I’ve been a Nine Inch Nails fan since Broken. An alternative music video for Wish (not the one you’ll find on YouTube) was what got me. Then, of course, I went back and acquainted myself with his earlier stuff. When I heard Burn on the radio one night at the movie theater (while I was working), my jaw dropped and I immediately had to find out what album it was on (Natural Born Killers soundtrack). I was a little fanatical for a while. But I didn’t wear black lipstick.
Anyway, when The Fragile was released, I didn’t pay much mind for about a year. Then I bought it, and was floored. It was amazing. Who knew two full-length discs could be so packed, floor-to-ceiling, with awesome tracks? But still, as the years went on, I paid less and less attention to Trent and the ever-changing gang. I haven’t even heard more than a song or two from the last few albums. I heard he released Garage Band files of his last album, so people could re-mix under Creative Commons…and I thought that was great, but I still never bothered to check it out.
Anyway, as I’m sure you’ve heard, NIN just released a direct-to-the-consumer album (à la Radiohead), comprised of 36 tracks and a bunch of different of methods for acquiring it. Special edition box sets, über-ultra-cool editions, free sub-sets of tracks, or (my favorite) the basic digital download of all tracks, a PDF booklet, and a bunch of nice extras. For five beans.
Now, I really dug the Radiohead In Rainbows release, and its “pay what you think it’s worth” model. I think it was a good catalyst for paradigm shift, but it was also a little too easy for cheapskates to get something valuable for free. I don’t think they should have done it any other way, since it really took some big brass balls to put their goods out there and trust the masses. But now that they’ve paved the way, I’m glad as hell that Trent has gone with a meager $5.00 charge for his FOUR-ALBUM release. I think it’s been proven that he can keep his shirt with a sale price like that, but it’s still amazing.
And for that five bucks, you get more than music. The photography in the PDF is absolutely stunning, and each individual track has its own high-quality album artwork…and apparently, the concept of the album is that each song is an instrumental narrative for a visual scene, presumably the scene depicted in the track artwork. I’m listening on my iPhone, and the screen fills up with the new artwork each time a new track starts. Nice way to manipulate the delivery method to further your art.
Oh, and the digital download was available in three really-high-quality formats: 320kbps MP3, Apple Lossless, or FLAC Lossless. No skimpy 128kbps tracks here.
I spent five bucks today. I like what I got in return.