NINE INCH NAILS 2009

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First the book took forever getting here. Then on Thursday I took a look at one word in the title. By Friday I had made it to the back cover. Finally today I actually cracked open the book and started from page one. (Page ix, actually.) In an unsigned prologue titled “1 Step,” the editors write:

We were about to publish this book without a price and ask Radiohead fans to pay what they want for it. But then we remembered. While the music industry was up-ended in 2007 by the debut of In Rainbows and other albums distributed by artists themselves, the world of book publishing remains a few steps behind. For now, at least.

It’s meant as a tongue-in-cheek opening salvo, but near the undercurrents graze a few sacred cows that really need some grill marks and steak sauce: “The recording industry needs revolutionizing.” (Or its corollary: “The record companies all need to be run out of town.”) “Radiohead’s distribution of In Rainbows started that revolution.” “Self-publication is somehow new to either music or book publishing.”

Taking the second part first — aside from what may just be a vocal minority — the distribution of In Rainbows, and the music of In Rainbows itself, was met with a deafening “feh!” Surely a revolution would have by now seen a second A-list artist digitally release an LP, with compensation held strictly to the honor system. Maybe a third. And as for the word that the brick-and-mortar release of In Rainbows was different — indeed superior — to the (let’s call it what it is) free online sampler? This should not have surprised anyone. If Radiohead had given away OK Computer free of charge? Yeah, that would have been newsworthy. But giving away a less-than-whole version of a less-than-whole LP only seemed like cutting their wallet off to spite their pants pocket.

Or worse: gimmicky.

The urge will be to point out Ghosts I-IV by Nine Inch Nails, and other soft copy releases. But most of us had been purchasing music in MP3 format for years before the release of In Rainbows; the only difference was the state-your-own price. It will be instructive to watch how Radiohead distributes their next LP. If it isn’t at least a fixed rate per track, I’ll apologize for the skepticism.

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“Self-publication is somehow new to either music or book publishing.”

Q: What do Led Zeppelin, The Prodigy, The Dandy Warhols and Mötley Crüe all have in common?

A: These artists have all formed their own independent labels to circumvent the indentured servitude, hassles, expense, and the sheer creative surrender inherent in a recording contract. Properly speaking, Mötley Crüe forged two record labels, Leathür Records and Mötley Records. The casual reader has to wonder if the third company will be named Ümläüt Ïndüstrïës. We’ll see. But if Crüe can do it…

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“The recording industry needs revolutionizing.” Or, “The record companies all need to be run out of town.”

Rock may stink up the room when trying to make political statements, but rock is often at its absolute (and loudest, and most defiant, and most convincing) best when attacking the very record labels that distribute their material and coordinate their world tours. Pink Floyd dealt a cerebral one-two with “Have a Cigar” and “Welcome to the Machine.” The Sex Pistols dispensed with the subtleties on the track “EMI.” And there’s always Amanda Palmer, who took both approaches at once:

But frankly — and this was probably simple naivete on my part — I had no idea of the extent of the animosity between contractor and contractee until Patrick, Tobias and I started blogging. I chose those words intentionally: contractor, contractee. Both sides of the recording contract owe their existence to delivering new, groundbreaking music to the listener. Both sides often succeed, and both often fail. And both sides find the other a chronic, seething pain in the ass.

But only one side spends their time advertising their heartburn and coming up with esoteric theory and pretentious Obi-Wan Kenobi claptrap regarding the nature of money and of the nature of music and music ownership.

The sad fact is, if you enjoy music and would like to hear more, we require some kind of system to produce it and get everybody paid, so that musicians and record company execs alike don’t bugger off and join the peace corps. The current system — however flawed — still works well enough, thank you very much, otherwise you’d have never heard of Arcade Fire, Beirut, DeVotchKa, The Decemberists, System of a Down, Pink Floyd or Radiohead, and the book Radiohead and Philosophy would simply not exist. Agreed, for every Mars Volta we get ten Lindsay Lohans, but if that bothers you just do what I do and just don’t listen to the ten Lindsay Lohans. Yet musicians — talented, intelligent musicians — such as Jonathan Davis of Korn or Chris Corner of IAMX are not content to point out the design flaws in The Machine and ignore the musical waste … or for that matter they are also not content to simply impugn all of capitalism herself. Instead, putting up with deadlines and promotional obligations and obnoxious producers has led them to conclude that the ancient concept of money as a medium of exchange is moral rot. Use the force, Luke.

