Crave

Still somewhere between perplexed and apoplectic after Apple had rejected the new Nine Inch Nails iPhone app update, the band's frontman, Trent Reznor, expressed himself very clearly on NIN's blog forum.

Neatly emphasizing his point with a quite liberal use of the kinds of words that Apple appears to find uncomfortable, Reznor compared Apple's attitude with that of, startlingly, Wal-Mart Stores:

"And while we're at it, I'll voice the same issue I had with Wal-Mart years ago, which is a matter of consistency and hypocrisy. Wal-Mart went on a rampage years ago insisting all music they carry be censored of all profanity and 'clean' versions be made for them to carry."

Seemingly not pausing for breath, he continued: "Bands (including Nirvana) tripped over themselves editing out words, changing album art, etc to meet Wal-Mart's standards of decency--because Wal-Mart sells a lot of records. NIN refused, and you'll notice a pretty empty NIN section at any Wal-Mart."

Trent Reznor would like to scream.

(Credit: CC Edvill/Flickr)

"My reasoning was this: I can understand if you want the moral posturing of not having any 'indecent' material for sale--but you could literally turn around 180 degrees from where the NIN record would be and purchase the film 'Scarface' completely uncensored, or buy a copy of Grand Theft Auto where you can be rewarded for beating up prostitutes. How does that make sense?"

He ends his message with: "Come on Apple, think your policies through and for f***'s sake get your app approval scenario together."

On his Twitter feed, Reznor also linked to a post from his developer:

"v1.0 is live. v1.0.3 got rejected due to content yet the app has no content in it. this was mainly a stability release to fix the bug that crashes the app for international users. the bug was fixed 24 hours after 1.0 went live and we have been waiting for apple to approve it ever since. meanwhile the app continues to get a growing number of 1 star ratings from international users understandably frustrated by the bug. but looks like our hands are tied."

The developer added: "Apple is not allowing us to make the current app more stable because there is "objectionable" content online (yes on the internet). so we are essentially not allowed to fixed bugs unrelated to the issue."

However, perhaps undercutting Reznor's apparent intransigence, the developer said: "We removed the song 'The Downward Spiral' from the server, hoping to appease apple and get this bug fix through. however i have yet to receive a reply."

I have a feeling a reply will be there shortly.

For a man who has been responsible for some of the more industrial lyrics in the music history, Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor has taken rejection by Apple with a relatively sanguine spirit.

On discovering that Apple has refused to approve NIN's latest iPhone app update, he tweeted: "Apple rejects the NIN iPhone update because it contains objectionable content. The objectionable content referenced is 'The Downward Spiral.'" ("The Downward Spiral" is a 1994 album that laces a touch of earthy nihilism into a musical screwdriver of heavy psychological meltdown.)

Reznor then added in a follow-up tweet: "Not even sure where to start with that one."

Well, he might like to start with the fact that the very same content, with lyrics on the track "Closer" that suggest the author would like to have rather rough, bestial intercourse with his lover, is still happily available for close scrutiny on iTunes. And, according to MG Siegler at TechCrunch, who is in possession of one, on the first version of the already approved NIN iPhone app.

It was just two months ago that Nine Inch Nails released its album Ghosts I-IV in multiple formats, from free nine-song download all the way up to a deluxe LP/CD/Blu-ray set. Today, the band started taking orders for free downloads of its next album, The Slip; like Radiohead did with In Rainbows, the band will subsequently release the album on CD and LP format.

The download era may see a return to the kind of prolific output we saw from The Beatles and other artists in the 1960s.

Everybody's interested in the business model--has free-then-fee already gotten old?--but when's the last time you saw a band release two albums in two months? Sure, Trent's interested in making a living, but he's also got lots to say and he wants you to hear it.

And over here in the other corner, we have Beck rumored to be following the Raconteurs and planning to "surprise" release his next album within the next four to six weeks--no advance copies to reviewers, no pre-release radio single, no preparatory wave of marketing hype. Across the pond, The Cure plans to release 13 singles over the next 13 months leading up to its next album release--and some of the B-sides won't appear on any albums.

