the alternative lifespan

it’s a funny thing about “alternative” music. it’s the only genre that gets its title not from what it is, but for what it isn’t. alternative by sheer virtue of sounding different from what came before it. yet because of this oversight in initial definition, it has the opportunity to become the reincarnation (reincoustation?) of a musical style. after a while, the dominant style tends to fade into the vacuum of its decade’s category, and the new style ceases to be alternative. it becomes the mainstream default of a genre.

so i’m thinking about all that as i read:

To promote new album “Year Zero,” Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor is using a multimedia scavenger hunt. The campaign will encompass everything from cryptic phrases on T-shirts to Orwellian Web sites to MP3s found on USB drives in bathrooms at NIN concerts.

A source with knowledge of the project says Reznor perceives it all not as a marketing campaign but as “a new entertainment form.” 42 Entertainment is helping to create the experience; that’s the agency behind 2005’s “alternate-reality game” promoting the Halo 2 videogame for the XBox.

“Year Zero” came to life in early February, when web-savvy fans discovered that highlighted letters inside words on a NIN tour T-shirt spelled out “I am trying to believe.” Savvy fans added a “.com” to the five words and, voila, located a thought-provoking, eerie website.

The source says the campaign forms the body of the “Year Zero” experience: “It is the CD booklet come to life. It precedes the concept album and the tour. And it will continue for the next 18 months, with peaks and valleys.” The source continues, “No one has assembled the full story yet. The new media is creating the story as it goes.”

not that i’m trying to insinuate that i think “alternate” reality games are anywhere CLOSE to mainstream. anything that at some point calls upon the ability to hack source code, by definition, couldn’t be mainstream; up till now two most notable ARG’s were designed for a sci-fi movie and a video game. but i do think that it would inevitably be music which would make ARG’s pallatable to a broader audience. after all, music is what makes everything tip. (name ONE cultural movement that cannot be defined by a kind of music, and i’ll tell you a cultural trend that tread water and never went anywhere.)

NIN doing an 18 month album promo (altho i DO dig that they keep calling it an “experience.” way to be on top of that, trent) is, of course, not what it’s really gonna take, but this is just a first step in what could be the content management of a whole lifestyle.

it won’t be categorizable as “alternate” for long.

 

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