Hell, work as I do for a building subcontractor, sometimes I grow weary of prime contractors and their 72-hour notices to comply, just as U2 probably gets tired of breathing the same Interscope air as, say, the bantamweight creation Pussycat Dolls, but you don’t see me petitioning to reverse the agricultural revolution and return our 7 billion people to a hunter-gatherer tradition. No doubt it wouldn’t carry as much credence if I did, because musicians are charismatic, influential folk who handle microphones for a living. Public speaking is their thing: it is easy to get swept up by their vapors. Record company glad-hands have no vapors. Nobody ever falls for their line, nor should they. But anti-corporatism for its own sake in postmodern, agnostic, enlightened, merit-based 2009? Yawn. Don’t buy it. Not even for $0.00.

One caveat. While it is not true that the record companies need to be run out of town, something, indeed, is running them out of town anyway: economics. Thom Yorke touched on this when he spoke of the titular LP In Rainbows: “It probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say ‘F___ you’ to this decaying business model.” Their absurd file-sharing lawsuits notwithstanding, record label employees aren’t mean-spirited fascist dictators who waterboard cats and fire rockets at Santa Claus. But they are nevertheless becoming obsolete. An industry cannot exist unless it adds value to something, and the value that record labels have traditionally added to the unusual resource known loosely as “music” has been production, promotion, and distribution. Physical distribution is literally a ghost anymore and can be accomplished by a five-year-old with a dial-up connection. The barriers to self-production and self-promotion are similarly coming down. The business model is not decaying as much as it is vanishing. Take comfort in the fact that record labels as you know them should soon fall extinct.

And enough criticism already. So far I have absolutely enjoyed the book, and I’m ready to prove it. Our next post deals with (…drum roll, please…) this Greek-looking word.

Note that this post is one part in a series. To view all posts in the series, start here.

MARILYN MANSON With TRENT REZNOR

New MANSON album, ‘THE HIGH END OF THE LOW’, is out. All kinds of details and tour dates HERE.

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NINE INCH NAILS 2009

* w/ JANE’S ADDICTION, STREET SWEEPER SOCIAL CLUB
+++ w/ JANE’S ADDICTION
xxx w/ STREET SWEEPER SOCIAL CLUB

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MARIQUEEN MAANDIG And TRENT REZNOR

NINE INCH NAILS mainman Trent Reznor is engaged to fellow musician Mariqueen Maandig, of the band WEST INDIAN GIRL.

Read more HERE.

MARIQUEEN MAANDIG And TRENT REZNOR

Upcoming NINE INCH NAILS tour dates with JANE’S ADDICTION:

May 08 – West Palm Beach, FL @ Cruzan Amphitheatre
May 09 – Tampa, FL @ Ford Amphitheatre
May 10 – Atlanta, GA @ Lakewood Amphitheatre
May 14 – Albuquerque, NM @ Journal Pavilion
May 15 – Phoenix, AZ @ Cricket Wireless Pavilion
May 16 – Chula Vista, CA @ Cricket Wireless Amphitheater
May 18 – Las Vegas, NV @ The Pearl
May 20 – Irvine, CA @ Verizon Wireless Amphitheater Irvine Meadows
May 22 – Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheatre
May 26 – Englewood, CO @ Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre
May 27 – Kansas City, MO @ Starlight Theatre
May 30 – Noblesville, IN @ Verizon Wireless Music Center
May 31 – Clarkston, MI @ DTE Energy Music Theatre
Jun. 02 – Toronto, ON @ Molson Amphitheatre
Jun. 03 – Darien Lake, NY @ Darien Lake Amphitheatre
Jun. 05 – Camden, NJ @ Tweeter Center At The Waterfront
Jun. 06 – Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts Center
Jun. 07 – Wantagh, NY @ Nikon at Jones Beach Music Theater
Jun. 09 – Columbia, MD @ Merriweather Post Pavilion
Jun. 10 – Burgettstown, PA @ Post. Gazette Pavilion
Jun. 12 – Charlotte, NC @ Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre

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The beginning.

