Back in 2007, Nine Inch Nails' Year Zero presided at the cutting edge of viral marketing. Months before Radiohead turned the music industry upside down with In Rainbows, Trent Reznor had produced a bevy of strange websites intertwined with the conceptual album's ripped-from-the-headlines themes of religious dictatorship and impending apocalypse in a dystopic future. Plus, it was the best NIN album since The Downward Spiral. A Year Zero miniseries is now in pre-production with HBO and BBC America at the helm.

In the meantime, Trent is getting ready to be a first-time dad. His How To Destroy Angels collaborator and wife Mariqueen Maandig is pregnant, so that particular musical project is currently on hold.

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What sort of music industry voodoo allows an album to go platinum before its release? Getting it onto a video game, apparently. Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock included Soundgarden's entire compilation album, Telephantasm, as playable content when the video game hit stores September 24, four days before its actual September 28 release date. The RIAA counts all shipped copies of the game towards those shiny, commemorative awards.

Will the STP show in Tampa on Friday actually happen? What's NYC doing about the repeatedly-stolen Joey Ramone street sign? What awful, hilarious things did Mani say about Peter Hook? Find out all after the jump…

This article appears in Sep 30 – Oct 6, 2010.