use a track in an upcoming by-the-numbers sci-fi/action flick that plays for two weeks before being forgotten.

well i never!!! who would have thought..

Distro and marketing.  Labels do it better.

Not neccasarily but I get how you can say that given the example used here, although they wouldn't be the best example. 

Marketing and distribution takes consistent work on a daily basis. No days off and no set amount of hours.  Fact of the matte is, like many athletes, musicians are on the path they are on because they don't want to do any manual or tediously redundant work.  

In the end, marketing and distribution is intricately tedious and extremely detailed work that cannot be overlooked or let up on for any moment of time.  The advantage the labels have over an independent artist that is Doing It Themselves is staffing.  Which comes down to operating capital.  I would also say structure but dealing with a lot of these majors on a daily basis I can't honestly say they have much of that going on themselves. 

I Agree.

Welcome back!

So Trent you want to be pampered like a rockstar and not spend all of your time being a DIY working class hero?

I understand.

Let my lawyers work it out with yours and you'll get the money for nothing and the chicks for free

...he went down to the crossroads tryin to flag a ride...

written while listening to Blueneck on vinyl

Wow Trent, you realized not being on a label involves actually making a plan and building a team yourself, and like a true chump, you couldn't handle it. Then, instead of pointing the finger at yourself, you go ahead and try to excuse your childish failures by putting down responsible artists that are successful and doing it without a label; classy. Real nice work. Maybe part of the reason Radiohead was everywhere is because they sell better than your music. You looked at DIY as the new chic thing to do as opposed to the new music business model. I guess the extra cash, personal fan connections and musical freedom gained through independence wasn't attractive enough to offset your lazy, primpy attitude. I thought you were better than that Trent, oh well, there are many others who are the role models of the new industry and don't need a corporate push with both hands in their pockets to maintain a following…

Could you point out to me where Trent 'put down' Radiohead? He seemed more jealous than anything because they had the clout from BEING ON A MAJOR LABEL - since when are Radiohead independent???

REALISM.

So, Trent Reznor just admitted that Twitter has no effect on live performances' promotion in that specific territory.

And now you know who's interview to quote, next time some "digital music guru" tells you that you "need" a million followers on Twitter to make it in your European country.

Doesn't anyone here know the difference between a recording deal and a distribution deal?

It's pretty clear that Reznor is talking about the latter.  He makes a record, with full artistic control, and using his own financing, then he gives a major label (Sony, in this case) an exclusive license to distribute it.  Depending on the details of the contract, the label may or may not pay for promotion of the record, and Reznor may get either a lump sum payment or a share of profits.  Either way, it is very different from a traditional recording deal, where label finances the recording process, the artist gets an advance payment, repayable out of royalties, and the label takes the majority of any profits above the level of the advance. With a distribution deal the artist would typically get at least 50% of the proceeds.  Many independent artists have arrangements of this kind.  E.g. Imogen Heap has her own record label, Megaphonic, and finances her own recordings, but they are distributed worldwide by Sony.  It is a sensible arrangement, and is hardly 'crawling back to the machine'.  

Does anyone know if this was a straight distro deal?

I ask because:

1. All the articles I read about his return to the major system quoted him as saying signing with A&R vet Mark Williams (who was at Interscope previously) was a major factor in his decision. The A&R involvement may only be for his other band-HTDA-but that hasn't been made clear.

2. The biggest reason for his return seems to be his interest in marketing and promotion muscle. Majors certainly provide marketing services for fees to distributed labels, but the majority of the actual muscle goes to the artists signed directly to the labels--not to the distributed labels--because the major stands to make more profit from a successful artist that's signed to it directly.

3. The biggest advantage majors have over indies and DIYers who hire their own marketing and promotion teams is commercial radio promotion.  Some are speculating that his decision was based on wanting to get back on the radio with his new material, and he felt a major gave him the best chance to do that (although at Rock, Active and Alternative in the US it's been proven that you can chart pretty high with the right indie label and radio promoter).

If he wanted major distribution and marketing prowess in each market, he could have done what his example, Radiohead, did--do territory specific deals with labels.  But he didn't do that. Why not?

If anyone has the real story behind his decision and what his actual deal is, I'd love to hear it.

2. The biggest reason for his return seems to be his interest in marketing and promotion muscle. Majors certainly provide marketing services for fees to distributed labels, but the majority of the actual muscle goes to the artists signed directly to the labels--not to the distributed labels--because the major stands to make more profit from a successful artist that's signed to it directly.

Right. If you want posters in Prague and all the promotion for the venue that's not a straight distro I-pay-you-x-dollars-you-promote-service.  It's you-take-a-slice type deal, maybe not exactly like the old days but no one is just doing a NIN deal for nostalgia esp. with the financial situation the way it is in post-apocalypse 2012.

If you're at all surprised by his reasoning you are either not an indie artist, don't know any indie artists personally or are a clueless indie artist.

Whether or not you or I think this is the right choice, wrong choice or just a tough choice....it's the reality of what's on the ground. 

The problem has been the musicians themselves if they had been smart they would have created a coopertive and banded together to deal with marketing ,publicity,promotion ect  keeping the cost down but establishing themselves in the market place.

Pooling resources and finding the best people new or old to the record/music business there are alot of us oot there who have broken acts and records for years.

In the 90's Bonnie Raitt was having her greatest success and she was on tour in California and Oregon and we couldn't find her record in any store we called the label and do you think they did anything about it?

So what would a "SMART" Indy artist do? What's the smartest way to distribute, and get noticed these days?

Something tells me you need to replace the "I" and "me" in this article with "my management team".

It's THEY who are being lazy and not handling the outsourcing of marketing/distro. 

Trent writes, records, tours, and Tweets. That's about it.

Sounds like his management company couldn't handle acting as the label too.

Can't blame 'em, but let's be real her