“I’m what you hate. You would not love me, because I destruct everything I touch.”

Sitting on the floor, he waits. When watching him, you can’t see his face because he’s facing the floor. This sound behind his ears… Piano. In fact, he is waiting for everyone, for you too. At the moment, he isn’t happy, because everybody hates him, and no one is coming for him at the moment. Anyway, he doesn’t care because everybody’s afraid of him, everyone.
Knocking on the door :
“I will do it. Do you ear me? This rope is my present and I’m coming into the void.”

He heard the voice.
He began to show a little smile on the corner of his mouth.
“Come, my dear”

That’s what he did.
Here he is.

A future you must face, everyone…

TRENT REZNOR of NINE INCH NAILS

JANE'S ADDICTION

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TRENT REZNOR of NINE INCH NAILS

JANE'S ADDICTION

Read more HERE.

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Fabio Guastalla, per la lettura del suo racconto Capo Nord, suggerisce, in rigoroso ordine cronologico, See these bones dei Nada Surf e la numero 12 dei Ghosts I-IV dei Nine Inch Nails.

Amazon.com announced that Nine Inch Nail’s “Ghosts I-IV” was their top selling MP3 album of 2008, even though the band gave the album away for free. My how the music business is changing. It wasn’t that long ago that naysayers were dismissing the give-it-away-free business model. We’ll admit it sounds like a contradiction, but for well established musicians with cult followings like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, this is the future and it is bright.

Over in new Zealand the RIAA (called the RIANZ over there, but still the same scumbags) have persuaded the government to pass a law disconnecting anyone from the Internet on accusation (that’s accusation, not proof) of illegal file sharing.

Naturally, some people don’t approve of punishment without a fair trial. CreativeFreedom.org.nz has been set up to fight against this:

In other news, it turns out that the best-selling album on the Amazon MP3 store last year was Ghosts I-IV by Nine Inch Nails, which is also available as a free, legal, download. Will the RIAA learn from this? I doubt it very much — instead the dinosaurs will continue to accuse filesharing of damaging their business, continue to subvert democracy and the rule of law, and not bother to fix their broken business model.

Trolling through my various news sources and got word on some interesting items from the world of popular music.

doshdosh, one of the people I follow on Twitter, posted the following:

doshdosh Great news. NIN’s CC-Licensed album is the best selling mp3 album at Amazon in 2008. http://bit.ly/thka

To translate, Nine Inch Nails’ album, Ghosts I-IV, released in early 2008 under a Creative Commons license, was Amazon’s best selling album of the year. Creative Commons allows people to freely redistribute creative work under various easy-to-follow conditions. It is an answer to the stringent copyright laws at work in the United States, but only if a creator has the courage to allow his/her work to be freely shared. (A Creative Commons license can be set to allow said artists to keep commercial use of their work, so it’s not about taking away their right to earn a living. Incidentally, my blog is licensed under a Creative Commons license.)

Through my Google Alerts, I received a couple of articles about albums that are due to be released in the coming year:

Lehighvalleylive.com

Erie Times-News (mid-way through the article is the music section)

Dave Matthews Band has announced that it will be releasing an album in April. By following Dave’s tweets, you can tell when he’s in the studio working.

U2 is also putting out an album, this one titled “No Line on the Horizon,” which is a beautiful, literary sort of title, just like “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” and “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.” With those titles, I’m waiting for a novel from these Irish rogues.

Depeche Mode, one of my favorite bands from way back when that still intrigues me, is also due to release an album in 2009. And my brother will be excited to hear that The Decemberists will be putting out an album, too, “The Hazards of Love” in March 2009.

