In a world of greedy record companies, ring-tone sales and cross-media infiltration, a big ‘ol tip-of-the-hat is in order for one Trent Reznor – the man behind the hugely successful, and frankly awesome Nine Inch Nails.
In May of last year Reznor put a message on the NIN website publicly damning the Universal Music Group, the owner of Interscope Records to which NIN was signed. You see, Universal had priced NIN’s new album ‘Year Zero’ at $35 in Australia, for the simple reason that NIN had a ‘real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when (NIN) put something out’. Reznor was suitably unimpressed by this blatant attempt to rip off his fans and at a concert in Sydney late last year he told the crowd to share his music online, saying ‘Steal it. Steal away. Steal, steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealing’.
Mr Reznor has gained a real reputation for being loyal to his fans, and the above incident is only one piece of the pie. Following ‘Year Zero’, Reznor released ‘Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D’, an album of remixes of the tracks from ‘Year Zero’. Notably though, the album also contained the multi-track files from ‘Year Zero’, allowing fans to create their own remixes of the songs.
I’m not sure if I’ve heard of a more generous act in the world of commercial music, and if there has been, I would like to know about it.
The release of ‘Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D’ marked the end of NIN’s contractual obligations to Interscope Records and the start of NIN’s operations as a ‘totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label’. On the 2nd of March the sixth NIN studio album, ‘Ghosts I-IV’, was released exclusively at the NIN website and a month later it was made available in music stores around the world.
The first nine tracks of the album are available for free download with a 40-page pdf booklet of album art. Alternatively, the entire album is available for direct download for a measly $5 US from the NIN website, or if you are prepared to part with another $5 US you will get the direct download, as well as the album in its double-CD glory and a 16-page booklet mailed to you.
I know that the online distribution of albums has occurred before, and I know that Trent Reznor has probably already massed a sizable fortune without needing to charge people much for the new album but man, how good is the gesture? The fact that his music is so great is just a bonus…
And so the blog-tacular coincidences continue. Just weeks after I wrote about the generosity of Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, he ups the ante. Two days ago the next NIN album ‘The Slip’ was made available for download on the band’s website for, wait for it…$0. That’s right, free.