This all sounds a lot like what the Beatles and other pop musicians and labels used to do in the 1960s--quick-release tons of music, mostly singles, and let the fans decide which sink or swim. Sure, there was a earload of marketing back then as well, but the ratio of hype to music was a lot lower. Perhaps the new model's going to be the same as the old model?

Radiohead made it official: the band won't be giving away music like it did with the album In Rainbows.

"I think it was a one-off response to a particular situation," the band's lead singer Thom Yorke told The Hollywood Reporter. "It was one of those things where we were in the position of everyone asking us what we were going to do. I don't think it would have the same significance now anyway, if we chose to give something away again. It was a moment in time."

Many music fans had hoped that the band's now famous pay-what-you-want promotion was an attempt by the group to discover a new way to sell music. Now it appears Radiohead at best was after publicity.

Radiohead has never revealed the promotion's sales figures but there was speculation that the money wasn't very good. Nine Inch Nails, led by Trent Reznor, followed Radiohead by offering the digital version of the album Ghosts I-IV for free as well as charging for premium versions. Reznor said last month that to that point the album had generated 781,917 transactions and $1.6 million.

Reznor was critical of Radiohead during an interview with The Chicago Tribune.

"I think the way (Radiohead) parlayed it into a marketing gimmick has certainly been shrewd," Reznor said. "But if you look at what they did, it was very much a bait and switch, to get you to pay for a MySpace quality stream as a way to promote a very traditional record sale."

It appears now that among marquee artists, no one is doing more to experiment with the Internet as a distribution channel or alternative music-business models than Reznor.

Nine Inch Nails' surprise release of Ghosts I-IV today in five differently priced formats is the perfect example of how recorded music can, should, and inevitably will be sold in a world where free has become the norm.

Would you pay $300 for this? Depends on how big a fan you are.

(Credit: Nine Inch Nails)

I suggested several business models for recorded music in my post the other day, which was a response to Chris Anderson's Wired article about "free" as the future of business. Ghosts employs at least two of them.

First and foremost, it's a great example of the "freemium" model, in which the hardcore NIN fans subsidize the cheaper offerings--the highest-priced $300 edition is personally signed by Trent Reznor and includes the regular CDs, a data DVD with the entire album in .wav files, a Blu-ray DVD with a high-definition (24-bit, 96kHz) version and slideshow, four vinyl LPs, and more.

Implicitly, NIN is also using the cross-subsidy model. All the offerings include non-DRM-protected data files, and some even include lossless files, which offer the same quality as a CD. Trent Reznor isn't dumb--he knows that somebody will post these files online within seconds of receiving them. In fact, the band has even posted the first nine tracks (the free MP3 versions) to several BitTorrent trackers. But he hopes that casual listeners or one-time fans who haven't checked out NIN's recent work will be sufficiently attracted by these free files to check the band out when it comes through town, and may eventually become big enough fans to pay for future releases.

It looks foolproof to me. NIN minimizes the risk of unsold physical inventory by taking advance orders, and with downloads, there's almost no incremental cost of distribution. The only potential problem would be if the band doesn't sell enough to cover the cost of recording the album, which seems unlikely. Any label lucky enough to have an artist with a devoted following and decent live show should be paying attention--although they might find that selling a two-CD set for $10 makes it hard to pay for the upkeep on those private jets.

Rocker Trent Reznor is angry with CNET News.com.

On Monday afternoon, the leader of the band Nine Inch Nails posted a blog at NIN.com and accused me of misquoting him in a question-and-answer interview titled: "Trent Reznor: Why won't people pay $5." He suggests in his post that he did not make statements supporting a music tax on ISPs that appeared in the January 10 article. He also implies that CNET had some kind of hidden agenda when he writes in his post that the story was "written before I was involved."

