Trent Reznor has made good on his promise to never work with a record label again (sorry, Interscope and parent company Universal Music Group), and shown the world that you can give songs away and still make a profit off downloads.
Ghosts I-IV was released March 2 via the Nine Inch Nails website, torrent sites, Amazon MP3, and is still up at The Pirate Bay .
With this release, Reznor did it all: the music, the packaging, setting the price (36 songs can be yours for just $5, but there are download packages for every wallet size), and setting up extra servers to deliver to his fans. And if, for some reason, you have a problem downloading via the NIN site, look around on the internet. Free downloads are available and Reznor encourages you to take what you want.
The NIN Wikipedia entry notes that in September of 2007, “Reznor continued his attack on Universal at a concert in Australia, urging fans there to ’steal’ his music online instead of purchasing it legally. Reznor went on to encourage the crowd to ’steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin’.'” His primary complaint was that Universal stood in his way of creating an interactive fan site on which users could remix his tunes .
Ghosts I-IV was made easily available for “stealing,” and yet fans, recognizing the collectability, bought up all 2500 of the extremely limited edition of Ghosts I-IV–which gets you four 180 gram vinyl albums, two CDs, art removable for framing, a Blu-ray disc, and tons of extras, all numbered and signed by Reznor. At $300 a copy, this is no entry-level purchase. Fans committed and proved Reznor right.
Always known as a studio recluse, Trent Reznor has finally outed himself as a near-classical composer–his latest album has 36 tracks broken into four segments, with zero vocals. Guess he can say everything he wants with a drum machine.
Trent Reznor explains, “I’ve been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn’t have made sense until this point. This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective–dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams. I’m very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference. I hope you enjoy the first four volumes of Ghosts.”
Seth Colter Walls of Newsweek described the album as “the kind of absorbing musical experience that the surviving ranks of know-it-all record-store clerks would be pushing on customers, if only they could offer it for sale.” Reznor has allowed fans to bypass the store and the monolithic labels of the past.