Word, Trent.
Trent Reznor makes me scowly: he and his music are not, as the kids say, in my wheelhouse. That said, I’m happy such a well-established artist has the gall to come out and say it:
Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters.
…have the public get what they want FROM YOU instead of a torrent site and garner good will in the process
Have your MySpace page, but get a site outside MySpace - it’s dying and reads as cheap / generic. Remove all Flash from your website. Remove all stupid intros and load-times. MAKE IT SIMPLE TO NAVIGATE AND EASY TO FIND AND HEAR MUSIC (but don’t autoplay). Constantly update your site with content - pictures, blogs, whatever. Give people a reason to return to your site all the time. Put up a bulletin board and start a community. Engage your fans (with caution!) Make cheap videos. Film yourself talking. Play shows. Make interesting things. Get a Twitter account. Be interesting. Be real.
(powazek → tedr*tumblr → Trent Reznor)
In the venn diagram of my friendships there’s substantial overlap between Super Geek and Musician. It’s been interesting, for me, to watch them get this nearly a decade ago and to watch how slowly, but constantly, it’s worked its way out from the small, relatively nerdy core to, y’know, The Kids.
