Ghosts Are Born

Earlier this week, Trent Reznor released Ghosts I-IV, a 36 track (or a traditional split of 4 albums) collection of instrumental music. It forms a soundscape of moods, atmosphere, moments and volume. It’s a highly interesting experiment in regards to Reznor pulling a Radiohead but how good is the actual music? And how does this set the tone for distribution?

It’s pretty good depending on who you ask. Depending on what your musical tastes are like, you might like it, enjoy it, dislike it or hate it. It’s not conventional in the typical record industry sense. I doubt an album like this would have made it past any record executives. No vocals. No typical song length nor structure. No “hooks” per se and nothing to easily grab your ear aside from a mood, tone or atmosphere.

So how does one equate the value of this epic collection of songs? Reznor has attached his dollar value for what these seem to be worth, depending on how you like your music served up: digitally, CD, DVD, bonus features, etc.

To me, $5 is a phenomenally small mount to pay for 36 songs that might not be immediately listenable the way, say, a Bloc Party album might be but for 36 songs that come with a Creative Commons license and that you yourself can play with on your own? A steal. Even at $10, it’d be damn fine bargain.

This is an interesting and exciting time to watch how artists and their relationships with record labels evolve. I feel the start of something new afoot and I like it. If you’re familiar at all with how record labels and artists work in terms of how they get paid, then this is a big thing. With no middleman to pay and take care of things, artists fall into the realm of doing things on their own. However, there’s plenty of channels, help and distribution points to guide you on your way. The DIY movement is huge and with digital distribution becoming increasingly popular as both a medium and as a tool, the limits are endless.

Undoubtedly publicity and hype are another question altogether but perhaps there’s a trade-off there.

If this kind of music is your thing though (and to some degree, it falls inside of my likes), then this is manna from heaven.

In a May 2007 article with Australia’s Herald Sun, Reznor had this to say — tellingly and a glimpse of what has now come:

I’ve have one record left that I owe a major label, then I will never be seen in a situation like this again. If I could do what I want right now, I would put out my next album, you could download it from my site at as high a bit-rate as you want, pay $4 through PayPal. Come see the show and buy a T-shirt if you like it. I would put out a nicely packaged merchandise piece, if you want to own a physical thing. And it would come out the day that it’s done in the studio, not this “Let’s wait three months” bullshit.