NIN - This one's on him.

I've been a fan of Nine Inch Nails since the mid 90's. Somewhere around the time Broken came out, but it was Pretty Hate Machine that was album I heard and fell in love with.

Over the past few six months Trent has becoming more and more aware/involved with his significant and loyal fan base as well as fully embracing the concept of creative commons. It's been pretty special to watch him go from four full, very good albums (Pretty Hate Machine, Downward Spiral, Fragile, With Teeth) over the period of sixteen odd years to three albums (Year Zero, Ghosts I-IV and The Slip) over the next two.

This is pretty awesome from a fan perspective. We get lots of new content and each album is increasingly free or of low cost. Radiohead were the first to trial this process for their album In Rainbows. After which Trent marketed the Saul Williams album: The inevitable rise and liberation of Niggy Tardust as free or $5 if you were so inclined. I didn't pay the $5 as Saul Williams isn't my style of music. I still downloaded it and had a listen. I liked a couple of songs allot but the rest were as I was expecting, not what I'm interested in.

Now you may think, $5 that is pretty cheap, you should fork over the cash. You still have the album don't you? My argument is that $5 is cheap, but its not a micro-payment. It still has a value and while Saul Williams has not acquired the money of me this time. The next time I will be interested again because I know that there is a chance I may like his album. He has something that usually costs a lot of money. Exposure.

The Exposure aspect is important. Trent and Nine Inch Nails have exposure so that when Ghosts I-IV came out. I first ordered the free version because I was a little short of cash. Some while after I purchased the version that was right for me. Turns out its the glossy double CD back for $75. $70 more than the cheapest version. Why? Firstly I like buying CDs. Sure it's wasteful, but you get more than the music, you get something tangible to hold and a series of images that are somehow more real than a pdf document of the same thing. There is effort in a NIN package that correlates to the effort that goes into each track. Secondly, because I roughly know where the money is going. To the artist for the work he has put into the album.

Trent made a lot of money off Ghosts and it is a decent album, not his best, not his worst either. A worthy item in in the NIN catalogue.

What is the point of this post about free music. Nine Inch Nails released an album today called "The Slip". As he says on his news post: This one is on him. You can't dislike an artist who gives as much as he gets.

Whether or not the flurry of productivity coming from Trent will have an impact on the quality of his work is one that can only be answered in hindsight. As a fan I'm completely biased and won't be ashamed of that.

For those who like Nine Inch Nails. Enjoy!


note: I call him Trent because I got tired of writing Trent Reznor very quickly.