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The Slip
Today Nine Inch Nails have taken the next obvious step and released their next album ‘proper’ (as Ghosts I-IV wasn’t really a proper NIN album) for free:
Is this clever or is this defeatist?
The previous experiments (worth noting) all contained some element of commerce about them; Radiohead with the pay-what-you-want and NIN with the ‘get 1/4 free, but pay for the rest’ model with Ghosts (Raconteurs I think just miss this list as their release was a manipulation of the traditional retail model, not something completely different). With The Slip however, Nine Inch Nails have given no option for people to compensate them or reward them for producing this music.
Not even a PayPal donate button.
What kind of statement does that put out? ‘We don’t think this music is worth paying for’? ‘We don’t think music is worth paying for’? Or is it just a practical recognition that their audience would probably go and download it anyway, and they will hopefully generate enough promotional value from it to drive sales of the forthcoming traditional release?
Is the statement ‘We think this music is only worth promotional value to us’?
I think it will be quite interesting to see what kind of media impact this release gets – especially in comparison to previous NIN albums – as I get the feeling that the ‘band releases album on the internet in an unconventional way’ story (and the ‘band release album for free’ story, for that matter) is getting pretty tired. While I’m quite certain that giving away music for free is probably a net win, in terms of word of mouth popularity, I’m not that for a big band it can compete with the swathes of publicity you would normally get around a release.
I would have been quite happy to pay for this album, even if there was a free version available. Especially considering I know that money would go direct to the band, which you never feel sure of if you’re buying a CD in a shop. I’m sure I can’t have been the only one…
Comments
Maniquí said at May 7, 07:17 PM:
Hi David,
I’m not too up-to-date with all the information and news regarding mainstream artists giving their albums for free, or accepting donations.
I consider this isn’t really new at all. Or better say, the new thing is the “mainstream” thing. But giving their music for free is something that many many artists (that don’t belong to mainstream) have being doing since many years.
The first two statements you suggested (‘We don’t think this music is worth paying for’ ‘We don’t think music is worth paying for’) aren’t the answer.
The third one (‘We think this music is only worth promotional value to us’) is the correct one, and many bands with far less resources than NIN or Radiohead Tknow that since long time ago.
Giving the album in MP3 (try to listen to the lyrics of MoralPoverty3 song) format isn’t enough for those listeners/fans who appreciate high-quality music.
But a few years ago, hosting and downloading lossless formats wasn’t really possible, because broadband connections weren’t as fast as necessary.
So many original music suffered from quality degradation. For the average user who downloads music it was getting quantity instead of quality. HDD were tiny, so compression had to be high. Now, HDD are getting bigger, and broadband speed is getting faster. Now, we are able to download music (legally and illegally) in high-quality lossless formats. Of course, most people doesn’t know this, doesn’t understand this, doesn’t care about this. Most people just want the last top-ranked album from a mainstream artist as soon as possible.
But artists (real artist, mainstream or not) care about the quality of their work. I think that’s a totally valid argument to stand against piracy and MP3 format.
So, quality has been always a concern, and now it is possible to offer high-quality digital music for downloading, because now it’s technically possible to get the album in a lossless format in less time, and taking not too much space of our hard-disk drives.
In my opinion, artists have to try to make a life from their living performances, as artist did for many centuries before recording came into scene. Also, it’s totally valid and acceptable that they try to make money with their recorded music, selling/giving it too, both digitally and on physical format. They have a great opportunity there. Digital music has pretty low cost in distribution and logistics. The costs that have to be covered are those from the recording session, the salary for the people that works behind the recording.
Then, the artist can also have a physical distribution (in CD/DVD, even not as audio CDs, but as Data CDs having the music/images/sleeves inside in different formats). This could be something distributed on demand or sending low stocks to music stores. Again, costs are lowered, and the gaining goes for the artist/store.
David, sorry about this loose thoughts. You may tie them and make a point.
And sorry about my english too!
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