Nine Inch Nails New Album Has Been Dropped: Ghosts I-IV
Totally out of nowhere, a new Nine Inch Nails album has been released at The NIN website. Here is what Trent Reznor has to say about it:
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
I am just now listening to the album, which is very different than the last few albums so don’t be discouraged if you didn’t really enjoy them as much as other NIN material, but it is a little too early to talk about what I think of it (although I’m liking it so far). So instead, we’ll discuss the distribution method. Ever since Radiohead came out of nowhere and dropped In Rainbows on the world for free, concepts of how to distribute an artist’s music have been shattered, and everyone has been speculating on its implications and what the new business model will be exactly. Even some Atlanta bands have jumped on this bandwagon. The Sonz Of Acworth gave away their latest album online, From Exile re-released their 2006 Crushing Reality for no money, and of course band blogs from the likes of Deerhunter/Atlas Sound and Snowden have been feeding their fans digital material on the free. Trent Reznor was actually the quickest to get experimental after In Rainbows, releasing the Saul William’s The Inevitable Rise And Liberation Of Niggy Tardust for free in lower quality mp3s or for $5 in higher quality formats. His first experiment didn’t seem to meet his expectations, but it appears he did not abandon hope, and instead went back to the drawing board and hit us with this.
The pricing scheme offers many choices. You can download the first of the four movements for free at high quality mp3s or you can purchase all 4 movements digitally at $5 and the double disc CD at $10. For the high rollers and NIN diehards you can get a Deluxe Edition for $75 and a Ultra-Deluxe package for $300. If that is not enough, you can buy it digitally from Amazon right now, or the CDs and Vinyls hit stores next month.
I really like this model because it offers the consumer so many choices, and I think Trent is going to find this experiment much more satisfying than the Niggy Tardust deal. Saul Williams is about as unaccessible as an artist can be so I believe that only tested the far limits of the free model at an extremely early stage. These are exciting times as we watch the music industry transform before our very eyes and a pioneer like Mr. Reznor may go down in history as a whole lot more than just a brilliant musician. We’ll see what happens next, but until then there is a new NIN album to jam:
- Posted by Davy Minor on March 3, 2008 at 3:48 am
