Making good on his promise from last year, Trent Reznor, the iconoclast leader of Nine Inch Nails, has released the band’s latest CD on the Internet. Reznor is clearly experimenting not only with alternative distribution forms but with the music itself.
“Ghosts I-IV” is a 36-track instrumental collection that Reznor describes as “music for daydreams.” It extends what Radiohead began last year with its groundbreaking (for a major act) pay-what-you-want scheme, only Reznor has added his own twist.
“Ghosts I-IV” is available for casual fans — free, $5, and $10 — and for hard core NIN lovers — $75 to $300. Reznor’s experiment, like many artists in the music industry today, relies on the theory that fans will pay for the music (and not download it illegally) if there’s extra value included, and Reznor certainly has that covered.
[last100 has a good writeup on the whole options]
I heard about this, this morning when I read a sensational RIAA blog stating that even though Reznor released his album for free, cheap and so forth… thousands were stealing the album on The Pirate Bay. What that blog had failed to state what last100 stated. It was an official upload to relieve pressure on the site. And those thousands may come back and [pull]kick out the extremely cheap $5[/pull] later, or paid and then downloaded from The Pirate Bay and plus many more will try the music and come to like it.
Personally I paid my $5 and have been listening to it for a while. It’s been interesting. I have to say I really like the “songs” I’ve listened too so far, and really the only issue I disliked was the fact the MP3′s where not pre-tagged. The amount of extras that was supplied surprised me. Was a great deal at $5.
Tags: Business, Discount, Entertainment, Interesting, Music