It's not uncommon for celebrities and politicians to accuse the press of misquoting them. Sometimes it's true. Not here.

Below is the recording of Reznor's comments in question.

Reznor gave me permission to tape the interview and the words in the story are as he said them. I've also included what was said immediately prior and following the comments about the ISP tax so you can hear the context in which he made them.

You'll notice that I didn't quote everything he said; that's common practice. (We spoke for an hour and the final transcription of the interview was more than 4,000 words long. Normally our stories are between 1,000 and 1,200 words. We wanted to give him as much room as possible to speak and made an exception by publishing his interview at more than 1,800 words, already longer than usual.)

Reznor is a fascinating interview. He is frank and always says something controversial. He certainly was in our interview. Click the button below and listen for yourself.

Musicians aren't merchants.

We certainly learned that through Radiohead and Trent Reznor's separate experiments with choose-your-price album promotions.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails

(Credit: Rob Sheridan)

In October, Reznor, the leader of the band Nine Inch Nails, and Radiohead attempted to promote and distribute albums online without the help of a major record label. Both offered fans the opportunity to obtain the music for free. Both saw some success.

But they also illustrated that the music business is probably better left in the hands of businessmen. Musicians are not the new labels. Artists need someone to provide financial support and business acumen. If we end up ridding the world of labels, we'll only have to re-create them--in some other, probably more nimble form.

Last week, I interviewed Reznor about the online promotion of rapper Saul William's album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust. In that interview, Reznor said he was disappointed that only 18 percent of the more than 150,000 people who downloaded the album paid for it. He and Williams offered two options: pay nothing or obtain a higher-quality audio version for $5.

By backing Williams with his money, name, and know-how, Reznor essentially thrust himself into the role of a music label. That is, a music label with a lot to learn. The first lesson was that you don't always back a winner. A music company's fortunes can often rest on its ability to discover superstars. Profits generated by a few marquee acts have always kept the companies going while all the other performers break even or lose money.

EMI said this week that only 5 percent of its acts are profitable. This kind of prospecting requires a huge investment.

Reznor said he didn't get involved with Williams to profit, but acknowledged that he spent too much making the album and said he hasn't yet recouped his money. A record company can afford to make bad bets once in a while, said Chris Castle, a music industry insider who has worked as a vice president for both Sony Music and A&M Records. Musicians, even successful ones like Reznor, probably can't.

... Read more

Saul Williams chuckles when asked about the word "disheartening."

Cover art for Saul Williams' new album

(Credit: Saul Willaims)

The public has the choice of obtaining the digital release for free or pay $5 for a higher quality download. Reznor, the artist behind the band Nine Inch Nails, ignited wide debate about the effectiveness of Radiohead-esque giveaways and the value of music when he revealed last week that 80 percent of those who downloaded the album were unwilling to pay.

Reznor said in an interview with CNET News.com on Thursday that while he was generally pleased with the response, he also expected a larger number of people would dig into their wallets to support good music.

Williams, in contrast, says he's isn't bothered by the numbers. He suggested that Reznor tends to worry too much and jokingly referred to him as the 'king of emo.' Williams said he is taking a longer view. He says it's too early in the album's economic lifespan--or in the search for new music business models--to call the promotion a bust.

In an interview on Wednesday with News.com, Williams revealed he is grateful for the opportunity to promote his music using groundbreaking techniques and also to technology for setting him free from the "constraints of race."

What do you think about what Trent said...and are the numbers accurate?
Williams: They were for that day and the thing is the numbers change every day. But yeah, they're accurate.

The public jumped on Trent's use of the word "disheartening." What do you make of it?
Williams: I'm actually extremely optimistic. The only thing that I really have kept in mind is that, one, we're two months into a project. An album is not like a film, so that like, 'Oh, we did it, two months and it's done, now it's going straight to DVD.' The marketing campaign starts this month with the premiere of our video of Sunday Bloody Sunday on MySpace, MTV and all the major networks.

