Reznor Follows Radiohead, Offers Free Album

An anonymous reader writes "Convinced the current music business infrastructure (requiring artists to rely on labels) is broken, Nine Inch Nails front man, Trent Reznor, released his band's new album, Ghosts I — IV (Ghosts Volumes One though Four), on Sunday at 6 PM via his official site, marking yet another business experiment for this artist in the changing music market."

Not Typical NIN, Give It A Listen!

From the site where this is hosted [nin.com]:

This music arrived unexpectedly as the result of an experiment. The rules were as follows: 10 weeks, no clear agenda, no overthinking, everything driven by impulse. Whatever happens during that time gets released as... something.

The team: Atticus Ross, Alan Moulder and myself with some help from Alessandro Cortini, Adrian Belew and Brian Viglione. Rob Sheridan collaborated with Artist in Residence (A+R) to create the accompanying visual and physical aesthetic.

We began improvising and let the music decide the direction. Eyes were closed, hands played instruments and it began. Within a matter of days it became clear we were on to something, and a lot of material began appearing. What we thought could be a five song EP became much more. I invited some friends over to join in and we all enjoyed the process of collaborating on this.

The end result is a wildly varied body of music that we're able to present to the world in ways the confines of a major record label would never have allowed - from a 100% DRM-free, high-quality download, to the most luxurious physical package we've ever created.

More volumes of Ghosts are likely to appear in the future.

- Trent Reznor, March 2, 2008

For those of you that don't like the same sounding music on an album or the yelling vocals, I heavily recommend downloading this and listening to it for free. I emphasized the "wildly varied" as some of this music is very cool calm and collected easy listening with very orchestral sounding builds.

I'm glad to see an artist as respected as Reznor do this. It kind of makes sense though, as you see this music only took him 10 weeks to do and doesn't have any vocals--lowering the number of takes and the difficulty of quality lyrics.

With the digital age and the ability to produce easily and quickly accessible DRM free music, we may see the beginning of a whole lot more material coming from artists with either an ad-based revenue or charging for particular tracks that required more studio time and refinement.

Re:Not Typical NIN, Give It A Listen!

Not Typical NIN

Is there such a thing as "typical NIN"? Quake players cheered when we heard Reznor was doing the sound for Quake II, and they said the same thing, "not typical NIN".

I think that's one of the best things about that band - there is no such thing as "typical" NIN.

Re:Alternative music.. alternative methods

You could check out Machinae Supremacy, Swedish band. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinae_supremacy [wikipedia.org]

Lots of free songs on their website, which is of course under reconstruction now when I checked it...

Re:Alternative music.. alternative methods

I second the Machinae Supremacy recommendation.

If you want something a little different, try some post-industrial music -- e.g. Combichrist, Funker Vogt, ... in fact, find Industrial Legacy vol 1 on the Pirate Bay. I bought 12 CDs because I found that mix, I think all except one were on a small record label.

At the moment, I can buy CDs from Americans on Amazon Marketplace for about £6, the price of two drinks in a bar in London, and they arrive in about two weeks. In the mean time, I'll listen to the download.

Re:Alternative music.. alternative methods

I was raised having to listen to bands like Nirvana (the only ones I liked), Pearl Jam, Silverchair, Thearpy?, NiN, Smashing Pumpkins and all that alternative/grunge (sorry if I do not know the *specific* genre) until I vomited because my older brother used to play it all day long.

<sarcasm type="GoodNatured">Wow, you really had it rough --it's truly an inspiration to us all that you were able to overcome such a traumatic upbringing.</sarcasm>

I was the first child in my household and the soundtrack was non-stop Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow, and the Carpenters. I didn't even know how awful it was, until I was old enough to have friends with musical taste. I'm just damned lucky it didn't drive me to suicide.

To clarify

To clarify, only the first 9 songs are available for free. The rest are still available a price well below what you could get anywhere legal.

Re:To clarify

It's about time somebody came up with a method to get free music off the internet!

Re:To clarify

Pirate Bay is an official distribution channel. (Yes, really [thepiratebay.org].)

Reciprocity

I can see this becoming a trend. Every headline about a band making millions in a matter of days by distributing their music online, is going to attract the attention of the other musicians. Eventually, they will catch on.

