NIN Release New album Via Torrents

[Sui_City]

I'm suprised there's no thread on this yet.

Ghosts - Splash

So, another new album. Instrumental. 36 Tracks. 4 Parts. First nine songs are officially available through torrents.

So, what now?

I kind of feel like: "Who cares?"

It's like Trent is devaluing his music by releasing so much of it so often. It feels like the rest of the market with just so much stuff available, and the question for me is: How much of it is any good?

Obviously the answer to that is personal.

I don't know. Whatever.

Jules, move this if it needs to be moved.

[Stevil]

i'm listening to it right now. not bad for a bunch of instrumental tracks. sounds like a bunch of interesting ideas they had lying around that werent quite full songs.
Ghosts - Order Options


as far as the whole devaluing the music thing goes. the filesharers have already done that for us. this release looks more like the radiohead model where theyve created a business structure that acknowledges the 'i want something free' tier (9 tracks). then theres the $5 - 36 track download, $10 - 2cd, $75 - deluxe edition & the $300 - ultra deluxe limited edition autographed for 2500 uber fans.

[intolerance]

I think this is brilliant, and I commend Trent's forward thinking.

He's adapting. I'm listening.

[cortisol]

It seems like Trent is having a creative burst and is not inhibited by the record industry dictating what he can and can't release.

I think he was pissed off at the distributors here in Australia bumping up the price of his previous release (Year Zero) beyond the standard price of other new releases. He had no say and was dissatisfied that greedy distribution was sabotaging his efforts in touring and promoting the CD. Lets face it the business model has changed and this new model he has instigated here takes care of what people want. The distributors where just greedy saboteurs.

Now what is happening with releasing his output this time...Free tracks for people who want free stuff... more conventional in-demand tracks for the fans to buy at a great price (not greedy and affordable to people like me) and exclusive stuff for people who are passionate about his music and want something more. He is takeing care of his fan base and increasing it by these strategies. It rocks man.

Sui_City I think you are not gettin' it. Don't worry man he aint devaluing his music. He is just doing things his way. Trent is totally rockin out and he's got his ear to the underground and an insight into this music business far beyond our experiences with it.

Peace,
cortisol

[xist]

Probably this thread should have a better title. The bit torrent distribution technology has not been used in this case. There are several options, but no torrent.

[Stevil]

Originally Posted by xist

Probably this thread should have a better title. The bit torrent distribution technology has not been used in this case. There are several options, but no torrent.

Official Torrent
Digg - Nine Inch Nails New Album Ghosts I-IV Official Torrent

[soundrick]

This is the first time I've ever heard somebody complaining that the market is "saturated" with NIN material.
???
The guy averaged a major release about every 3.5 years in the last 18 years. Is that flooding the market?
It seems pretty dignified to release some new music without killing people with advertising, and being respectful to the consumer.

I'd say hats off......music preferences aside.

[Seth]

This album is absolutely gorgeous. I've been listening to NIN for years... and this is a very evolved piece of work. The included photography is beyond captivating, and the album release method sure does stir the pot a bit.

Personally, I hope Trent keeps putting out albums until the day he dies. In another 30 years, Halo 63 may have the same impact on me.

-Seth

[Ryuben]

My guess is Trent is an avid GS lurker so I just want to say:
Nice job Trent - looking forward to hearing the new stuff!

[idrinkalot]

Originally Posted by Sui_City

I'm suprised there's no thread on this yet.

hey i did it! New NIN Album: Ghosts I-IV!!!!!!!!!!

:)

[Sir-quitbending]

I just downloaded the free first 9 songs and also bought the $10 album after listening to it. I soooo would have paid more for it. But am I the only one who feels that some songs are kinda aching for some lyrics and a nice Trent vocal melody?

[Sui_City]

To Sir Idrinkalot,

I drink a lot too, and as a fellow drunkard i offer my deepest apologies for not seeing your thread.

To Stevil,

What i meant by devaluing was the fact that, in my mind, he is releasing too much material too often. I was not referring to the price being paid.

To cortisol and soundrick,

"Year Zero" - April 2007
"With Teeth" - May 2005

Add to that Saul Williams album, which might as well have been a NIN album with a guest vocalist.

My apologies to you both though. That is a personal opinion. I have grown very bored of Trent and NIN. I don't hear much evolution in his songwriting at all. But again, just my opinion.

One point I may not have made clearly though is that my immediate emotional response to his releasing it this way was one of "no surprise". It felt like such common sense that had he released it through any traditional mechanism, then it would have been like: "OMFG!"

I guess we know which way we're all heading.

Funny that the majors don't.

[minus-sounds.com]

I clicked the official torrent. The download peaked at 570kB/s.
The whole record finished downloading in 2 mins.

What's your traditional record distribution like?

[Sui_City]

Originally Posted by minus-sounds.com

What's your tradition record distribution like?

where's that "flogging a dead horse" emoticon?

[sheever]

great link,thx!

[Stevil]

Originally Posted by Sui_City

To Stevil,

What i meant by devaluing was the fact that, in my mind, he is releasing too much material too often. I was not referring to the price being paid.

i kinda agree with soundrick on this angle. an artist of his profile level is way overdue for a prolific phase. there were 5 year gaps between the first few albums. anything to help us forget how bad 'with-a teeth-a' was.

Originally Posted by Sui_City

My apologies to you both though. That is a personal opinion. I have grown very bored of Trent and NIN. I don't hear much evolution in his songwriting at all. But again, just my opinion.

i'm kinda over NIN fandom as well, but i like to keep an eye on em. i agree there is alot of rehashing of their old textures & beats on this album. they've always been a great segueway band for kids who only hear mainstream outlets to get exposed to sounds innovated by the older or more obscure artists who influenced NIN.

[Y-Studios]

Yes! listening to it right now, and is just beautiful! Well to my ears at least.

[Stevil]

speaking of marketing strategies that include a free tier, here's an interesting bit of diologue from writer Neil Gaiman who is currently offering his bestselling novel American Gods for free download for a trial period. there appear to me some interesting paralells to what is happening with the music industry right now:


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This just came in, and I thought it deserved a long reply...

Hello Mr. Gaiman:
As a bookseller, I am a bit surprised by your recent comment about free books and the HarperCollins download. When you say, "the problem isn't that books are given away or that people read books they haven't paid for. The problem is that the majority of people don't read for pleasure," you seem to miss the point that all of us booksellers are hoping to sell your book to READERS as well as non-readers. Our situation improves as more non-readers become readers, but we can't survive when the readers go elsewhere. I am not at all against free literature--I firmly believe that the more people read the more people read--but somehow, if we independents are to survive, we need to be included somewhere in the formula. I also believe that we independents have no RIGHT to exist, that our time may have passed or be passing, but it would be nice if we could survive; I believe we can--and do--serve a very important purpose.Thanks. I don't sense that you have anything against booksellers--I do want to let you know how your comment might be interpreted by some.
Don Muller
Old Harbor Books
201 Lincoln Street
Sitka, Alaska 99835


---

Hi Don,

I don't see this as either they get it for free or they come and buy it from you. I see it as Where do you get the people who come in and buy the books that keep you in business from?

The books you sell have "pass-along" rates. They get bought by one person. Then they get passed along to other people. The other people find an author they like, or they don't.

When they do, some of them may come in to your book store and buy some paperback backlist titles, or buy the book they read and liked so that they can read it again. You want this to happen.

Just as a bookseller who regards a library as the enemy, because people can go there and read -- for free! -- what he sells, is missing that the library is creating a pool of people who like and take pleasure in books, will be his customer base, and are out there spreading the word about authors and books they like to other people, some of whom will simply go out and buy it.

If readers find (for free -- in a library, or on-line, or by borrowing from a friend, or on a window-sill) an author they really like, and that author has a nice spanking new hardback coming out, they are quite likely to come in to your shop and buy the nice spanking new hardback. You want that to happen. You really want that to happen a lot, because you'll make more in profit on each of the nice spanking new hardbacks than you will on the paperbacks (or, probably, on anything else in the shop).

I don't believe that anybody out there who can afford a copy of American Gods is going to not buy it (or another of my books) because it's available out there on line for nothing. (Not at this point, anyway.) I think it's a lot more likely that some of the people who read it will find an author they like, and buy more books. Which is good news for people who run bookshops.

(Remember: one in four adults read no books last year. Among those who said they had read books, the median figure — with half reading more, half fewer — was nine books for women and five for men. The figures also indicated that those with college degrees read the most, and people aged 50 and up read more than those who are younger. Which means you need to find ways to get young readers to read books. And means that if someone likes American Gods and goes out and buys my entire backlist from you, that's more books than most Americans read in a year.)

I think it's very likely that someone who reads American Gods online and likes it may decide, come the 30th of September, to go out to your shop or somewhere else like it and plonk down their $17.99 for The Graveyard Book in hardcover.

I don't see it as taking money from the pockets of booksellers.

(To steal a metaphor from Cory Doctorow, it's dandelion seeds rather than mammals. A mammal produces a few offspring that take a lot of resources. A dandelion produces an awful lot of seeds because the cost in resources to the dandelion is small, but those that sprout, sprout.)

Then again, I do not always understand the ways of booksellers.

Old Harbor Books looks marvellous -- Old Harbor Books -- and looks like somewhere that's involved in creating readers and a reading community. My local bookshop (now deceased) was physically arranged so that finding a book and then buying it was harder than walking around around the shop and going back out again; the bookseller mostly sat at the cash register in the middle of the shop playing online chess, and he tended to be unhelpful, vaguely grumpy and to treat people who wanted to buy things as nuisances (he was nice to me, because I was me, but still); he didn't stock paperback bestsellers because "people could always go to Wal-Mart for those" and when the she shop closed its doors the final time they put up a note on the door saying that it was Amazon.com that had driven them out of business, when it manifestly wasn't -- it seemed to me that they didn't work to entice people into the bookshop (which is what those paperback bestsellers were for), and didn't give them a pleasant experience when they were there...

But I digress...

Anyway (it probably bears reiterating) this is an experiment. Harper Collins are going to be looking at the figures over the next month and longer. If sales of American Gods crash in bookshops -- or if sales of all my other books crash -- they won't be doing it again. If American Gods sells more, if my other titles sell more, on actual Bookscan sales, then I think we'll all agree that you and your fellow booksellers will be selling more books, and will thus have nothing to worry about.

Remember, publishers aren't making their money from free downloads or from free online books. Like you (and like me), they make their money from books sold.

What we all want to do is sell more books. To readers, to non-readers, to people who thought they didn't like that sort of thing.

Also, there are also a lot of posts coming in like this:

No question - just wanted to let you know, after getting your "American Gods" online for free and reading about 200 pages, I had to go out and buy the book. Great read!

which may make you feel a little better....

[lanervoza]

This album is phenomenal

[andychamp]

Nice tracks, and short enough to make me want to get the whole release.
Clever!

[soupking]

This is really smart.

And for the most part inevitable.

There will be those who download, and those who pay $5. Finally albums will start costing what they should. Honestly, I think $10 ($1 a song or so) is reasonable for an album.

I think this method of sales will eventually push commercial investment in HD sound quality. And mp3's will evolve as the Lowest Common Denominator.

"Pay nothing for the trash or $1 for HD, or $5 for the entire album"

That will be a hopeful standard. I think after awhile VHS can only last for so long.
Darwin does have it's positive moments in creation.

Then it'll be all about who has the coolest living room with high celings and new sound resistant wallpaper made with nanfiber sound-resistant technology.

...And everybody will drink milk.

[PHR]

Various businesses have used the "try a sample, before you buy" many times before. You still have to pay to get the "full release". Trent is one of the few artists that can work this model, because of his hardcore followers.

