Trent Reznor Returns To The Big Label Fold

While we're constantly inundated with opinions that the major labels are on their last legs, that's simply not the case. Though we may yet see another step in the evolution of the majors soon, there's always going to be a place for at least a few of them. Case in point, the return to the major label fold by the poster boy for DIY, Trent Reznor.

Reznor described the reason for his newly minted agreement with Sony Music recently with David Byrne:

"In the last tour, we're playing Prague, we're walking around and playing that night at Prague.  But I see flyers up for Radiohead playing the same place we're playing, but six months from now.  And I walk into the record shop, and there isn't a section that says Nine Inch Nails.  And there's no kind of presence that we're even there.   

And I start to realize, the last few years all we've done... you know Mr. Twitter Bigshot with my bunch of followers right, but it's preaching to that choir of people that are important, but it's that camp.  The world's become so fragmented, you can tune into what you like, and a lot of things don't break though that, or cross over. 

And we're literally putting our records out on our own, and not using the labels.  And I don't know what the cool record shop in Prague is, and I don't know the good blog that comes out of there that I can give some attention to.  And I don't really want to do that, but there's a part of me that can't stop, so I get obsessed and I start thinking about marketing and I think, 'there's other people I can hire that can market this stuff, but no one else can write the songs I can write.' 

The great part of self-releasing has been controlling your own destiny.  Nobody having any approval.  Finishing a song at midnight and putting it out the next day.  Getting fans excited with no leak, because you have the only copy, and you uploaded it and you hit publish.  And wow, that's fun, it felt great particularly after a long career in the weirdness of labels. 

But to answer your question, it was to have a team of people that are better at that than I am, worldwide.  That felt like it was worth slicing the pie up, monetarily, but our main agenda of the moment was to make people aware of it in the right context versus a little more money we might or might not make.  And that's what it came down to, and so far, it's been pleasantly pleasant, actually having people that know what they're talking about and having a team, that's nice."

The above sounds more like Reznor was more tired of the DIY thing than anything else, and that's fair enough, but the fact of the matter is that the major labels are the only ones that have the infrastructure capable of either elevating an artist to, or maintaining superstardom. If an artist is going to break world-wide, that's still the way to go.

Now I don't want to come off as an apologist for the major labels because I'm far from it. I believe that until you're at a point in your career when you have some leverage, it's best to stay away from a label and do as much as you can yourself. Signing too early does an artist no good. But if you have a measure of success, that means that you can certainly be in a position for not only a better deal, but more attention from the label as well.

Not only that, after doing so much of the grunt work yourself, you're so much better at determining if the label is doing a good job or not, and helping them to do the best they can. It can be a win-win under the right circumstances.

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