“Nine Inch Nails has released a brand new album set through its own record label, The Null Corporation, as an extension of frontman and creative mind of the band Trent Reznor’s disdain of the recording industry. Following the path last year of Radiohead, Reznor feels thatthere is a market available to giving away music.”
“
Nine Inch Nails has released a brand new album set through its own record label, The Null Corporation, as an extension of frontman and creative mind of the band Trent Reznor’s disdain of the recording industry.
Following the path last year of Radiohead, Reznor feels thatthere is a market available to giving away music.
The new album, Ghosts I-IV, is an instrumental collection of all new music.
This music arrived unexpectedly as the result of an experiment, Reznor writes on his website. 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.
What was released was not a small EP, as he first thought, but an elaborate 36-track composition, ranging from the quiet, solemn simple piano of 1 Ghosts I, to the hard industrial noise of 7 Ghosts I.
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 percent DRM-free, high-quality download, to the most luxurious physical package we’ve ever created, Reznor said.
Front-man and creative mind behind Nine Inch Nails, Reznor has had his share of complications from the recording industry.
Commercial pressure to release follow-up albums quickly, fraud and lawsuits involving the co-founder of his own Nothing Records, and his rather public split with Interscope Records for pricing and distribution complaints.
I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate, Reznor posted on his website once he fulfilled his contractually obligations with Interscope.
Ghosts I-IV is the first official Nine Inch Nails release since his departure from the commercial recording industry.
Unlike most commercial albums, Ghosts I-IV is released under a Creative Commons license, allowing people to freely share the music they purchase.
Fans can listen to low-quality tracks or download higher-quality tracks from Ghosts I for free.
DRM-free albums are also available for $5 from his website, and the album is available on Amazon.com’s mp3 music store.
A $10 2-disc album release is due out April 8.
For $75, a hardcover slipcase includes the same 2-disc album, but includes a data DVD with all 36 tracks in multi-track format, so musicians can remix the songs, and a Blu-Ray disc containing the music with accompanying image slideshow; this edition ships May 1.
A $300 deluxe edition, limited to 2500 copies, has already sold out.
For more information and to purchase the album, visit www.nin.com
“