So what do you think will happen when more prominent artists start dropping the labels, realizing that they could make more money if they don't give 95% of their revenue away? I predict that the RIAA will tighten its grip, and try to work with Clearchannel to eliminate non-RIAA affiliated artists get in mass media (radio/TV). I don't think they are going to just sit around and let their cash cows drop out one-by-one.

Re:Reciprocity

Every headline about a band making millions in a matter of days by distributing their music online, is going to attract the attention of the other musicians. Eventually, they will catch on.

Unfortunately what works for Radiohead and NIN isn't necessarily going to work for other musicians.

For a start, they're not going to get tons of free publicity. Plenty of musicians already release their music for free, without expecting any payment. They don't get articles in slashdot. If lots of other musicians "catch on" they'll find the whole "band releases album on net" story is long past stale, no-one cares, and hundreds, never mind millions, aren't going to be made.

Re:Reciprocity

Lots of those musicians (some of which I know personally or I bought a cd of them) don't play commercially either. They go to school and/or work and in their free time they make some high quality (good) music. If you buy their CD's direct, usually they'll throw in another CD or some other merchandise for free.

That's the way (in my opinion) music and a lot of other art should be made. In their free time while they also have a job either in or out the artistic/music business. If they are successful enough to live off the revenue generated from concerts and other stuff they make (if they're very successful) all the better for them, but at least THEY made it and you know they are good quality unlike the crap that is pushed now, some poor chap thinks he can sing and with a few hundreds of thousands in corporate backing he/she is promoted to death.

As soon as independent music starts to catch on, the radio stations will have to follow. Who'll listen to a radio station that has only some RIAA-promoted garbage on it while there are other sources that play high(er) quality music? It'll take a time but my last CD purchase from a promoted label was in 1999 and I know quite some people that do the same so next generation might be better off than us.

Re:Reciprocity

Have you tried it? My wife's drum instructor spent years playing clubs like mad trying to catch his big break. Eventually, he dropped out and got a day job in IT. He's easily one of the best drummers I've ever heard. My cousins are in Nashville trying to get their big break, but after a couple of years there, they have realized that for every band that gets signed, there are hundreds more of equally -- if not more -- talented bands that never end up in the right place at the right time. My brother and some of my best friends are currently playing every gig they can line up trying to promote their band. All of them are incredibly talented (in fact, I played a gig with one of them and his wife this weekend, and it went incredibly well).

IMHO, success in the music biz is more about luck and timing than talent. There are plenty of mediocre musicians who "knew somebody" and got lucky and plenty of very, very talented artists who are still unknown. Your music may speak for itself, but unless you can get it out there where the right person hears it, you'll never be "discovered", no matter how good you are.

Community work

In one community I hang out in (one full of musicians), a bunch of them get together each week and write a song on the spot, sometimes in an hour or so. They all work individually, and judge who came up with the best music. Looks like this fellow stumbled onto the same idea.

Radiohead not the first

Radiohead didn't come up with this idea. Harvey Danger did it back in 2005 and they probably aren't the first. Here's the Slashdot article:

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/02/2056210 [slashdot.org]

Anyway, this NIN album is very good. If you're anxious for it and the NIN servers are still too slow, Amazon's MP3 service has it for $5. Amazon finally released a Linux version of the downloader, btw.

You just did what?!

Nine Inch Nails front man, Trent Reznor, released his band's new album

You should have seen the faces of the band!

Hey, that's my idea!

Funny that Trent should do it, he was a regular at a nightclub in Chicago over a decade ago that I was a part owner in, and used to scream about the record label monopoly even back then. Wonder if he ever remembers it...

I've helped a few bands over the years break free from relying on the distributor monopoly by providing their easily-copied material for free, while providing hard to copy material at great cost (or higher cost). Bands should make their big money by providing the hardest to mimic items at the higher cost, and the easy to mimic items at a lower cost.

The hardest to mimic? Playing live. This is where bands should make their money -- performing for fans. Those of us who are not musicians make our money, generally, by ongoing work. We don't get paid for previous work (often), we get paid for current and future work. Bands should be no different.

Trent has a unique set of prices on his site: $5 for a download, $10 for a CD+download, $300 for a CD, 180gram LPs, a DVD with 36 tracks of each song (to remix), and a giclee printbook. Great idea. The multitrack DVD idea I came up with many years ago for bands to release to fans to remix. David Crowder Band is one band that did this to great acclaim (and even released a few of his fans' remixes).

