THE NIN HOTLINE

Friday May 18, 2007

The skinny on the Best Buy interview

During the lead-up to the release of Year Zero, a number of retailers had exclusive packages set up to encourage you to buy the album from them. One of these was with Best Buy, who offered an exclusive interview with your purchase of the album. On their website, they listed the interview as being 10 minutes long. A few days before the release, we were sent a URL where you could freely download a 4.5 minute interview, which everyone assumed was perhaps a kind of preview. When people picked up the CD from Best Buy, they came to find that this same interview was the one that they were directed to by a sticker on their CD.

Some folks sought out some answers, and unfortunately were given run-around or misleading information. Not to be dissuaded, one of our viewers, AussieDog, sought to get to the bottom of the matter, and eventually got in touch with someone in corporate who doesn't read from scripts and was able to find out some real answers.

To paraphrase: When the interview was being shot, Trent wanted to do 8 takes -- he was very particular about how he wanted the interview done. Initially, it was decided that a 10-minute interview would be done, but in the end, with Trent’s feedback, the final interview ended up being only 4.5 minutes long. Update! Trent was asked to film himself talking about the new record and make it about 10 minutes. Somewhere in Europe one afternoon he did that in a hotel room. There was no fuss or demanding on any particulars. Whatever has happened since then - including how it was
promoted or presented (and now blamed on him for being fucked up) - has been out of his hands.

No 10-minute version of the interview even exists. Unfortunately, this change was not reflected on the Best Buy website, still had a page which had slipped through the cracks and said that the interview was 10 minutes long. That page has since been updated to reflect the interview correctly.

Anyhow, I wanted to post that here so that if you had questions about the interview that were left unanswered by folks further down the Best Buy chain. Basically, things changed, and someone forgot to tell the Best Buy web team. Technically speaking, the interview was still a download exclusive to BestBuy.com, but it did not end up being exclusive to people who pre-ordered the album. Even if you want a 10 minute interview from this session, it does not exist.