Halo 24
Year Zero
Year Zero is a concept album told through snapshots of a near-future United States shaped by authoritarianism, religious extremism, war, and environmental collapse. Its electronics are deliberately fractured, turning distortion and data-like noise into narrative texture.
An elaborate alternate-reality campaign distributed clues through websites, recordings, physical objects, and live events. The result extends well beyond the album, inviting listeners to reconstruct the world and competing voices surrounding its songs.
- Label
- Interscope Records
- Formats
- CD, vinyl and digital
Release Guide
Release Details
- Release type
- Studio album
- Artist
- Nine Inch Nails
- Primary catalog
- Halo 24 / B0008764-02
- Contents
- 16 tracks
Track Listing 2007 original track listing
Credits & Production Principal release credits
- Written and performed by
- Trent Reznor
- Produced and programmed by
- Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
- Mixed by
- Alan Moulder
- World building
- Trent Reznor and Rob Sheridan
- World integration
- 42 Entertainment and the campaign production network
- Art direction
- Rob Sheridan and Trent Reznor
Major Editions Documented release formats
2007 / CD and digital release
The principal sixteen-track program was issued internationally with region-specific release dates and digital bonus variations.
2007 / Thermochromic compact disc
The heat-sensitive disc surface reveals binary text during playback, making the physical carrier part of the campaign.
2007 / Triple-vinyl edition
The vinyl program occupies three sides; the fourth carries an etched image of The Presence.
2007 / Japanese Zero-Gen-Ten edition
The Japanese edition uses the expanded Zero-Gen-Ten title and includes region-specific material.
About the Release Recording, artwork, and release history
Distributed narrative
Songs, packaging, websites, recordings, USB files and live activations each reveal a different part of the Year Zero world.
Multitrack release
Official sessions moved from selected song downloads into the complete remix and multitrack program connected to Halo 25.
Live status
Most of the album entered Performance 2007 setlists; My Violent Heart remains the principal complete song without a public NIN performance.