Trent is ahead of the game. I'm prebuying the $300 kit because I want to support Trent's ideas, music, and astounding insight into why the RIAA and other monopolists have no place in the new digital world. If it can be copied easily, the price should fall to near zero. If it can't be copied easily, the limited supply should dictate the price based on whatever the demand level is. Supply and demand, the most important aspect of a market economy.

This is NO experiment for Trent, this is his step into the correct version of the current music market. He doesn't need monopolized distribution from the RIAA, he has distribution. Even small bands are doing just fine distributing their music via iTunes, and touring, touring, touring. Selling t-shirts (which can be copied, but are a hassle to do a dozen cheaply), giving away hundreds of stickers for fans' cars (cheap), selling albums (LPs, impossibly expensive to duplicate), signing posters, and other options are a great way to provide a consistent income. Touring just 8 months a year, a few bands I've consulted with are already pushing nearly $50k per year per member in profit. Yes, it is hard work. Isn't what you're doing hard work, too?

Encryption

Users couldn't figure out how to decrypt it until they figured out that the music was suppose to sound like that.

ok, bad joke. I've got a bad case of the Mondays.

how dare that motherfucker give it away!

Does he not realize that there are business models at stake here? Listen here, you little cockstain: you're our dancing monkey. You dance when we tell you to how we tell you to. We're not paying you peanuts, we're paying you peanut shells and you're going to yum them up, smack your lips and say "Please, sir, may I have some more!" You're going to do this or we'll fuck and chuck your sorry ass out the door and bring in some new wide-eyed innocent ten years younger and dumber than you and build them up to be the new you. You hear that, you shit, you worm, you groveling clown? You are a commodity, a consumable, something that is used up and replaced by an interchangeable part. You stand up to us and we'll pound your ass until you're shitting blood. This is our industry, our money, and you are nothing, nothing!!!

This message brought to you by the RIAA. Go out and buy something, you mindless sheep.

Real significance: Free as in Freedom

TFSummary (and TFA) leaves out the most important part about this news: that the album is free as in freedom, not just free as in beer. It's released under a creative commons license, which means that he (or the **AA) can't go after you if you share the album online. AFAIK, this is the first high-profile album release under a CC license (I don't believe Radiohead's was under a CC license).

Re:Real significance: Free as in Freedom

Someone mod this up. This is nothing like Radiohead's release. Reznor is providing high quality tracks under a non-commercial CC license in addition to a bunch of buying options. Radiohead was just dicking around, this is exactly how it should be done. Reznor himself put it on the Pirate Bay, preempting and silencing the whole piracy debate in one fell swoop.

The man is a genius. This more than anything signifies the end of the known music industry and it's about time.

Re:Real significance: Free as in Freedom

Yup, think about it. This changes everything. When the RIAA goes after someone, they'll have to consider what type of license the music is released under. They can't have a blanket statement, "we distribute all music so therefor any and all copying is illegal." Now, some copying(/distribution) is illegal, guess who decides what will be successful, when the consumer has a choice?

can't download

I am a bit of a NIN fan...

I went to the site, paid $16.99 for an immediate download of all 36 tracks and the promise of the 2-disc CD set mailed to me in April. The download site is totally swamped. I tried to download the music, my downloads would just die before I even got a few percent of the archive. I tried again, then again, and now it hates me: "download limit exceeded." Hopefully, they'll get their shit together, unblock my access, and I'll be able to get the music I paid for.

The moral of this story is: "You might want to wait a couple days before trying to download."

Re:Microsoft follows Radiohead

Offers free Vista.

Gets no downloads.

Re:Microsoft follows Radiohead

Well if that happened, there would be no reason not to switch to Linux. People say they use Windows because it costs money and therefore has value, while Linux is given away and therefore is worthless.

Re:Groan.

The main page [nin.com] states:

Update: The response to this album has been overwhelming, causing our website to slow to a crawl. We THOUGHT we were ready, but...
We've been adding more servers to accommodate the unexpected demand and we expect to be running smoothly in the next few hours. In the meantime, if you've had any problems with downloads from the Ghosts site, don't worry - you'll be able to use your download link again when the site is more stable. Thanks everyone for making this such an immediate success.

posted by Trent Reznor at 5:47 PM pst, from hong kong.