Back in May, Trent Reznor went to Nine Inch Nails’ Echoing the Sound fan forum to explain his rational for labeling Bad Witch as an album.
Posting under his user handle “teitan”, Reznor wrote, “EPs show up with singles in Spotify and other streaming services = they get lost easier. EPs feel less important in today’s music-isn’t-as-important-as-it-once-was world. Why make it easer to ignore?”
“We’re not charging any more for it so why get worked up about it?” Reznor added.
Reznor concluded his post by taking a parting shot at a message board member who was critical of the album’s labeling.
“I wonder why the ‘representative’ of NIN is even in the music business to issue a statement like that? I know very well how an album length is and a EP length is. This is an EP,” wrote Quantum550 in an earlier post. “Fucking hate music industry sometimes.”
In response, Reznor chided, “Quantum550: suck my entire cock.”
Reznor discussed this fan interaction in a new Kerrang interview.
“Honestly, there were about two seconds of thought before that comment,” suggests Trent today, his grin likely in recognition of his occasionally itchy keyboard finger.
“The decision to call it an LP was a very unsexy one on our part. I hadn’t really thought about the whole thing of streaming services and where it pops up, and suddenly it’s, ‘Oh, now they’re hidden down with the singles and bootlegs and bullshit at the bottom.’ What is an EP, anyway? No one could answer. Well, fuck it, let’s call it an LP. Let’s not charge any more, it’s not a scam to rip people off, but let’s just have it up here instead of down there.”
“That’s the culture of internet commenting,” he expands, his blood a little up. “The sense of, ‘I have an extreme opinion that I haven’t thought through at all and it’s coming from an uneducated and invalidated place, and I’m going to anonymously announce it to the world.’ Fuck you!”
