Sigil 04_: Welcome oblivion

**thepresence0** · 03-07-2013, 10:08 AM

My take on the album:

I can't stop listening to it. Yes the sound overlaps with prior NIN work. It also builds on it. Year Zero is my favorite NIN album, so I am an easy target for how this album sounds. But it is definitely *not* Year Zero. It is a slower, with a deeper, more rich sound.

All of Trent's work has a musical through line. It all sounds somewhat related. I can listen to PHM and Welcome Oblivion and find similarities. I'm glad I can. Because his taste and take on what sounds interesting and cool is exactly why I have always listened to him.

I'm not sure what some of you were expecting.

As for Trent bringing NIN back and the timing?

No matter what the reasoning for the timing... Who the fuck cares? Lets say he has been unhappy with how little press HTDA has gotten and he figured a NIN announcement could boost attention around it. Yeah? Is that a big deal? Makes him a sell out? Why don't you make more cracks about his wife. No ones ever done that before.

I take what Trent does at face value and do not read malicious intent into what he does. He likes to make music and put it out there and get the maximum possible audience he thinks he can achieve without compromising. The record deal allows HTDA total creative freedom. NIN coming back boosts attention to HTDA. What is the actual issue with that? Some of you are kind of crazy with what you read into his actions.

**witte** · 03-07-2013, 10:08 AM

Ihre Bestellung wurde verschickt

JPC.de sent the vinyls. EU pressing are fine, as far I can see.

First line is German: "your order is on its way to me".

I expect them friday or saturday.

vvvv

**sheepdean** · 03-07-2013, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by nine_inch_nerd

Ihre Bestellung wurde verschickt

JPC.de sent the vinyls. EU pressing are fine, as far I can see.

Have you played them through?

**Trains** · 03-07-2013, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by thepresence0

Lets say he has been unhappy with how little press HTDA has gotten and he figured a NIN announcement could boost attention around it.

This has made me wonder, how much have the label actually done to promote the record/band? As far as I can tell, HTDA have been responsible for pretty much all the promotion, viral advertising, tour announcements, etc. Apart from Pitchfork, I haven't seen the band's name 'out there' much at all, and I'm pretty sure P4K would have covered the band to the same degree (if not more so) if they had remained unsigned. What did signing with Columbia actually achieve, save for the "privilege" of having names like Dave Sitek producing remixes for the band?

**Reznor2112** · 03-07-2013, 11:09 AM

^^^^

Ads on spotify, Xbox Live and various other places. You did not see his many ads for the first EP or the last few NIN albums. Shit, yahoo made TR and Q headline news the other day. Columbia.

To be honest on all this HATE for repetitious Reznor sounds, Welcome Oblivion sounds like YZ and TSN which had elements in both The Slip and Ghosts, which btw had some elements from The Fragile. TF had elements of TDS. TDS had elements of Broken. The biggest jump in Reznor history to me is from Broken to PHM.

AS someone posted earlier, yes TR will blow your mind if you start listening to the albums in the past 10 years. You dont know where to start. But once you have collected your thoughts, know every song by heart and where they belong, they are ALL connected. Its just the fact that you are now living through new music releases as opposed to jumping in after the fact and newly discovering all of his different sounds and melodies that make TR, TR.

Mind you, it is ok to dislike work by TR. ITS OK! But, don't say its because it sounds too much like older stuff. Go listen to every NIN album from start to finish in chronological order and tell me that there are no similarities until NOW with WO/YZ/TSN If you want something that doesnt sound like older NIN recordings go check out the album Gold Cobra. Im sure it will meet your expectations.

Now I have to get back to studying for my midterms and listening to Welcome Oblivion.

**thelastdisciple** · 03-07-2013, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by neorev

I also find it strange that Trent is bringing back NIN so soon, right after the release of his new project's debut album. At least wait til 2014 to focus on NIN again and use this year to give HTDA room to breathe.

