Vinyl + Digital? Will it work?

So I know this is 4 days late, but I want to write about it, and also get some feedback to see what everyone thinks. As we all know by now, or most of us, Elvis Costello is giving the CD a no-go for his upcoming release "Momofuku", which releases next month, April 22nd.



Instead of the traditional ways of releasing a CD, Costello is releasing the album in the form of vinyl, and with that vinyl purchase you receive a digital download password of some sort. Should this work? I don't know, however I'm very curious to see how this plays out, especially since he's going to be on tour opening for The Police to promote this new album.

Again, it's an innovative way to keep selling music. I know I'll be buying one of these records, hopefully he'll look all goofy like he did 30 years ago with those pop bottle glasses on, dancing like the other Elvis. It will go perfect over the fireplace.

Trent Reznor Part 2!

So, it's been a little over 3 weeks, and the reports are in, Trent Reznor made 1.6 million dollars in 7 days through his genius idea of selling the new NIN album in 5 different formats, one of them even being free!!

I've been having conversations lately with artists about this release, trying to hear what their thoughts are and what they think about it. Being that we we're at SXSW this past week (more to come about that), we got some really interesting reactions from artists, independent labels, etc. The majority of artists reactions were that Trent Reznor has spent millions of major label dollars to get NIN to the size it is today, and without having the infratstructure of a fanbase that size, it's not so easy to have sales the way he has. I agree 100% with those reactions, however I also feel if your music is grabbing the attention of people, then those listeners become fans, the minute you build a fanbase is when those fans (not all) will want to support you. Bottom line, Trent Reznor got really creative with this latest release and I applaud him for that.



To all of the artists reading this, it's all about innovation. One of our favorite artists on the site, Jaws Attacks, who is lead by frontman Carter Benson (former Mad Caddies), released a album through Indistr.com last spring for an exclusive amount of time, offering free admission to his shows in California for anyone who showed up with their Indistr receipt from the purchase of the album. I can't publicly share the amount of albums he sold, however it was more than you'd expect. The creative ways of getting fans to consume your music and purchase it, are endless. Get Creative! Stay Creative! You're artists!

How does Indistr work?

So when we saw our friend, Josh Finck's previous video work, we knew we wanted him to break-down the Indistr process to the general public. I asked him if he'd mind making a "stripped down" version of how Indistr works, and he said, "no problem". Here's the end result, which we ended up using last month at the local WYCE 88.1 FM Jammie Awards. Thanks Josh! Off to SXSW!

How to make $750,000 overnight! Trent Reznor's a genius!

Ok, so I'm a bit late on this, actually I'M not a bit late on it, just this post is a bit late. I've been wired to my computer over this release for the last 2 weeks. Trent Reznor has done it again, after the digital-only release of the Saul Williams album, "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust", Trent Reznor has come swinging at the forefront of the music industry releasing a new NIN album. Saul's album was released a few months ago with 2 options for the fans, they can either download it for free, or they can download it for $5, which is a higher quality MP3 file. After a few weeks, Saul had sold 28,322 copies for $5. That's $141,610, which is not bad for a donate-able $5 MP3.



I'm not even a NIN fan, but I respect them, and more importantly, I respect what Trent Reznor is currently up-to in the music industry. So with this new NIN album,"ghosts", the fans can purchase it five different ways, they can download it for free (they only receive the first 5 tracks), or pay $5 for a full-length, high-quality MP3 download, or pay $10 for a double-disk set, or pay $75 for a deluxe-edition package (comes with a DVD, Blu-ray, hard cover slipcase, etc), or if you were really early, you could've bought the $300 Ultra-deluxe limited addition package, which is now sold out, but came autographed with a bunch of goodies.

The thing that strikes my attention and interest to this release is because it's stirring up the industry, the labels, the fans, the critics, which I think is great, because it's new to everybody. It's just like when Radiohead freaked everyone out last fall.

However, I think the best part about the release of "ghosts" is that Trent Reznor does a very fair job of releasing this album by leaving multiple options to the fans in the way they'd like to purchase/not-purchase it. Why not? It's 2008, the music industry is still not figured out, and Trent Reznor is (in my opinion) the leader at current innovation to the music industry. I think more artists need to start taking notes from him, especially artists that have left major labels.

Hey Trent, how about you let your fans decide how much your music is worth on the next album by giving them a "Name Your Own Price" option? There is a site that offers it for independent artists already, it's called INDISTR!