The marketing campaign that we started begins this month as well. We start touring in March starting with South By Southwest and then move across the country and then on to Europe. So the album has gotten a great deal of writes up and had a huge response from people immediately. But that was all from just releasing the album. That was with, like Trent said, with no marketing, no press, nothing spawned from us. It was all people like yourself saying, 'Can I talk to you about this?' But we hadn't paid a publicist as of yet.

I think it's early in the game. I'm not disappointed at all. I think Trent's disappointment probably stems from being in the music business for over 20 years and remembering a time that was very different, when sales reflected something different, when there was no such thing as downloads. Trent is from another school. Even acts that prospered in the '90s, you look at people like the Fugees or Lauren Hill selling 18 million copies. That sort of thing is unheard of today. But Trent comes from that world. So I think his disappointed stems from being heavily invested in the past. For modern times, for modern numbers we're looking great, especially for being just two months into a project.

Experts have told me that the economic lifespan of an album can last as long as two years.
Williams: Exactly, the lifespan from my last album, from touring, which is really how I made my income and everything, lasted for two years. I didn't start touring with that album with Trent until 2005. It came out in 2004.

Wasn't the online promotion of NiggyTardust an experiment? You guys originally were just testing the waters?

Williams: It was certainly an experiment, but you know, life is an experiment. I know that the life of this album has a lot to do with how it feels and looks and how it comes off on stage. That's what this album was for: to set the stage for me to perform in the way I like to perform and maybe get more people at a show than I normally would.

That was your goal. You mentioned that the last time we talked.
Williams: Exactly, so, it is an experiment and I think it was an experiment going great. Imagine a couple trying to have a baby and two months into it the husband goes to the press and media says: 'My wife can't have children!' (He laughs). You should give it a year. I mean you're trying to have a baby.

Are you guys friends?
Williams: Trent and I? Yeah.

How did you meet?
Williams: We met on the road, when he asked me to tour with him. From there our bonding was immediate. We immediately clicked over dozens of things, which led us...maybe the first day, the first or second day we met, was when he asked me if I wanted to do an album with him.

So he liked your stuff?
Williams: I would be on stage and look to the side of the stage and see him in the corners of the wings dancing and I'd say, 'Oh s**t, he's really listening.' Every night, it never failed.

Do you think some of his disappointment might be because he really wants to see you do well?
Williams: Okay, don't get me wrong. I don't think Trent is as truly disappointed as he sounds in that blog. You got to think of him this way...listen to his music (he laughs). In my opinion, oh, he might not like this, but I think he's the king of emo.

Of course he's going to voice his disappointment. And with all that being said, we've talked a great deal since the blog, and all he said is that, 'I wish we had better numbers.' But really his whole purpose of releasing that statement was that we could avoid some of the pretentiousness of some of the other groups that have perhaps done something similar, like Radiohead keeping numbers to themselves and us wanting to say, 'Hey, look this is an open experiment that all artists should know.' I think that this information is essential for all artists trying to do what we're doing and figuring out whether this is something that will work.

All that really was about was to say, 'Look, yeah it is disappointing because the imagination is amazing.' We could imagine 4 million downloads all paid. Any of that is imaginable. And there is a great deal possible because like I said we're two months into this thing. The video, like oh my God. The amount of work that I just put into this video "Sunday Bloody Sunday" is more than I ever put into a f***ing film. It is so intense.

What did you learn about how the technology helped or hurt you?
Williams: Tech wise, I think people were really pleased with the different bit rates that we offered. You can see for yourself the number of people that chose FLAC and all that. We've heard rave reviews from people about getting what they got for the cheap price that we offered. To me the coolest thing with the downloads is the lyrics. I don't think most people realize that if you do download the album and put it in your iTunes and on your iPod, if you keep clicking that center button of your iPod while the album is playing, you'll eventually see the lyrics. You can read the lyrics for every song while you're listening. Little stuff like that made it really exciting for me.

