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Monday, May 5, 2008

The post-label era is beginning

So today, NIN released a new album. For free, on the internets. You can find it here. It comes in several flavors, including Mp3, a couple of lossless codec's, and even a couple of gigs of wav files available via torrent.

Now, Trent is a special case. NIN has been around, his fans are legion and passionate, and on top of that, he's smart. His first album released after he freed himself from labels, Ghosts, I ended up buying twice, once from his site, and again from Amazon, because NIN's site was hit so hard that I could never successfully download, much less tell if I had actually been charged for the music (I had). They've obviously learned from this experience. With the slip, you submit your email addy, wait for the download link (it may take a while, but they're balancing server load), and when you get the email, follow the link and choose your version. Quick and easy, and I'm enjoying the album as we speak.

I truly hope that this is the future, and that NIN is a harbinger. Radio has been kind of a joke for some time now, I'm only likely to find new music via the local college station, or much more likely, via friends, or services online like Pandora. If NIN can make things work without a label, I hope other artists follow.

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