For those that don't closely follow news of the music industry, you might be surprised to hear that the industry as you know it - as it has been since the very first record was sold to a consumer - is in its death throes. Traditionally, artists have recorded their music in a recording studio, and then gone on tour to promote the new record. The music label retains ownership of the music, makes and sells the record, and then takes the lion's share of the profits. Sure, the phrase 'live like a rock star' has come to mean insane amounts of money, but if you think the musicians get paid a lot, keep in mind that they're living off of a percentage of what their label has made. Traditionally, musicians have been employees of their label, a relationship which - thanks to the internet - is undergoing a massive and increasingly radical overhaul. There has been a lot written about the quickly evolving situation (much of it a hell of a lot more detailed and better written than you'll find on my blog), but the new leaders of the growing group of musicians who are free from music label meddling is undoubtedly industrial/grunge icon Nine Inch Nails.

The music that NIN puts out isn't very mainstream - in fact, many would quickly categorize their music as 'noise' on first hearing.  Indeed, their most mainstream hit to date, Closer, is a pretty intense experiment in thumping bass, vibrating squelch and graphic lyrics (the video is even more fucked up).  But like them or not, their founder and only permanent member, Trent Reznor, is considered a visionary, both in the music he makes and his contributions to the marketing, technology and business models that the industry is driven by.

It's no surprise then, that as soon as he posted this on his website:

He began work on Ghosts I-IV, a staggering 2.5 hours of new music that he is offering in several packages: 9 songs for free; 36 songs for $5; 2 CDs for $10; 2 CDs and 1 Blu-ray DVD in a fancy case for $75; and a limited edition package with everything, signed by Reznor for $300 (which sold out almost immediately).  This is great - it's the future of the music industry.  It gives the fans what they want in a variety of options (and no fucking around with the failed DRM restrictions that the music industry disastrously tried to impose), and cuts out the middle man so you know that your money is going to the artist, not some fat cat music executive who drives a BMW.

To be honest, I'm not a huge NIN fan, but I downloaded the free 9 songs and wasn't disappointed.  If I had a credit card (I was bad with my first credit card and don't have one now, something I don't recommend) I would definitely throw $5 at Reznor for the 36 songs.  Apparently, a lot of people agree: this article is saying that one week after the album went live, Reznor had made a cool $1.6 million.  The inevitable death of the RIAA won't be easy and there will likely be some pretty shaky years and pissed off musicians, but Reznor has jumped several years ahead of the game to give us a business model we can believe in.  Good for him.