In February 2007 fans discovered that a new Nine Inch Nails tour t-shirt contained highlighted letters that spelled out the words "I am trying to believe".This phrase was registered as a website URL, and soon several related websites were also discovered in the IP range, all describing a dystopian vision of the fictional "year 0000".Digital Arts later reported that 42 Entertainment had created these websites to promote Year Zero as part of an alternate reality game. Rolling Stone described the fan involvement in this promotion as the "marketing team's dream". Reznor, however, argued that "marketing" was an inaccurate description of the game, and that it was "not some kind of gimmick to get you to buy a record - it IS the art form".

Part of this promotional campaign involved USB drives that were left in concert venues for fans to find during Nine Inch Nails' 2007 European tour. Messages found on the drives and tour clothing led to additional websites and images from the game, and the early release of several unheard songs from the album.Reznor told The Guardian:

The USB drive was simply a mechanism of leaking the music and data we wanted out there. The medium of the CD is outdated and irrelevant. It's really painfully obvious what people want — DRM-free music they can do what they want with. If the greedy record industry would embrace that concept I truly think people would pay for music and consume more of it.

On February 22, 2007 a teaser trailer was released through the official Year Zero website. It featured a quick glimpse of a blue road sign that said "I AM TRYING TO BELIEVE", as well as a distorted glimpse of "The Presence" from the album cover. One frame in the teaser led fans to a URL containing the complete album cover. In March, the multitrack audio files of Year Zero's first single, "Survivalism", were released in Garageband format for fan remixing. The multitrack files for "Capital G", "My Violent Heart" and "Me, I'm Not" were released on April 26; "The Beginning of the End", "Vessel" and "God Given" were released on June 12.Initially formatted for Garageband and Logic Pro, WAV files for other applications were later distributed through BitTorrent.In response to an early leak of the album, the entire album became available for streaming on Nine Inch Nails' MySpace page on April 10.

Posted in Labels: Research Posted by Aaron at 3:12 PM