Trent Reznor Has The Music Industry On Its Knees

Unless you have been living under a rock in the Internet blogosphere world, you are most likely aware that a couple of weeks ago the band known as "Nine Inch Nails" released a new, 36-track, instrumental album, titled Ghosts, free of record company management and completely over the Internet. As a hardcore NIN fan, I cannot describe to you how happy this made me feel- The surprise, out of completely nowhere, of a new album; 36 amazing tracks, nearly 2 hours of music; The instrumental soundtrack of daydreams; And the absolute beauty of it all. Right now the album, Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV, is only available in digital format at their website. You can pay what you want or nothing at all- Go to the site, put in your e-mail, and you get a download link to a .zip file containing the first 9 tracks. Better yet, you can go straight to your Torrent websites and find an official upload.

What makes Ghosts special is the fact that it is 100% Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor. There is no record company involvement whatsoever, and Reznor receives 100% of the profits. Sales figures for Ghosts currently show that Reznor has made over $1 million so far. That includes the sale of 2,500 copies of a limited edition Ghosts deluxe set priced at $300, which sold out in less than two days. This is a kick to the groin for the dying music industry, which has no way to get their hands on this. Reznor's decision to release the new album in this way shows that he has his fans' best interests at heart, and I, as a fan, respect him for that.

Reznor has also released several of the multitrack files for a handful of the songs from Ghosts. Access to these multitrack files allows pretty much anybody with Garageband or AcidPro to remix these songs freely. This is not in any way new to the NINverse- the last work released by Nine Inch Nails was a remix album for Year Zero, and contained a disc with multitracks to every song on the album. Even before that, multitracks were released on the web for the singles from With Teeth.

Just today, Reznor posted a video and announced on his website that he will be taking this Ghosts project to an even higher level. Teamed up with YouTube, he has started a Ghosts Film Festival, in which fans can create their own visuals to accommodate the album. I've posted a video here of Reznor talking about the idea:




If you have time, check out the Ghosts Film Festival, read up on many articles discussing Ghosts, or listen to Ghosts.

The Democratic Race Will Never End

Coming into the March 4 primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island, the best case scenario, as an Obama supporter, was for Obama to continue his winning streak. All he had to do was win a majority of the delegates in these states and basically secure his nomination in the Democratic Party. As luck would have it, Clinton ended up winning in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island, therefore saving her presidential campaign. Obama is still in the lead, however, with 1520 delegates to Clinton's 1424.

So how did Clinton manage to come back after a month-long losing streak? After doing no research whatsoever, I've concluded that this was in some way done by playing the desperate card- desperate, in this case, is referring to her appearance in Saturday Night Live and on The Daily Show the night before Tuesday's primaries. She also circulated some ad that involved her answering the telephone at 3AM in the White House, and apparently that helped, too.

On the Republican side, McCain is the presumptive nominee after Huckabee (finally) dropped out after Tuesday's primaries. Ralph Nader also seems to have declared his bid to run for president, and I have no idea why.

Also, Howard Dean scares me.