“My free album is better than your free album.” “No it isn’t.” “Yes it is…” etc. That’s right, NiN fans, Trent Reznor is the bestest at giving stuff away for free. The Nine Inch Nailer (that sounds dodgy - apologies) has hit out at Radiohead for only making a low-quality version of In Rainbows. Of course, he’s not all angry, as he’s impressed with the decision to let people pay as little/much as they wanted for it, but he wasn’t all that impressed by the horrendous digital compression on all the tracks… let alone the lack of artwork.
Reznor says, “What they did was a cool thing. But if you look at what they did, though, it was very much a bait and switch to get you to pay for a MySpace-quality stream. There’s nothing wrong with that - I but don’t see that as a big revolution (that) they’re kinda getting credit for. What they did right - they surprised the world with a new record, and it was available digitally first. What they did wrong - by making it such a low-quality thing, not even including artwork… to me that feels insincere.”

Reznor released Nine Inch Nails’ new instrumental album Ghosts I-IV in cyberspace earlier this month and 800,000 fans paid anything from 50p to full price and beyond to download the tracks - netting the rocker £800,000 from first-week sales alone. Is it me or is it a bit more insincere to release your latest LP for nuthin’ with no words on it? Sounds to me like it wasn’t a ‘proper’ NiN release. And anyway, giving people the choice to pay for it isn’t free either! The Charlatans’ new album didn’t even have a ‘donate’ function. So ner.
[via Yahoo]

Possibly related:

1. Trent Reznor fan of Bit Torrent, not a fan of iTunes

2. Nine Inch Nails release The Slip online for free

3. Have Radiohead revealed album release date in code?

4. Radiohead to play free gig at BBC Radio Theatre

5. Fans crash Radiohead site in cheap album frenzy

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Posted by mofgimmers on Friday March 14th, 2008 at 1:22 pm