Sad Kermit Sings "Hurt"

Gander On!

NIN Free Agent, Steinbrenner Looks To Add Reznor.

According to their official web site NIN are now free from any recording contract. The statement on the site reads:

Hello everyone. I've waited a LONG time to be able to make the
following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally
free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have
been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the
business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very
different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a
direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.
Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008.
Exciting times, indeed.

So when you say free agent does that mean your taking offers fro other labels or did you just not want to use the term indie to describe your status. All jokes aside we're happy for Trent, he got the freedom he wanted now let's hope he can do justice to his fans with it. Gander On!

Reznor vs. Universal

Courtesy of Rolling Stone

The ongoing death of the CD has been discussed at length. There’s no shortage of directions to point the finger: iTunes, illegal file-sharing services, the lack of brick-and-mortar record stores, etc. But if you ask the Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, maybe the record industry should start blaming the record industry.
Reznor, long at odds with parent company Universal Music Group (UMG), has done his part to try to ensure that his newest album, Year Zero, would shift units. First, he shook up the conventional ways a CD is promoted by creating an internet-based alternative reality game that helped enhance the listener’s Year Zero experience. Then he changed the way the CD looks by employing a color-changing disc and implanting hidden messages in both the music and the liner notes. Now he’s criticizing the way his own label’s Australian division milks his hardcore audience. In an angry message posted on the official NIN website, Reznor says that despite all his efforts to reimagine the album release in a post-Napster era, his label is conspiring against his fans. Reznor recently found out that Year Zero sells for $34.99 in Australian dollars, or $29.10 U.S. By comparison, Avril Lavigne’s new album sells for $21.99 AU ($18.21 US). The reason, as a label rep told Reznor: “We know you have a real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when you put something out - you know, true fans. It’s the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy.” And the record industry wonders why album sales are slumping?

This brand of intentionally screwing the fans is just one root of a big tree of problems plaguing major labels. In another attempt to prevent his fans’ wallets from being exploited, Reznor has banished a planned European maxi-single for the song “Capital G,” opting instead to release a Year Zero remix album in the future. This way, the fervent U.S. fans won’t have to spend $30+ to import a two-song single that includes one new remix. Who would have guessed that Trent Reznor would emerge as the Ralph Nader of the music industry?
-- Daniel Kreps Gander On!