What would you change about the promotion?
Williams: I don't really see what we've done in past tense yet. It's really been a short time. And I'm really pleased with where we are. As a poet who releases books, I'm really familiar with how things spread by word of mouth.

The lifespan of an album can be as long as two years or more. You look at something like The Beastie Boys' first album, which sells a million copies every year. It's nothing like a movie, so I think we're doing great. We're off to a running start. We still have a physical release date to look forward to. We still have touring to look forward to. We still have marketing and promotion that all starts this year, so I don't regret anything. Not yet.

Do you still believe in these online giveaways? Will you do this again?
Williams: I don't know. I think the online giveaway for our project was perfect. Cause you're dealing with myself, an artist not everyone has heard of and not everyone is going to necessarily try if they have to pay for it. Giving them the opportunity to get it for free from us I think was a really positive and intelligent choice on our part. Would I do it again? I have no idea.

What about the costs that Trent talked about? Tell me about the 'sample clearance fees' you guys had to pay?
Williams: Yeah, I used a major sample from (the rap group) Public Enemy for the song 'Trigger.' A sample can cost you about $10,000 or more.

He also mentions the bandwidth costs. Were those expensive?
Williams: I would say they are not. We had a special deal with Musicane (a company that helps performers distribute music online and oversaw the Web site, credit-card transactions as well as other back-end chores for Williams). They can add up, but the reason we went with Musicane is that they had the best bandwidth costs. In fact, we didn't have to pay for bandwidth. That was our deal.

Trent talked about how happy he is that your music is in more iPods than ever before.
Williams: To me that's the real deal. That's how I see it. And that's what leaves me not feeling disappointed because we all know that artists earn the most from touring. So it doesn't work against me giving it away free to so many listeners. The more people that are into it, the more people that say 'I got to see this live.'

Trent also said you guys couldn't find any traditional record deals that appealed to you.
Williams: Everybody seemed to be interested, but in my opinion nobody seemed to be a visionary. If you look around you, you don't see a lot of black alternative acts out there.

It's not because black alternative acts don't exist. It's because there's this belief in the marketplace that, 'Oh, who are they going to sell to? People in the hood won't like them and so-and-so won't like them' and there's big confusion about who we appeal to.

For an artist like myself, the sort of attention that I'm getting, and who is not sticking to my guns--all puns intended--I think it says a lot.

Can that be a tough sell?
Williams: I had people at Sony take me into the office and tell me, 'But that's not hip-hop. Your album isn't hip-hop.' To me that's what this is really about. By releasing it online and not dealing with the labels, it gave me an opportunity for once as an artist that I didn't have to compromise in the face of people who have limited ideas and conceptions about what it is to be black and make music.

And to me that's the role of technology. Technology is here to free us from the grip of history. That's why I'm thankful to the Internet. That's why I'm thankful to this form of (music) release. Because in many ways it set me free.

I've been in meetings with reps at labels and they walk me to their urban department. Literally I'm like, 'But I'm not making something limited to urban music,' and they're like, 'Yeah, but you're black.'

That's why I'm grateful to technology because it freed me from the constraints of race.

UPDATE (1-22-08) at 2:25 p.m.: More than a week after this story was published, Trent Reznor accused CNET News.com of misquoting him about the issue of a music tax on ISPs. We have posted an audio excerpt of the Reznor interview here. For the sake of full disclosure, we have also updated this story to include the text of what he said following his remarks about the ISP tax.

Very early in a discussion with Trent Reznor, the front man for the band Nine Inch Nails, it's obvious how highly he prizes his collaboration with musician Saul Williams on the album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust.

Reznor produced and helped bankroll the album, which debuted November 1. All the more reason why he was stunned when fewer than one in five people who downloaded the music were willing to pony up $5, roughly the cost of a McDonald's Quarter Pounder.

