David Emery OnlineThe Slip
5 May 2008
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…