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Trent Reznor: Advice to Young Artists

Trent Reznor: Advice to Young Artists

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.

To clarify:

Parter with a TopSpin or similar or build your own website, but what you NEED to do is this - give your music away as high-quality DRM-free MP3s. Collect people’s email info in exchange (which means having the infrastructure to do so) and start building your database of potential customers. Then, offer a variety of premium packages for sale and make them limited editions / scarce goods. Base the price and amount available on what you think you can sell. Make the packages special - make them by hand, sign them, make them unique, make them something YOU would want to have as a fan. Make a premium download available that includes high-resolution versions (for sale at a reasonable price) and include the download as something immediately available with any physical purchase. Sell T-shirts. Sell buttons, posters… whatever.

Don’t have a TopSpin as a partner? Use Amazon for your transactions and fulfillment. [www.amazon.com]

Use TuneCore to get your music everywhere. [www.tunecore.com]

Have a realistic idea of what you can expect to make from these and budget your recording appropriately.

The point is this: music IS free whether you want to believe that or not. Every piece of music you can think of is available free right now a click away. This is a fact - it sucks as the musician BUT THAT’S THE WAY IT IS (for now). So… have the public get what they want FROM YOU instead of a torrent site and garner good will in the process (plus build your database).

The Beastie Boys’ site offers everything you could possibly want in the formats you would want it in - available right from them, right now. The prices they are charging are more than you should be charging - they are established and you are not. Think this through.

The database you are amassing should not be abused, but used to inform people that are interested in what you do when you have something going on - like a few shows, or a tour, or a new record, or a webcast, etc.

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. Submit your music to blogs that may be interested. NEVER CHASE TRENDS. Utilize the multitude of tools available to you for very little cost of any - Flickr / YouTube / Vimeo / SoundCloud / Twitter etc.

If you don’t know anything about new media or how people communicate these days, none of this will work. The role of an independent musician these days requires a mastery of first hand use of these tools. If you don’t get it - find someone who does to do this for you. If you are waiting around for the phone to ring or that A & R guy to show up at your gig - good luck, you’re going to be waiting a while.

Trent Reznor is an American musician. Reznor is the founder and main creative force behind the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails

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With two States waiting weeks for election results, the political culture of Australia seems decidedly messy and confused.

In Tasmania, a large vocal minority of Greens will have the balance of power in a hung parliament, there will be infighting and bickering until the Liberal Opposition claims a minor majority and thrusts forward its impotent Premier into the melee.

In South Australia, Rann will win, but his bravado and virility will be curbed as his ability to nonchalantly wave around his policy penis becomes hampered.

What all this seems to show is that Labor is slipping, the Greens and the environment movement are gaining a lot of traction and Australia is divided.

Hopefully not to the point where Red and Blue States form which look at each other with systemic suspicion, but it does seem that these divides are becoming increasingly irreconcilable.  

Bet Labor wishes they could turn back the clock two years when they controlled every government at State and Federal level and do things a bit differently.

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Why has homepage started running so many nameless 100 word eds? Names are good for intellectual continuity, honesty and non-hypocrisy. - Terry McGee

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Re: Bale de Rua

We thought the Bale de Rua was aweful. Choreography was terrible - set design, music and costumes were lacklustre. The dancers however were very athletic and graceful. - Jules

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Re: In Praise of Mediocrity

I just wonder who decides if what ever you chose to do in life, is mediocre or not. Sounds like with standards like yours, this article with its poor structure and soap box appeal may also be considered by many as, in-fact, mediocre. - Khedra

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Re: The Assassins of Langley

Yes, Mr. Neville. Odious, heinous assassins sold body and soul to Luciferian entities who pull the strings (the last of them, I want to believe) from the shadows. Philip Aggeee and John Stockwell portrayed them quite well. They are NOT heroes, nor are the gangbangers of East Los Angeles who spray grafitti in Iraq, where they most certainly train for urban warfare on our streets. Good riddance to them all!

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Re: Hairy Legs: A Study of Female Art, Feminism and Femininity

 Looking forward to more of her articles. Hope she does plenty of Art Theory at SCA. Barbara Kruger and Judy Chicago are certainly powerful artists and it would be interesting to see what they are doing now.

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A hero's welcome for the famous Iraqi shoe thrower

Terrorist! Please do your research first before writing such dangerous things, we was insulting Bush by throwing the shoe as he was disgraced with him, not trying to topple the largest super power in the world by throwing a shoe. I cant believe you have put those words up. Ashamed

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Re: How to Report the News

Having worked as a TV news reporter I found Charlie's piece very amusing - some of us have long believed reporting like this is a rubbish way to do things! But even if a journalist wants to tell stories in a more authentic and engaging way, the constraints of the so-called "house style" in many news organisations make it difficult to achieve. What's needed is a massive culture shift and a complete re-think of what we understand quality broadcast news reporting is. And guess what? That's exactly what's happening, though you'd never believe it from what we're still mostly seeing on TV. Anyway, the new digital technologies, and shake up of "old school/old mainstream" journalism means new platforms and styles of "news" storytelling can now emerge. Let's hope fresh and appropriate ways of funding appear too, so we can kill off this dreadful formulaic reporting and delivery, and clear the way for more natural and interesting ways to treat stories and content.

Much love, Ian Aspin.
www.twitter.com/ianaspin

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Re: Killing Indian Students: Australia's Favourite New Sport!- by Sean Maguire

How about the indian guy who slashed his wife's throat, is still australia to blame for?..may be , for accenpting them to move over!I am an immigrant myself but I love this country, there is no perfect place on Earth but australia is one of the best! - Michael

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This entire fiasco is an incredible over reaction. Australia is an easy target. Why? because we are honest, transperant and we talk about our failings. Is there aggression and iolence in Australia? Sure, like any country. But we face it head on and we work to eliminate it. What about the stories of the 100’s of thousands of Indian workers who are treated as slaves in the middle east and nobody says anything? What about the fact that India still has entrenched pedophilia in terms of child brides? What about the crushing poverty embraced by more than 60% of the Indian people while this nation runs around building nuclear warheads? A storm in a teacup, an over reaction, and a diversion from some the really bad issues facing India. What is really happening here is that students are being unnecessarily frightened. meaning they will miss out on what could be the opportunity of their lifetime. - Daryl
 
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I couldn't agree with Sean Maguire's article more on the recent Indian attacks. For all those who like the pretend the attacks are merely based on coincidence, try to imagine how we would react if the boot were on the other foot and an uncharacteristic number of Australia's had been murdered in India. Would you push for a travel ban? Would you be scared for your children in a seemingly hostile environment so many miles away?  - Kara Jensen-Mackinnon

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