I am a huge Nine Inch Nails fan, and have been since Pretty Hate Machine, so the news of a new album blew me away. But moreso is the fact that is much more than just a new album… a whole concept is in place involving merchendise, web, music, planned “leaks” and other cool stuff. The album is set in a future world where the appears to be drugged by the government.

http://www.ninwiki.com/

There is a lot going on regarding the events surrounding Year Zero and the current future world, where Year Zero takes place. This is to inform new and old users alike of everything going on. According to Trent, Year Zero takes place about 15 years in the future, which would be 2022. There is also a Year Zero Timeline being compiled.

A series of highlighted letters have been found on a Nine Inch Nails tour shirt which spell out the words “I am trying to believe,” leading users to iamtryingtobelieve.com. This site details numerous things going on in this time line, such as the Parepin drug and The Presence. Using the track list to the album, people discovered numerous related websites.

The first of these additional websites, 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.

More websites have popped up through context, giving more information as to what is happening in the universe and specifying more details, opening up more puzzles, and inspiring the community to dig deeper to explore more of this world.

On February 14th, 2007, “My Violent Heart”, track eight of Year Zero, was “leaked” to the Internet. On February 15th, the first single, Survivalism, was played on KROQ radio and then other radio stations throughout the day, marking its official air date, over a week ahead of schedule. A full-quality rip soon ended up on the Internet.

The Year Zero Research Page is being constantly updated to track recent developments, theories, and essentially organize the Year Zero events into a cohesive storyline.

I love this bit though… one of the key ideas of the concept is a thing called “The Presence” which appears to be a hand reaching down from the clouds (aliens, mass hysteria…. we don’t know yet)

, and images of it show up in the related websites and IN THE MUSIC - literally. One of the leaked tracks had a static signal at the end and when the static was run through an oscilloscope it made an image

I am amazed at how well thought out this entire concept it. It doesn’t feel like you typical viral marketing, but more of just an extension of the album’s concept.