Audio Video News

The marketing of Ghosts I-V, the new Nine Inch Nails album, puts Radiohead and R.E.M. in the shade.

It's been available in four different forms from the band's website: There's a free download of first nine tracks in MP3 at 320kbps. For $5 you can have all 36 tracks in FLAC, Apple Lossless, or MP3 along with a 40-page book in PDF form and a "digital extras pack with wallpapers, icons, and other graphics for your computer, website, profile, etc." Pay $10 and you'll get two CDs in a Digipak with 16-page booklet plus access to everything in the $5 download.

Finally, for hardcore fans, there was (note use of past tense) a $300 Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition Package which included all of the above plus a four-LP set on 180-gram vinyl, a data DVD with multi-track session files in WAV, a Blu-ray disc with stereo mixes in 24/96, a second hardcover book with 48 pages of photos, and a third book with Giclee art prints--and Trent Reznor signed each of the 2500 copies. That package sold out.

"I've been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years," says Reznor via his website, "but by its very nature it wouldn't have made sense until this point. This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective--dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams. I'm very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference. I hope you enjoy the first four volumes of Ghosts."

Reznor told the Chicago Tribune that the packages have brought in a combined total of $1.6 million in 781,917 web transactions. So far. Who knew dumping your record label could be so lucrative?

All this looks pretty innovative even compared to R.E.M.'s and Radiohead's recent efforts. R.E.M. is about to offer Accelerate for limited-time streaming and downloading on the social networking site iLike.com, and again, there will be a conventional CD release on the band's longtime label, Warner.

Before that, Radiohead--having dumped its longtime label EMI--offered In Rainbows as a pay-what-you-like MP3/160kbps download from its website for a limited period. That served as the forerunner of a conventional CD release via ATO, the label owned by Dave Matthews, plus conventional paid downloads via the usual suspects. Following that were a couple of unintended consequences. The album ended up all over BitTorrent, where of course no one paid for it. And EMI retaliated by releasing a seven-disc boxed set of the band's older albums just as the new one was hitting the street.

"Insincere" is Reznor's description of the Radiohead experiment. Here's what he told an Australian TV interviewer (quotes via ArsTechnica): "If you look at what they did...it was very much a bait and switch to get you to pay for a MySpace-quality stream as a way to promote a very traditional record sale.... There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't see that as a big revolution [that] they're kinda getting credit for." Reznor also criticized Radiohead for the low bit rate of the variable-fee download and the omission of artwork, both points clearly addressed in the marketing scheme for Ghosts I-IV.

But he saved his harshest words for the record industry: "The level of ineptitude I've seen at the major labels is stunning. The people in charge of a lot of the digital technologies...seem to not even be on the Internet."