New NIN Album – Ghosts

Let’s talk music shall we?  Or another way of putting it is how I’m enjoying the new method of music distribution.

It started last year with Radiohead offering up their In Rainbows album for any price you want, in a digital format (digital meaning that you can download it from the Internet but if you wanted a physical copy you would have to burn a CD yourself.)  Fast forward a few months later and they went ahead and released a CD version anyhow which is great for guys like me who like to have that kind of thing (hi-fidelity and all, yo).

Then we had Saul Williams’s new album (which was produced by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame) come out with two options…$5 for the album, or free.  The meaning behind the $5 is to support the artist, whereas the free option is…well…read into that as you will.  I would like to think it’s more of a try before you buy option instead of just take it and never compensate the artist.  But we all know that’s an optimistic view.

Now we have Trent Reznor releasing a new Nine Inch Nails album within a year of the last release.  Crikey.  That’s fast.  Especially considering NIN’s track record (5 years on average for a new album).

What’s the big push?  Maybe creativity?  Who knows?  All we know is that NIN is no longer with a record label and can do whatever the heck they want.  May I also point out that the Smashing Pumpkins are also in the same boat but that’s for another day…

I would like to talk a little about the options that NIN has offered his fans to nab some music.

Free – Well, at least the first 9 tracks from the 36 instrumental track are free.  I like this idea.  Not giving away your entire album but at least giving people a taste for free.

Full Album (Digital) – $5.  Let’s be honest here.  $5 for an album is a steal of a deal.  Especially if you want to get into the price per track comparison with 36 tracks.

Full Album (Physical) – $10.  For $10 you get a double CD in the mail in April.  BUT, because they are awesome, they will let you download the album for free so you can listen to it right away.  Amazing!

Deluxe Package – $75 – This is where things get interesting.  For the super fans out there, you can get the CD, a DVD with a slideshow (tracked to the tracks) and a bunch of other stuff.  Let’s be honest here…$75 is quite steep for a CD and a DVD and some photos in some album liner notes.   But that’s not the whammy of it all.

Super Ultra Deluxe Edition – $300.  For $300 you get everything that is in the deluxe package along with the album on vinyl (4 LPs) as well as it being signed by Trent Reznor himself with the guarantee that it’s limited to 2500 pieces.

I want to talk a little about how I think Nine Inch Nails have covered all their bases on distribution.  First off, they have a sampler pack for free and the whole album for $5 if you don’t need a physical copy.  When it comes down to it, he’s trying to nail the technologically incompetent folk with this one.  If you didn’t really know where to look for ‘pirated albums’, and usually if you buy these things straight off an MP3 store, it’s around $10 an album, then you would probably opt for the $5 choice.  Of course, Trent can’t stop the swashbucklers out there and I’m sure there are tons of people downloading the album for free.  But he doesn’t care about that…in fact, he’s known to support the downloaders.

Let’s go onto the other path, the ‘let’s make me some money path’.  All the way at the top, we have the $300 package of the album.  Now, most of you would say “Good lord.  Who would spend that kind of money on music that they can buy for $5?”

The answer is, the ultra-fans who want to have everything that the band releases and love the smell of something called ‘limited edition’.

Case in point, merely three days after the album went live to order, all 2500 pieces are sold out.  Simple math dictates that 2500x$300 =  $750,000.  I have no idea how much it costs to produce such a package, so for the sake of not wanting to look into this kind of thing, let’s say it cost $250,000 to produce so he clears $500,000.  This is quite the achievement considering we have heard stories over the years of artists making peanuts from album sales…a mere dollar or two for each album sold.

We’re not even starting to count how many regular albums they will sell in the stores, how much money they will get from digital downloads off their website…

If anything, this distribution model puts more money into the artist’s hands, and in the end, isn’t that where we would want our money to go to in the first place?  I don’t care if a record company gets my money.  I want the artist to get it.

And if they want to offer a super deluxe edition for $300, more power to them if they can sell out in three days.  That’s pretty impressive.  Heck, Nine Inch Nails have been around for years and have a killer fanbase so I don’t know how a new band could compete…but even new bands could probably make more money through this distribution model than through a record company.  Now, if only we knew how to market these new bands without a record company…let the discussion begin.