thank you detriot! $#?% my record company!
So, we all know record companies suck. From artists complaining about the money from lawsuits not going to them from the RIAA, to the record companies themselves offering solutions that fuck over the artists they represent, the RIAA makes me want to believe in Hell just to point out something that unequivocally belongs there.
Well, a(n un)foreseen side effect of such douchebaggery (depending on how you want to view it) are artists who are breaking off from their large-scale record labels to do their own independent thing. A great example of this that’s somewhat mainstream is, of course, Nine Inch Nails. Trent Reznor’s come under fire multiple times from his own record label and mainstream media for encouraging fans to steal his record and giving interviews suggesting that major record companies are “greedy assholes,” eventually resultig in him and Nine Inch Nails leaving Interscope Records.
I personally have a ton of respect for someone who’s got cojones as huge as Trent Reznor, and even more when he releases a decent amount of NIN’s latest album online. The funniest part? They even uploaded the free part of the album to The Pirate Bay, which at the time of this writing had over 4100 seeds. Amazingly enough, NIN’s own site went down due to the amount of traffic they had, as my fantastically well-done Paint screenshot below shows.
Anyways, like the shot says, you can check out their new album elsewhere. If you even like NIN in the slightest bit, I’d strongly suggest that you check out their new (DRM free!) album, and send a 5-spot their way if you want the whole thing. I’m happy as hell to say this is a band that definitely deserves it.
Oh, and if you guys know any other bands that have taken a similar approach, feel free to let me know in the comments. I’ll try to link to what I can if there’s other artists with similar projects (and I know there are a shitton.)
Related:
Atmosphere released an (ep?) to promote a When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold. Check out the direct download here.
I know that Pennywise and Atmosphere have released free albums and Radiohead offered a “pay us what you think it’s worth” option that included free. Also heard that Incubus was looking to get in on the “free album” game. I wouldn’t complain! MOAR!
VAST offered a free, in-progress version of their album April some months back. Admittedly, it’s not the final album, but it’s still really, really good, and some of the songs don’t even appear on the final thing, so it’s like an extra bonus!
Yeah, Atmosphere released a free 13 track CD to get people hyped for their upcoming April release.
Tech N9ne had this whole thing call FTI (fuck the industry). He released his CD Absolute Power on his website as a free download, then bundled the store release with 7 extra tracks and a DVD.
I checked out Pennywise and VAST. Pennywise had some issues with pathing on their site, and I couldn’t find a version of April from VAST that was free; I saw one that was labeled “old online version…” but it was around $7. If you find direct links though, lemme know.
I checked out Tech 9ine too, and I found some info on Absolute Power, but couldn’t find a still-free version offered from anything official.
It always kind of bothered me anyways when artists said they offered their album “for free” to download off their site, then went commercial with a regular CD release for $20 three months later. Seems like they’re just spitting on the idea of going against the labels.
And! NIN’s limited-deluxe-whatever edition sold out already. $750,000 gross for them from that alone. Not bad for 24 hours.
Well, I know Atmosphere’s release (Strictly Leakage) will have an official CD release, buit I think it’s more of a prize if you preorder their upcoming EP.
Tech N9ne’s CD Absolute Power was about 6 years ago, so I don’t think there are any official traces left of it. His following two or three releases have all been purely CDs.
I want to thank you for mentioning the new NIN album, by the way. I actually ended up going to their site and buying the full album for $5, and I’m glad I did.