As you may or may not know, Nine inch Nails will be releasing a new album this coming April entitled "Year Zero". Trent Reznor has said that album is a concept record that takes place 15 years in the future and that thing's are "not good".
Last month keen eyed fans began noticing that the bands recent tour shirts contained coded messages. The letters spell out the message "I am trying to believe". It didn't take long for fans to find the site, which provided clues to a network of websites that serve as puzzle pieces for the concept of Year Zero. Painting a fragmented picture of a harsh totalitarian future reality, in which freedom is nonexistant and citizens are under constant survelliance, the sites raise many more questions than answers. It sure makes things interesting, though.
On 2/12/07 at a show in Lisbon, Portugal a USB flashdisk was found on a bathroom floor. The flashstick contained the song [url=http://yearzero.projectblackrock.com/My%20Violent%20Heart%20(no%20data%20noise%20at%20end).mp3
]"My Violent Heart"[/url]
Within 24 hours the song was leaked to the internet and stations across America began playing it. This forced Interscope records to release their intended first single "Survivalism", a full week ahead of time.
On February 19th, 2007, [url=http://yearzero.projectblackrock.com/06%20Me,%20I'm%20Not.mp3]"Me, I'm Not"[/url] , track six of Year Zero was "leaked" via another USB drive found in Barcelona, Spain. Along with the the song was another file that when ran through a spectograph analyzer revealed the phone number 1-216-333-1810, which in turn led us to the U.S. Wiretap Website.
More and more of these strange websites began popping up daily. You can find all the songs leaked so far, as well as links to all the websites at Symphony of Noise. The first of these additional websites, http://anotherversionofthetruth.com, displays what looks to be a propaganda poster. Clicking and dragging portions of the image reveals it "tears away" into a much more negative image, linking to a message board in which users have been discussing various aspects of society, including handing out links to various audio files and links to other related websites.
On February 22nd, 2007, a new site called "Art is Resistance" appeared on the web, giving links to downloadables such as forum avatars, wallpapers, stencils, and stickers. This site heavily showcases the resistance flag, which was seen (perhaps even hinted at) on a photo of Trent at nin.com the previous day. Also, a few hours after this site was revealed, the Year Zero website was updated with a teaser video and the finalized album cover.
On February 25th, 2007, several fans noticed a "glitch" next to the song "In This Twilight" on yearzero.nin.com. Later that night, an ETS member found a USB key at a concert in the UK. He handed it off to a friend who contacted several sources online to host the song and image which were on the USB key. Later, another website, Hollywood in Memoriam, was discovered.
Also on the drives were static MP3 files. The tracks each had different decipherable characteristics such as a phone number (which, when dialed, plays a perplexing wiretapped phone conversation) or imagery such as a demolished Hollywood sign and a hand reaching down from the sky.
Check out the songs, videos, sites, and audio files and let me know what you think of all this. Some are writing it off as nothing more than an elaborate viral marketing scheme, but I think Trent's also trying to getting us thinking and talking about somethings with all this. A good portion of it isn't that far fetched, and some of it is actually quite chilling.
EDIT: A live video has surfaced of March 8th's show at London's Brixton Academy, featuring the first-ever live performance of "The Beginning Of The End".
UPDATE: 3/11/07 Tonight at a concert in London a flyer was found similar to others found at previous shows. This one though, featured an address. A few concert-goers went to seek out the location. When they arrived at the scene, they discovered this billboard. The message, "Operation Swamp" sent forum users into a mad search. They soon discovered www. operationswamp0000.net. Mentioned there is "Operation Chip Sweep"
NOTE: Most of these sites contain hidden messages and overlapping text. You can select all with Ctrl+A and you can change the size of the text by holding Ctrl and scrolling with your mouse. Play around with the sites, all of them have hidden backdoors to find.
MORE COMING SOON.
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