Check out the articles listed above for more of the musicians who’ll be releasing new work in 2009.

2008 was a great year for music, and certainly exciting as well. “Chinese Democracy” came out, Metallica released a good album and Nine Inch Nails revolutionized how we think of music being released. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, there was a lot of unexpectedness this year.  And so, without further ado, I present to you my best of 2008 list!

Best Instrumental Album of the Year: Ghosts I-IV (Nine Inch Nails)

This album is beautiful and quite original. I’ve never heard anything quite like it before. It creates an enthralling atmosphere that is quite easy to get lost in. It doesn’t hurt that this album revolutionized how we look at the release of music, but even if this had just been a standard release it still would have easily won this category.

Best Live Album of the Year: Colors_LIVE (Between the Buried and Me)

Best album of 2007 being played straight through + letting the fans pick the songs in the second set + incredible production + flawless performance = best live album of 2008.

Best “Find” of the Year: Assassins: Black Meddle, Pt. 1 (Nachtmystium)

To be eligible for this award, the artist needs to be one that I discovered in 2008. Assassins is an incredibly fun album to listen to. Whenever I put it on when I’m supposed to be doing work, I end up headbanging and leaving all my work for later. Nachtmystium have forged their own genre of “psychedelic black metal”, which takes the standard sound of black metal and infuses it with some awesome experimentation.

Best Album of 2007 I Didn’t Listen to Until 2008: Ire Works (The Dillinger Escape Plan)

It wasn’t until the last month or so of 2007 that I could tolerate extreme music, so I didn’t get around to this until spring of ‘08. “Ire Works” is a terrific album due to Dillenger Escape Plan’s desire to experiment with their sound. You never know quite what to expect from the next song, and this unpredictability makes the album fun to listen to as well as give it a lot of replay value. And ending it with a jazz song was inspired

Okay I’ll stop stalling…this is the only award anyone actually cares about…

Best Album of 2008: Traced in Air (Cynic)

I’ve already written an in-depth review of this album, so I won’t make this too long. What really has surprised me about this album after writing the original review is how well it has held up. The week after it came in the mail, I listened to nothing else on my iPod. I was addicted to it, and must have gone through the album at least a dozen times. Despite this, it never got old. Every listen was refreshing and as powerful as the first.

A great album needs to stand the test of time, and so far “Traced in Air” is passing that test with flying colors. My jaw still drops occasionally when listening to it. Cynic has managed to create a fresh and original sound that I’ve never heard before. I’m truly excited to see where they go from here, for “Traced in Air” is truly a progressive metal classic.

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I think that adequately wraps up 2008, so happy new year! I’m sure 2009 will be even better

After grabbing a bagel and cappuccino, I made my way to the Kimmel Center where all the panels were being held. After browsing the 10th floor, which was full of company booths like Lala and Sonicbids for example, I headed down to my first panel, “It’s Broken, Fix It”.

This panel was one of the three that I felt I HAD to go to. What is the future of the music business? Digital? Video? Touring? Licensing? Merchandising? Social networking?

The answer is simply all of it and then some. The industry needs to learn to pick up change instead of waiting for all the Benjamins to come in on their own because relying on one stream of income will never happen again.

The best advice I can give a band is to know your audience and give them your art in the manner they want it. If your fans are YouTube junkies, you better be making music videos and video tour diaries. However, it is naïve to think that a band’s fans are of one demographic, so make sure you’re not alienating fans by excluding them.

Trent Reznor offered a free download of Ghost I up to a $300 premium box set for Ghosts I-IV. Fans are investors in a band, so they should determine what their stake in your band should. How ass backwards would it be for a company to say that everyone must invest the same amount of money in their company?