=

Originally Posted by Rob_Sheridan

"I made the mistake of wandering back to this question's thread after seeing the Pitchfork headline... The original poster didn't deserve a legitimate response, but since this is apparently a question that some people have, let me chime in and shut it down... Why was NIN announced right at this time? The answer is we DIDN'T WANT TO ANNOUNCE NIN YET. We put it off as long as possible to give HTDA time to breathe before getting steamrolled by the NIN news. But when you book festival gigs, they have their own marketing rollout that is beyond our control and have specific times they need to announce their lineups. Even though the festivals don't happen until July and August, they happened to schedule their announcements right at the time we were releasing HTDA. So we had no choice but to make the NIN announcement. Not only is Trent not using NIN to help market HTDA or whatever garbage the armchair quarterbacking original poster spewed, we actively did NOT want the two to overlap. In fact, the HTDA album was supposed to come out last year, but then the Coachella opportunity came up, and in planning out a marketing strategy that would give HTDA the most exposure, it made a lot more sense to wait and release the album around the time Coachella was being announced. This ran the risk of putting HTDA a lot closer to NIN (which was already being planned) than we'd wanted, but it was the best thing to do for the project. There are complex logistics involved in how tours are planned, budgets and schedules, marketing strategies, production concerns, and a billion other things, and trying to do what's best for two projects at the same time sometimes means there will be sacrifices here and there. Also, no one's getting rich off of HTDA. Even the money we'd make from something big like Coachella goes back 100% into the production budget so we can have a great live show. We're doing it because we think it's cool and we like making art, and that's really it. We want as many people as possible to hear about that art, so that led to the record label idea. And the relationship we've had with Columbia on this project has been great - it's allowed us to have budgets to do things like make more videos, and it's gotten us a level of exposure for the project we couldn't have achieved on our own. Turns out (some) record labels have changed quite a bit since the industry took a shit. Funny thing, when all the money leaves an industry, a lot of the money-grubbing assholes leave too. Most of the people we work with at Columbia are young, and are just music fans who want to make cool stuff happen. It's never going to be perfect, and we'll always miss having that heavy control we get doing things on our own, but so far this experiment has worked out well for the very specific needs of this project."

via Reddit HTDA AMA

So if you can read this right it's actually HTDA that's kinda overlapping with the NIN plans this year as Rob mentioned this album should have been out last year to begin with but they held off on releasing it so they could lead it up to the Coachella gig.

**talkingnothing** · 03-07-2013, 12:54 PM

yeah, I get all that stuff Rob pointed out. it makes sense. I just wish htda was doing more shows (than what we so far know about). if the album came out last year they may have done some fall/winter touring or not. I'll totally go see nin when they come somewhere near me and I'll be totally excited about it, but I'm not able to make it to any of the htda gigs and i'm really let down about it.

back to w.o... I like it way better than an omen. you know, an omen was ok, but the 4 tracks on it that also appear on wo are so much better in context. I feel like an omen was just to fulfill the promise of new htda in 2012.

as far as people finding it derivative or whatever, that's cool. imo, nobody makes beats like TRAR. cant get enough of em. if you're turned off by their beats, thats cool, just listen no further at first sign of them.

**Deepvoid** · 03-07-2013, 01:32 PM

I don't know if this has been posted or not but according to Hits Daily Double, the album is looking at 10-12k in physical sales in its first week.

**screwdriver** · 03-07-2013, 01:44 PM

Originally Posted by Deepvoid

I don't know if this has been posted or not but according to Hits Daily Double, the album is looking at 10-12k in physical sales in its first week.

I have no idea what is good or bad anymore. Is that good? Does that include the vinyls, which haven't shipped yet?

**Deepvoid** · 03-07-2013, 01:57 PM

This only takes into consideration sales through retail stores. Not the website.
Is it good? Well the other "key" debuts from this week:

Luke Bryan (Capitol Nashville) 105-120k
Jimi Hendrix (Legacy) 65-70k
Boz Scaggs (429) 12-15k
Shake It Up 3 (Disney) 10-12k
How To Destroy Angels (Columbia) 10-12k

Good or bad is subjective. However, it does prove that Trent can associate himself to something and it won't automatically translate into sales.
This will barely get them into top 50. Last's week #50, Britney Spears' greatest hits, sold 11,225 copies.

It's clear that the core of his NIN fanbase did not jump aboard the HDTA wagon, at least not in terms of buy it through a store.
I think the most interesting number will be the digital sales through iTunes. This number will be a lot more telling.

**konstantin** · 03-07-2013, 03:38 PM

i don't think WO is even remotely commercial music, so even with a label support i don't see how it'll chart well when it comes to sales. i did notice, however, that the tickets for the show are $40 a pop, which pretty much only established or overhyped bands get to charge. the tour seems to be selling well, so the price point must be right (and i wasn't complaining anyway). looking forward to seeing this "audio/visual installation" show. i tend to see too many shows that end up feeling like the same experience (you can only do so much with little money, i know) so seeing something different should be refreshing, even if i'm not crazy about the music.

**butter_hole** · 03-07-2013, 05:52 PM