Saul Williams and Trent Reznor

(Credit: Atticus Ross)

Williams and Reznor were trying to follow the lead of Radiohead by distributing music online without the backing of a label. Like the British supergroup, Williams made the album available for free in one version but he also offered the option of buying a higher-quality digital download for $5. The promotions were groundbreaking and plenty of people predicted that a profitable outcome would convince many musicians to drop their labels and use the Internet to distribute their own artistic creations.

And then Reznor ended the hoopla last week when he reported on his blog that 154,449 people had downloaded NiggyTardust and 28,322 of them paid the $5 as of January 2. In the blog, Reznor suggested that he was "disheartened" by the results.

Now, in his first interview since releasing the sales data, Reznor on Wednesday talked about his rethinking of music in the digital age. (To see an interview with Williams, published Friday, click here: "Unlike Trent Reznor, Saul Williams isn't disheartened.")

Q: Trent, lots of fans were shocked and saddened by how disappointed you sounded with the sales results. Many piped up to tell you that the numbers may be misleading. Were the numbers that bad?
Reznor: I'm not disappointed with the numbers with Saul at all. I think, particularly looking at what he's done historically and in the climate of today's music scene, that's something to be proud of.

What disappointed me is that I had thought--and this is just based on how I experience music--given the opportunity (his voice trails off). Why do I end up stealing music? Usually because I can't get it easily somewhere else or the version I can get is an inferior one with DRM, perhaps, or I have to drive across town to get it to then put it on my computer or it's already out on the Internet and I can't pay for it yet.

If I think of it a month later walking through Amoeba (record store), hmm...do I want to just buy a piece of plastic and give most of the money to the record labels, who have to be thieves because my experience with them has always been that? And you have a lot of reasons why you didn't do it. So I thought if you take all those away and here's the record in as great a quality as you could ever want, it's available now and it's offered for an insulting low price, which I consider $5 to be, I thought that it would appeal to more people than it did. That's where my sense of disappointment is in general, that the idea was wrong in my head and for once I've given people too much credit.

Saul and I went at this thing with the right intentions. We wanted to put out the music that we believe in. We want to do it as unencumbered and as un-revenue-ad-generated and un-corporate-affiliated as possible. We wanted it without a string attached, without the hassle, without the bait and switch, or the "Now you can buy the s**** version if you buy..." No, no, we said: "Here it is. At the same time, it'd be nice if we can cover the costs and perhaps make a living doing it."

I'm not saying that this is a completely accurate test. Yes, there is a possibility that people downloaded it and the same people went back and downloaded it and paid for it and that can throw the numbers off. I get all that.

It kind of gets into the bigger picture that you've had to face as a musician over the last few years, which in my mind was a bitter pill to swallow, but it's pretty far down the hatch with me now: the way things are, I think music should be looked at as free. It basically is. The toothpaste is out of the tube and a whole generation of people is accustomed to music being that way. There's a perception that you don't pay for music when you hear it on the radio or MySpace.

There's a difficult transition in the mind of the musician and certainly in the mind of the record label. If that is the case, how does one adapt to that?

How are you going to adapt to that?
Reznor: For me, I choose the battles I can fight. In my mind, I think if there was an ISP tax of some sort, we can say to the consumer, "All music is now available and able to be downloaded and put in your car and put in your iPod and put up your a-- if you want, and it's $5 on your cable bill or ISP bill."

Someone asked me recently whether I've used 4-1-1 lately. I said 'Not really." They said do you know you're paying for that every month? 'I am?' Yeah, X-amount of your money goes to a service that you don't even use.'

Was everybody in the Williams camp happy that you disclosed the sales numbers?
Reznor: I didn't see the harm in not using this opportunity--and I'll name check Radiohead on this--they've done a pretty suave marketing plan on this new record.

