Nothing Records

Nothing Records
Parent company	Universal Music Group
Founded	1992 (1992)
Founder	John Malm Jr. Trent Reznor
Defunct	2004 (2004)
Status	Defunct
Distributor(s)	Interscope Records
Genre	Industrial rock, electronic
Country of origin	U.S.
Location	Cleveland, Ohio, New Orleans, Louisiana, New York City, New York

Nothing Records was an American record label specializing in industrial rock and electronic music, founded by John Malm Jr. and Trent Reznor in 1992. It is considered an example of a vanity label, where an artist is able to run a label with some degree of independence from within a larger parent company—in this case, Interscope Records was the parent company.

Nothing Records became largely defunct in 2004 due to a lawsuit by Reznor against John Malm. The label became inactive as a whole following several further releases—the Beside You in Time (February 2007) home video was the label's final release.

Nothing Records is most famous for its two original signings, Trent Reznor's own band Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson.

Still, the label gained semi-iconic status within the industrial rock scene, and even acquired its own online-fanzine in Sick Among the Pure, although this later became a more general industrial fanzine, and ceased to exist at all in 2005. The Nothing label would often reward its fanbase over the Internet — one form of this outreach was Radio Nothing: an exclusive collection of free MP3 music streams, compiled by Nothing label artists, producers and fans.

In September 2004, coinciding with Trent Reznor leaving New Orleans for the west coast, the Nine Inch Nails website announced "nothing studios: 1994-2004", suggesting that Nothing Studios was closed. This later proved to be the end of the associated record label as well. Speculation among listeners that the label could continue ceased when Reznor successfully sued co-founder John Malm for fraud and breach of fiduciary duty (amongst others), ensuring that the Nothing era was over.

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Wikipedia