Two months ago Nine Inch Nails performed The Downward Spiral from start till finish at one of their farewell gigs in small clubs.

Thanks to a wonderful taping policy, multiple cameras (dozens of them) recorded this incredible gig, some of them in high-definition.

Now, two months after that gig, a fan-edited DVD of that gig will be available as a free torrent; it will also be uploaded to YouTube. This is the first song:
http://www.youtube.com/wa...o_xPY&hd=1

The band love it, and promote it via their official Twitter account.

(Now compare to Prince.)

That's so cool.

thats awesome! prince would NEVER do something like this hopefully he can learn from them

BartVanHemelen said:

And now they're promoting it via their official website: http://nin.com/?id=93361

This is how you treat fans.

But all of this is trumped by the fact that ....they are not Prince.

How ironic, don'tcha think?

Revolution said:

So, a good example of fan/artist interaction is "trumped" by another artist? Yeah, riiight.

BlaqueKnight said:

I'll spell it out for the illiterates....
What does it matter if they treat their fans right when they deliver shit? IMO.
I'd rather be bitchslapped with some good funk any day of the week

Revolution said:

Er...isn't comparing NIN's music to Prince's really a case of apples and oranges? They have little to nothing in common sonically, so how can you say either is better or worse? Settle down, fambot.

Fan-friendly bands are where it's at. I love the Princelet's music, but he really could stand to take a page out of NIN book when it comes to dealing with the people who sign his paycheque.

I've been saying this for ages.

I probably wouldn't go to one of their shows but I like their fan friendly attitude.

There are alot of cool things that Prince could be doing right now (live DVDs,remasters,etc) but his refusal to do so is one reason why I have lost interest in his career I don't think he truly realizes how exciting these things are to the fans! Look at the hoopla over the Beatles remasters.

Don't get me wrong Prince could do with being a little more connected with his fans and being a little more business savvy like Trent Reznor but i like the mystique of not having everything put on a plate for me by an artist i like. In the end you just end up being flooded with product and it doesn't become special anymore.
[Edited 10/26/09 6:23am]

Revolution said:

You don't like NIN? So what. I prefer funk, too but the bullshit Prince has been releasing lately ain't funky either, so your little jab at NIN is flawed in many ways. NIN is not a funk band so what does it matter? This isn't a thread about musical genres. The TOPIC is fan/band interaction, so try to keep up if you can. Willingness to be "bitchslapped" by any artist is a dated mindset and business model. How very 80s of you to profess your desire to suck the purple rod. As has been stated, Prince could LEARN SOMETHING from NIN. What they are doing is setting a standard by leading by example. Anybody who still believes in the ILLUSION of stardom after countless "celeb-reality" shows and American Idol is a fool. The same people still believe in Santa Claus (™ of Coca-Cola).
Being an asshole to the people that pay your bills is foolish and while a some of the sadists on here may love it, it is for the most part unacceptable nowadays.
Catch up to everyone else, will ya?

BlaqueKnight said:

I get it...you're not a fan of the new stuff. While I say it's some of his best work...so who's right? Prince does things his way, once the music is created, he shares, or possibly NOT...why does he have to conform to your way of distributing HIS music? Get off the boat, you're taking up room.

BlaqueKnight said:

BlaqueKnight said:

You're reading my mind. (Of course I've said as much in the past, even using NIN as an example.) Very good points though.

It's not about liking NIN (as LauraRichardson so strongly denies), it's about how they handle their business with fans. What they do with a record company in a contract usually isn't anything that I care about, although details are interesting in general. Prince COULD learn a lot from NIN. Trent knows what side his bread is buttered on.

And isn't Trent an indie artist now anyway? Prince already has that in common w/ Trent. But Prince has locked down everything tighter than a virgin's asshole in lemon juice. Trent hasn't just opened up his vault for fans to pillage, but he's put things out there to buy, listen to, and yes even for free. And to authorize a bootleg of sorts? Brilliant! And frankly the fans doing that NIN video (I have since downloaded & watched it although I'm not a NIN fan per se) was 100x better than the Aladdin DVD, or even Rave, both of which were "professionally" shot.

