Year Zero (album)

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This article contains information about a scheduled or expected future album.
It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content could change dramatically as the album release approaches and more information becomes available.

Professional reviews
Year Zero

Studio album by Nine Inch Nails
Released	April 16, 2007 (UK, Europe) April 17, 2007 (US) April 25, 2007 (Japan)^[1]
Recorded	September—December 13, 2006
Genre	Industrial rock
Length	63:51
Label	Interscope
Producer(s)	Trent Reznor Atticus Ross
Kerrang!
Nine Inch Nails chronology
With Teeth (2005)	Year Zero (2007)	Year Zero Part 2 (2008)

Year Zero (also known as Halo 24)^[2] is the title of a Nine Inch Nails studio album to be released on April 16, 2007 in Europe, the following day in the United States, and April 25, 2007 in Japan.^[1]^[3] Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor produced it in collaboration with engineer Atticus Ross, longtime collaborator Alan Moulder mixed the album (both worked in a similar capacity on NIN's previous major studio album, With Teeth)^[4] and Brian Gardner mastered it.^[5] In a 2005 interview with Kerrang!, Reznor expressed his intentions to write material for a new release during the With Teeth tour,^[6] and it was confirmed that he was working on it by September 2006.^[7] Year Zero began its mixing stage in January of 2007,^[8]^[9] and Reznor stated on his blog hosted at the Nine Inch Nails official fan club that the album was finished as of February 5, 2007^[10].

1 Promotion
2 Themes
- 2.1 Sound
3 Track listing
4 Leak
5 "Survivalism" single
6 Film project
7 Album personnel
8 Chart Positions
- 8.1 Singles
9 References
10 See also
11 External links

[edit] Promotion

See also: Year Zero (alternate reality game)

On February 12, 2007, fans found that a new Nine Inch Nials tour T-shirt contained highlighted letters that spell out the words "I am trying to believe."^[11] It was discovered that iamtryingtobelieve.com was registered as a website, and soon several related websites were found in the IP range, all describing a dystopian vision of the world fifteen years in the future.^[12] Many events reported on these websites take place in the year "0000." Digit Online later reported that 42 Entertainment had created these websites to promote Year Zero.^[13] Rolling Stone described the fan involvement in this promotion as the "marketing team's dream."^[14] Trent Reznor has however stated, "The term 'marketing' sure is a frustrating one for me at the moment. What you are now starting to experience IS 'year zero'. It's not some kind of gimmick to get you to buy a record - it IS the art form... and we're just getting started. Hope you enjoy the ride."^[10]

[edit] USB drives

On February 12, 2007, a USB drive was found in a bathroom stall during a NIN concert in Lisbon, Portugal. It contained a high-quality MP3 of the track "My Violent Heart," which quickly circulated the Internet.^[15]^[16] Another USB drive containing the same track was purportedly found in Madrid, Spain.

On February 19, another USB drive was found in Barcelona, Spain, containing the track "Me, I'm Not" and an MP3 of static.^[17]

An image file found on the February 25, 2007 USB in Manchester, England, titled "invitation.jpg".

On February 25, a third USB drive was found in Manchester, England, containing the track "In This Twilight" and an image of the Hollywood sign apparently demolished.^[18]

Concerning the use of USB drives as a form of promotion, Reznor explains:

“	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.^[19]	„

[edit] Teaser trailer

On February 22, 2007 a teaser trailer was released through the Year Zero website.

[edit] Radio

The song "The Beginning of the End" was played on KROQ between 1 and 2 A.M. on March 3, 2007. Although the song was not officially "leaked", a radio recording began circulating the internet soon after.

On April 4, 2007, KROQ premiered "Capital G," the seventh track, and second single from the album.

[edit] Streaming

On April 4, 2007, the album was made available for streaming on the album's official website, possibly to discourage any possible piracy of downloading the album, which leaked earlier that morning, by allowing free listen sessions. However, the streams could easily be downloaded and high quality MP3 copies of the songs could be extracted.