I think generally it's been a pretty cool thing, but what they've done is used those (sales) numbers in a way that they can spin them anyway they want cause you don't know what they are. They can present themselves as the biggest band in the world. Someone leaks out a number of a million and someone says a number of visits and someone else says that must mean they made a million and someone else says the average price was $5 or $6 and that means they made $10 million.

I highly doubt that's what happened based on my own experience.

And I'm not saying that Radiohead and Saul Williams are in the same breath in terms of popularity by any means, but it felt to me like that, partially inspired by Radiohead, we tried this and here's the results we got and I assume there's a bunch of other bands that are intrigued by the idea that may want to follow down that path. I'm not saying it was a failure or a success. I think it was both. But it wasn't 90 percent of the people that showed up paid us what we asked for. Nor did I ever think it would be. I'm not sure what I did expect.

But I've found it entertaining reading different people's perspective on the Web, what they've thought of what I've said. There's been a wave of people that said, 'Oh, that's depressing. Only 18 percent chose to pay for it.' Another whole wave of people feel just the opposite. I don't really know. That was the point of it. I've heard people say, 'What was the point of that blog?' It was just to share information with you. It wasn't any kind of concrete analysis of anything.

I'm sure I didn't win any points with the aforementioned people by doing what I did. I questioned whether it was the right thing, but it felt morally like the right thing to do. I'm not ashamed of it. I find myself a bit defensive right now, like 'Did I f**k up? Should I not have said that?'

Talk about technology and your experience using the Web as a distribution method.
Reznor: When we started the idea, we liked the clean feel of the Radiohead experience. It didn't feel like we were a sidebar on the Snocap site. Somehow that kind of thing cheapened it in a sense for whatever reason. I'm not sure why. That's based on my own perception. I like the idea of feeling kind of homemade and simple. There is a beauty to the fact that everybody has got their own distribution network that is already set up. How simple and obvious to just do this. But the reality of that is building the infrastructure that has a store and accepts the right form of payment and fulfillment and all those boring kinds of things.

What did you learn from the experience?
If I could redo everything and start again, I think having a physical product is a good thing. I think that having some more coordination on our part--and I'll take the blame on that because there was an urgency to get this done and get it out that I was the ringleader for--I think if we could wave a magic wand and do it again I think being able to offer an inexpensive version in addition to a premium physical product that could be shipped out afterward.

On day one you can buy it online and it's also in the store. But the manufacturing (of CDs) is the leak (to file-sharing sites) for everything and the leak is important to get around. The leak blows momentum. It happens and it's going to happen on every release there is. It's a fact of life. But that leak happens once it leaves mastering and goes to manufacturing, if it hasn't by then, then it certainly does at that point. I like the energy of release day, the excitement of watching blogs light up and bulletin boards. I think that's an important spike in attention. And the only way I can see to accommodate a physical release if it goes to manufacturing after the thing is in the hands of people. But I do think there is a need for presence in physical retail.

Are you going to abandon this or will Nine Inch Nails offer a similar promotion as Williams?
If I had a record to put out today, I would do something very similar to what we just did cause I don't think there is a better option. I would include a physical piece as I just said and all of the components I would make sure had value.

Saul said he doesn't have any regrets about the way the album was released. He credits the Internet with setting him free from having to deal with the labels. Is this how you feel?
Reznor: I can't tell you how great it felt when Saul and I and his team said 'Let's do this. Let's go.'

There's not an army of people saying no for this reason. To feel in control of your own destiny for a change, that's an incredibly liberating feeling. Where it needs to be worked out and fine tuned is the right way to hopefully generate enough commerce from it to justify doing it and really working on the right way and right tone to get the word out to people that doesn't feel intrusive or old school.

But at the same time there is a little bit of an element with Saul's record of a tree falling in the woods...It hurt my feelings to see it not show up on everybody's Best Album Of The Year lists, because I think not enough people knew it was out there.

In a separate interview with Saul Williams, the rapper and spoken-word artist has a very different take on the sales performance of NiggyTardust than Reznor. That interview will appear on CNET News.com on Friday.