The simple fact that Trent is using everything from direct downloads to freaking TORRENTS only shows he has his eye on technology, simple or complicated, making it easy for anyone and everyone to get his product.

ernestsewell said:

We, along with some of the others around here, already know what they will realize eventually - when Prince does it. Oh, and rest assured when he eventually does something similar, (if he ever does) the fanbots will SWEAR he did it first and discount Trent's ideas completely like they did with Bowie and Sananda. Prince does it later and the fanbots swear he was first and agree to all believe the lie together.
In the end, Prince's fanbase is fading and he will have to get on board and drop the elitist routine and get real.
I will give him props on his recent concert at Paisley Park, though. At least he's trying to PRETEND to give a damn about his paying website members. If you don't mind spending the money to fly into town and come to his place to see him, you can get a cheap show. After reading what I just typed, its not all that cool unless you live in MN, but hey - I guess coming from Prince, that a BIG thing to do?

[Edited 10/27/09 0:12am]

I love this aspect of NIN, but in reality, as low as Prince's sales are don't you think he would still beat NIN if not for the fan service Trent offers?

Currently Prince does not have to give as much...yet.

Mars23 said:

Is this a debate about sales or fan/band interaction? This falls in line with the way Trent has been for quite some time now. Its not a race, so no one has to be "beaten". If that's the case, then Lil Wayne and/or Jay-Z beat BOTH of them put together several times over. NIN simply has to make money to cover their bills and make a living just like every other artist, including Prince. How much "winning" do you have to do in order to do that?
Anyway, I and many others know its a good idea. Becoming closer to your fanbase is the future of bands. If the people that like you actually feel like they know you, they will be more likely to PAY for your work and come see your shows. I remember when Sananda gave away Wildcard for free. It gained him a lot of new fans. People like free stuff and they really like it when it comes directly from the source. Prince's era is done and along with that goes the elitist mentality. And since when did more fan interaction become a bad thing?

BlaqueKnight said:

Ultimately, for Prince and most capitalists, it's a debate about sales. Until forced into that corner, I don't see Prince doing this.

Mars23 said:

I don't either. I gave up on dude a long time ago in terms of this sort of thing.

BlaqueKnight said:

Prince has everything at his disposal to find new and creative ways of distributing his work that could suit him AND the fans, a la NIN. He has the money and the resources to regularly put on affordable shows, a la Pearl Jam. He has cheap -even free! -resources available via the internet of keeping people updated on album progress, tour dates, interviews, and the like, a la the God damn Backstreet Boys..

But he doesn't. He throws expensive, celebrity only gigs. He sells pricey, crocodile skin gadgets. He charges $77 for a shitty website. Is he drunk?

I heart Trent so much. Watching the TDS live vids right now....so god damn cool.

Militant said:

I am not a NIN fan. Even "casual" is a stretch. However, I can appreciate his effect on music, and his fan base. I've tried to listen to NIN in the past. I actually used to listen to Pretty Hate Machine, because my roommate at the time listened to it a lot. He had singles to "Head Like A Hole", "Sin", and something else. It was interesting at the time. "Closer" was, of course, a popular song, and I got into it.

I actually own (I forgot about this earlier when arguing with LauraRichardson in another thread) With Teeth. I got turned onto that album a bit because Trent uploaded "Only" and "The Hand That Feeds" in Mac's Garageband format for fans to download and remix as they wanted. I did remixes of both. That alone made me appreciate how cool Trent was with his fans. Prince offered one song during NPGMC year 1 for folks to write lyrics to. Eh.

I downloaded and watched the video noted in this thread. Although it's not something I'd normally listen to, it was a very cool video to watch, and I enjoyed it. The best thing about the video was the fan's response. Yes, it's a bootleg, and there are times you can hear the audience talking. Every time NIN played the next track from The Downward Spiral, this one guy near the camera would yell "OH MY GOD!" He couldn't believe that NIN was actually playing a great album, one song at a time, in order, front to back. Can you imagine a fan going nuts when Prince got onstage and played SOTT front to back, or The Gold Experience, or Purple Rain, or 1999? Remember when he started on the SOTT tour playing the first four or five songs in a row in rehearsals, then started changing it up? Remember when he said he wanted to play Emancipation front to back, because that was 3 hours in total, then he changed it up and played only a small handful of them? Eh.

ernestsewell said:

I like this post.

This topic gets tiresome because overzealous Prince fans turn it into "well Trent suxz0rs and Prince rox0rz!"

They miss the point. Trent is one of the most pro-active people when it comes to creating new online business models and having a dedicated fan community, tearing down barriers between artists and their fans rather than building more. Prince could and should take a leaf out of Trent's book and that is a fact regardless of what anyone thinks about the music of either!!

Well, I gotta say this thread turned out a whoooole lot different than if it had been posted in the M&M forum.

babynoz said: