NIN Ghosts I-IV Still Waiting

[photo via NME]
Earlier today, 10 am, I read about the drop on the NIN Ghost I-!V album being self released by Trent Reznor. I was approved [permission to purchase by my wife] to purchase the 36 song, 320 kbs, MP3 edition for $5. The best deal, probably, is the $10 package. You would get the 36 song download and the 2-disc CD that is set to release on April 8. So I rounded up my Credit Card and…

I headed to the NIN Store. I selected the $5 package. I input my Credit Card information. Deone. I am going to recieve an email with the download link. Done…The download began and was finished in 3 seconds. Needless to say, the zip file was corrupted and only contained a cover.jpg file that you could not open. Even though the link said “This link will only work once” I decided to try again anyway. Nope, still no luck.

Trent Reznor can be trusted. I know I gave him my hard earned $5, but I know he will make good on it. I emailed the support [at] nin about my problems. Trying to help if they were trying to figure out what is going on. I tried again at 9 pm only to see a message on the site:

Unfortunately, the Ghosts I-IV site is down for the next few hours for maintenance.

We quietly released this album last night without any warning, and without any press. Because we know how devoted our fans are, we planned for an overwhelming response, and expected heavy traffic. To our surprise, the traffic was more than three times what we anticipated, and has only been getting heavier throughout the day. The response has been absolutely phenomenal, and we couldn’t be happier, but our servers have taken a beating, causing numerous problems with the download site. Our developers, who have been working non-stop to combat the surge of traffic, feel that taking the site down for a few hours to fix some crucial issues is the best way to get things running smoothly again. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience…

Like I said, I trust Trent. I will let you know when I recieve my download and plan to blog all about it. Review of the album too.

UPDATE: This morning by 11am I had the album downloaded. I listened to the whole thing right away. The album is purely instrumental, NIN style. Half of the 36 songs were exploring a new mix of sounds. While the other half sounded familiar. All the songs stirred emotions, tapping of my feet, or the banging of pens and pencils on my desk, but I still wished for Trent Reznor’s angst. I paid $5 for it and will say it was worth it. I just hope we get more Year Zero’s in between the ‘next experimental jazz fusion’ album projects.

Technorati Tags: music

Do You Download Music? Doesn’t Matter Pay Tax Anyway

Musicians leaving their labels in order to produce, distribute, and sell their music…by themselves. Why do this? Isn’t this career suicide? I don’t think so, because those musicians making the jump have all been veterans (NIN, Madonna, Oasis, Jamiroquai). As far as the reason why, I hope it is because they are not happy with how the labels are using their content [songs]. Using it to sue their fans.

Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor, is the only artist [I believe] to be doing this for ‘The Fans’.  He has been known to tell his fans to go ahead and steal their music.

Yes, my feelings exactly.

Well, at least I thought Trent got it. That was until I read this interview with c|net News.com. Trent, in the interview, is obviously disheartened by the response of his latest project received. Trent decided to produced and distribute an album for Saul Williams on the internet, as a way to test the internet as a distribution system. The test showed that out of 154,000 [approx.] only 20% paid $5 for the album. Not enough money for the effort…

Trent was pissed by the response?

What did he expect, offering up a no-name, hip-hop artist to test the waters? I downloaded it, for free. I wanted to know who and what this album had to offer before I bought it. I listened to the whole thing. It wasn’t memorable, nor worth keeping. I deleted it from my hard drive. Now if it would have been a NIN album, Trent was offering, I would have paid the $5. Then listened.

Trent, don’t give up, be realistic. Try it with a NIN album, that will be the proof. It will also be proof…no it will scare the shit out of the labels.

That isn’t what actually disappointed me though, it was that Trent believes…

“All music is now available and able to be downloaded and put in your car and put in your iPod and put up your a– if you want, and it’s $5 on your cable bill or ISP bill.” Trent Reznor in c|net news interview

Really!?, if you watched the YouTube clip, Trent tells his fans to steal because they are being robbed by the music labels for such high CD prices. With his tax, not a new idea by the way, he is willing to take money out of the pocket of ANYONE. Whether they have, or even know how, to download music. His tax will guarantee the profits of the music labels he just told, and has asked us to, fuck off!

UPDATE: Trent is feeling a little of the morning after, hang over, ‘foot in mouth‘ syndrome. Good I am glad he came to his senses, blaming everyone else, but he at least realized what he said and retracted it…     

Music Industry Brain Fart

Purple Rain was the top album and movie of 1984. I was in 5th grade and couldn’t get enough of Purple Rain. It was also one of the first, if not the first, CD I purchased. If my memory serves me right, I am 35 now and things seem a little fuzzy, but I am pretty sure I paid $15.99 for it. The last CD I purchased, Tool ‘10,000 Days’, approximately June 2006 for $12.99 at Target. That is 24 years and only a price decrease of $3.00. This is not totally accurate either, because depending on where you purchase music, and by whom, you could still pay $15.99. That is the point though, the 25-30 years of the CD, no fall in price.

Price Corrections
This happens naturally in ALL industries, except music. Computers, buy the top of the line today for $1500 get it tomorrow (6 months) in the sub $599 market. Am I lying? Memory, I purchased a 128mb memory stick for $30 two years ago. Today, I could buy a 1gig memory stick for that same price. That 128mb by the way, received one free from a ‘product supplier’ that had their name on it. Cars, forget about it. Buy a car and drive it off the lot, lose 1,000 bucks!

The Brain Fart
The music industry wants you to believe their loses are a result of download’ers. Music lovers in need of new, cheap, music. I’ve never believed this because downloads are nowhere near CD quality. Downloading is a forced compromise brought on because you have paid for too many $12 ‘one hitters’. The same ‘hit’ the radio station has been overplaying for the last 30 days prior to the debut release of the band you hadn’t heard of. Now the reasons are stacking up to download, a compromise, but still ‘free’ without a risk. These compromises, devalue  CD’s, in most consumers eyes, not the music studios. No, they take it as a threat. When all that needs to happen is, lower the price of CD’s

I don’t know if you noticed, but I haven’t bought a CD in a store since third quarter of 2006. That is because I can save $7 buying from iTunes. I also enjoy waiting patiently for someone to trade me a CD on LaLa, which saves me $8.25 over iTunes. With LaLa, I receive  the actual CD to keep, and can add it to my iPod. Now I have a CD quality rip and a backup for a $1.75. If you don’t have the patience for LaLa you could still purchase music used. This model bugs me most, because it shows the RIAA as the true hypocrite. I can take a CD from my aging library, sell it for $1-2 per CD, and purchase a ‘used’ disc that usually sells for $5.95 at a ‘used CD’ chain store! Again, an option that will save you $8-10 over retail.

Why does this seem so easy…new music needs a new price point.

New Music At $3-5.95 A CD
A new price point will increase their sales volume returning them to their previous profit levels. The music industry has to realize they have a superior product because they have a source and back-up in the same product. Sure the price seems crazy, but is it?

1. Packaging. Changes have been made before in packaging. That Purple Rain disc, came in a thin and long cardboard box. This box always had artwork that mimic that on the cover of the disc. They changed it, because of cost. Then they went to cellophane wrapping of the jewel case and putting them into plastic frames that were the same dimensions of it’s predecessor. That design resulted in a lot of complaints of broken jewel cases and the inability to open it altogether. Solution, open the plastic frames for them. Solved the problem, but they still had to pay for the ’security’ frame. Now, they still wrap the jewel cases in cellophane with a magnetic security strip in the case. So now the solution needs to cut cost. Eliminate the plastic jewel case and go to a simple cardboard sleeve. Fewer ‘frills’ in packaging.

2. Apply all that savings in the technology that studios have been keeping for themselves. Ever wonder why you can buy a carousel of 100 rewritable discs for $19.95.

3. Apply savings from the cuts in studio costs.

4. Distribution…Aren’t these avenues already paid for. Once you strike a deal isn’t that it? In most cases don’t the sales start to pay for and even profit from a sales location?

That superior product were talking about earlier, if it were priced at $3-5.95 what do you think that would do to pirating? Would you still choose to download? I also believe it would hurt iTunes without having to push a new revenue stream.

Technorati Tags: music, pirating, RIAA

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