I wish he would stop with the whole "record labels are teh evil" rhetoric.

[Sir-quitbending]

I know for sure that most of us appreciate and learn a lot from people's opinions about gear. But are other people's opinions about their musical preference, gonna change how others feel about their own?

That said. I withdraw my last reply. See you guys in the gear threads...

[xist]

Originally Posted by Stevil

Official Torrent
Digg - Nine Inch Nails New Album Ghosts I-IV Official Torrent

You were right, I just found out later, sorry :-)

[Sui_City]

Techdirt: Nine Inch Nails Sells Out Of $300 Deluxe Edition In Under Two Days

Here's a little update for y'all.

[3rd world order]

Originally Posted by Stevil

I don't believe that anybody out there who can afford a copy of American Gods is going to not buy it (or another of my books) because it's available out there on line for nothing. (Not at this point, anyway.) I think it's a lot more likely that some of the people who read it will find an author they like, and buy more books. Which is good news for people who run bookshops.

also, it's much harder to read a book on a computer than it is to physically have the book in your hand to take anywhere and read...

new nails is great... if that's what the 900AWS sounds like i want one... and the new VHD input modules (2 X-Racks, 12 dynamics, 2 VHD, 1 bus, one 4-input)... only other gear i see is a manley vari-mu, massive passive (lower left 2 blue lights), and thermionic culture vulture (lower left green light center with switch).. and the chandler/EMI TG1 hidden under the patchbay... sneaky sneaky

what's the 1U rack above the TG1? looks like a pair of neve portico modules..



in the lower right rack it looks like some kind of SSL bus compressor.. but it's not the roll music one... hmm... dunno... maybe someone recognizes it...

dynaudio BM15As.. a mono hybrid/horrortone thing.. looks like a custom job..



aint the "gear recon" thing fun?

[Chris Williams]

The thing alot of people are missing is that he isn't technically giving away the songs for free, he's asking for an email address. Sure there will be people who dl the torrets from somewhere else but that happens with all music.

The way business is going online is that you need to collect leads e.g. people who might be interested in your product. Once you have someone's email address in a legal fashion, instead of having that one chance to get them to buy your cd right then and there, you have an extremely low cost way to market to interested people. They were interested enough to give you their email address then they will be interested enough to listen to what you have to say after they have listened to the music.

If the normal turn over is 100 - 1, eg, out of every 100 people who hear your music one person buys the cd then it doesn't seem much. But consider that as the first time they hear it. If they are getting emails from you or any other form of correspondence they will remember you and your music every time they hear from you.

With good marketing in your emails and maybe a couple more freebies you could bring the conversion rate even higher say 100 - 5. Considering that if you turn someone in to a fan then they won't just buy the one cd they will most likely be interested in your back catalogue and future releases.

With someone as big as nin, they are going to be giving away more free music gathering more email addresses and therefore direct access to their fans and possible customers. In the long run they are building a database of peopel who are interested and more than likely, moving anyone who buys something on to a different list of email addys of "proven buyers" who they can market more aggressively towards.

The other big bonus to this is in the long run, every new release, tour, merchandise item etc etc can be distributed to thousands of potential buyers at the touch of a button.

I don't think Trent is devaluing his music at all by giving it away. I think everyone should be using this form of list building in everything they do.

I do this form of business in my day to day life from home and i'm not selling a physical product. I'm selling digital eBooks, the perfect business model as the item is instantly delivered to the buyer without me having to do anything except check my emails a couple of times a day ;)

Get wise people, learn from what people are doing and why "free" isn't as free as it seems and can be extremely lucrative :)

[3rd world order]

Originally Posted by Sui_City

Techdirt: Nine Inch Nails Sells Out Of $300 Deluxe Edition In Under Two Days

Here's a little update for y'all.

compare and contrast with: Mercenary Audio - The Problem With Music by Steve Albini

record companies cant die soon enough