[edit] Themes

Reznor said that Year Zero is a concept album,^[20] "could be about the end of the world," and marked a "shift in direction" in that it "doesn't sound like With Teeth."^[10] The 2006 tour merchandise designs featured overt references to the United States military, which "reflects future directions."^[10]

Fifteen original tracks were considered for inclusion on the album, which Reznor described as "Highly conceptual. Quite noisy. Fucking cool."^[8] He further wrote that when he finishes a new album, he has to "go into battle with the people whose job it is to figure out how to sell the record. The only time that didn't happen was [for] With Teeth. This time, however, [he was] expecting an epic struggle. [Year Zero] is not a particularly friendly record and it certainly doesn't sound like anything else out there right now."^[21]^[22] Reznor has expressed his dissatisfaction with current trends in rock music, especially emo music.^[23]^[24]

Promotional photo of Darren Kroupa, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Alan Moulder mixing Year Zero. From the official Nine Inch Nails website.

[edit] Sound

In Rolling Stone, Trent Reznor said that "a big inspiration [for the album's sound] would be early Public Enemy records - a collage-of-sound type of thing,"^[25] and also has said that Hank Shocklee's production team, The Bomb Squad was a source of inspiration, especially its innovative construction of layered samples and loops.^[20] However, he has made it very clear that the album will not be a hip hop record.^[26]^[27]^[28] It was also said that Year Zero is "not heavy in any kind of heavy metal type sense."^[20]

Spin was able to preview some of the new album, describing it as "a more compact, immediate Trent... probably the most minimalist Nine Inch Nails has ever been. Conversely, Trent's getting outside of himself lyrically - it's a real state-of-the-union message wrapped in a sci-fi concept album about a totalitarian government in the not-too-distant future."^[29]

[edit] Track listing

The Year Zero mini-site originally contained only boxes that corresponded to letters in actual song titles. Almost daily, the image on the site was updated to "fill in the blanks", revealing the titles one by one. This occurred until February 12, 2007, when a complete track listing appeared.

"Hyperpower!" – 1:42
"The Beginning of the End" – 2:47
"Survivalism" – 4:24
"The Good Soldier" – 3:23
"Vessel" – 4:53
"Me, I'm Not" – 4:52
"Capital G" – 3:50
"My Violent Heart" – 4:14
"The Warning" – 3:39
"God Given" – 3:51
"Meet Your Master" – 4:09
"The Greater Good" – 4:52
"The Great Destroyer" – 3:17
"Another Version of the Truth" – 4:09
"In This Twilight" – 3:34
"Zero-Sum" – 6:15

Approx. 2:51 into the video for Survivalism, a bible verse (Revelation 18:3-4) is written in the wall. Click for verse.

[edit] Leak

On April 1, 2007 a bootleg recording of the Chicago, Illinois listening party of March 18, 2007 surfaced on several peer-to-peer networks. The quality of the recording is very low and it is apparent that whoever made the recording did not have very good sound capturing equipment, presumably a cellphone.

On April 4, 2007 a high-quality leak of the promotional disc supplied to listening parties was also leaked onto peer-to-peer networks^[30]. Perhaps to counteract and discourage any piracy of the leak, the entire album was made available for free streaming on the album's official website later that afternoon.

Perhaps in another response to the leak, Trent Reznor commissioned Q101 in Chicago to play the entire album on their radio station.

[edit] "Survivalism" single

Main article: Survivalism (song)

On January 31, 2007, Blabbermouth announced that Nine Inch Nails would begin shooting the video for the first single, "Survivalism," on February 5, 2007 in the Los Angeles area.^[31] FMQB reported that "Survivalism" would arrive at radio stations on February 27 with an add date of March 6;^[32] 102.1 the edge in Toronto debuted the single in North America on 15 February 2007, while KROQ followed suit the next day.^[33] Shortly after KROQ debuted the song in the United States, many other radio stations across the nation began to play it.^[34] Nine Inch Nails performed the song live for the first time on February 19, 2007 in Barcelona, Spain.^[35]

On March 7, 2007, the video for the song was given out on USB keys at a performance in London, England.^[36]

[edit] Film project

Kerrang! Radio reported that "[Reznor] admitted he's already in talks about a movie version of his upcoming album a concept piece, with part two scheduled for next year."^[37] He had earlier noted Year Zero as "part of a bigger picture of a number of things I'm working on. Essentially, I wrote the soundtrack to a movie that doesn't exist."^[20] This is similar to the Boris album Mabuta no Ura, which is a soundtrack to an imaginary film.