Trent Reznor FTW!

The new Nine Inch Nails album, “The Slip,” is now available as a free download from the band’s website.

Trent Reznor deserves some sort of reward.  I don’t know what kind of reward.  It should somehow communicate both how ridiculously productive and embarrassingly generous he’s been so far this year.

For anyone here who doesn’t know a lot about marketing, there’s a concept called “reciprocity” (or something like that).  It basically means that if you give someone something for free and they like it, they’ll generally want to give you something back.  Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails both used this concept (to great success) when they released their last respective albums.  In this case, if you download “The Slip,” you’re given the opportunity to “pass it on,” emailing a download link to friends.  So not only are they taking advantage of reciprocity (letting people know that they’ll still be able to buy the CD in a few months), but they’re also taking advantage of the Internet’s “viral” capability - spreading the word about their album the same way people send out those stupid emails with pictures of cats and pointless petitions and stories about Jesus (send this to 10 friends in 10 minutes or a puppy will die).

I think we’re finally seeing a band trying to take full advantage of what the internet does best… and I love it!