Screen Shot of Trent's Ghost Site

People put their own value on art, which is why the Trent Rezner’s and Radioheads will still be around once the industry realizes its future. They allow the flexibility in people’s passion for a band as well as their wallet size. In physical art, someone can buy an original, reprint, poster, or just save a JPEG of the painting from a website onto their computer for free, so why can’t music be the same way?

posted by rob at 8:25pm (new orleans, usa)

discuss @ nin.com

I suppose I should start this review off with describing the manor in which Trent Reznor released his 2008 instrumental album “Ghosts I-IV”. There was no marketing, no announcement of any sort (except for one cryptic blog post a few weeks prior). One morning, out of the blue, Ghosts I-IV was available on the Nine Inch Nails website.

The manor in which this album was released has been described as revolutionary, and I agree. I’m a strong critic of the music industry. I believe labels rip off consumers and make life hard for both fans and artists. Therefore I was very pleased when Trent announced that Nine Inch Nails was leaving its major label to be a completely independent artist. An album like “Ghosts” could not have been released when Nine Inch Nails was with Interscope. 

On the morning of March 2nd, 2008, Trent Reznor allowed this full 2CD 36 track album to be downloaded from his website for $5. He also uploaded the first volume of Ghosts (the first 9 tracks) to a torrent site, The Pirate Bay, himself (as well as offering it as a free download from his site). Radiohead may have started this revolution by allowing fans to pay as much as they wanted (or as little) for their latest album “In Rainbows”, but Nine Inch Nails has certainly moved this process forward. He offered a quarter of the album (22 minutes) for free and only charged $5 for the rest. $5 for two hours of music is a hard offer to turn down these days when labels rip off consumers by pricing a forty minute album $20. 

And what did Nine Inch Nails do after releasing “Ghosts I-IV” for $5? He released “The Slip”, another full length album, just two months later absolutely free. In my opinion, Trent Reznor is leading the way in the music business revolution by cutting out the middleman. Both the artist and fans are happy, and in the end, that’s how it should be.

But enough about business, this is a music review. “Ghosts I-IV” is unlike anything Trent has ever released before. He has become known for dark and angry, lyric driven concept albums like “Year Zero” and “The Downward Spiral”, enjoying a large amount of success in the process. However hidden in these records (and especially in “The Fragile”), he has always delved into instrumental music, almost always including at least one instrumental on his albums. These instrumentals have always been highly regarded by fans.

“Ghosts I-IV” is not industrial rock, like all of Trent’s other albums. Hell, “Ghosts I-IV” isn’t even rock. Most people would describe it as ambient, or dark ambient. Indeed many Nine Inch Nails fans may be turned off by this release. There is no single on this album. There is not one word uttered the whole time. The album is the complete opposite of “marketable”. It is merely a work of art, not meant to be popular but meant as an experiment. The result is quite breathtaking when listened to correctly.

The first mistake, and one I will not make in this review, is to try and separate the tracks and judge them separately.  ”Ghosts I-IV” is one piece that should be listened to straight through. Each track is meaningless on its own, but when each of these ideas is presented in context and flow into each other, it begins to make sense and starts to create a surreal atmosphere. Trent has described this album as a “soundtrack to daydreams”, and I can hardly argue. 

A unique feature of this album is that each track, regardless of where you downloaded it from, contains its own artwork in its ID3 tag. This means that when listening to it in a program such as iTunes, each song has its own album artwork. The artwork reflects the mood of the song, and the two complement each other. While at the very least I recommend listening to each volume (each set of nine songs without stopping, I feel the best way to listen to this album is to leave the artwork up on your computer, lay on your bed and just listen to the whole album while watching the artwork and reflecting on your own. When this is done, the album creates an experience like no other.

As I said you can’t judge the individual tracks on this album by themselves. However the album as a whole is a very reflective, atmospheric, and surreal journey that I feel to be incredible. I know this album has polarized fans, many regarding it as a masterpiece while others have screamed for the normal NIN, I feel that anyone who has a passing interest in ambient music or has enjoyed Trent’s previous instrumentals should like this album. I regard it very highly and hope that Trent follows up on his promise of more “Ghosts” volumes.

Rating: 4/5

A track listing is pointless since they are all untitled. Each song is just titled with its number in the album (1-36) and its volume number (1-4).

Source: Blabbermouth.net

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