Dear Mr. Reznor: Thanks for nothin'

I gotta say I don’t have a lot of love in my heart of hearts for NIN this particular minute. We (and by “we” I mean the group of people that work in the music industry that aren’t insane or blinded by money) have been working hard these last few years to teach consumers, those fickle little creatures, that the cost of music isn’t inherent to that little round piece of plastic it used to come on, but rather that it had an intrinsic value.

In one fell swoop on Monday, Mr. Reznor pooped all that hard work right out his ass by offering the latest crop of NIN recordings for free, no strings attached. On the one hand I say more power to him; it’s great that he has a revenue stream based upon mechanical royalties from previous recordings and touring that can provide him and his dependents with the means to pay the rent. God bless.

On the other hand, it tells the consumer, who really isn’t all that sharp when you get down to it, that we weren’t that serious when we said “hey, those plastic disks aren’t where the value is; rather, it rests in what’s stamped in to them.” The consumer isn’t that swift on the uptake, I’ll grant, but he has a good eye for bullshit when he sees it.

Now, I’m perfectly aware that all this is just pissing in the wind. Music itself may not have a desire to be free, but consumers sure do want it to be free. So this is really more of a vent than a question in and of itself. But let me posit the following, and I’ll leave it alone:

I’ve heard the demo tape that Mr. Reznor sent to Wax Trax! before he got signed to TVT. Wax Trax! passed on it. TVT heard something (which oddly went against their normal habit of not hearing anything) and sent Mr. Reznor off to England to hang out with John Fryer, Adrian Sherwood, and Keith LeBlanc, and then we get Pretty Hate Machine.

So, logically assuming that Mr. Reznor would not have his current fame without the success of Pretty Hate Machine, and logically assuming that he could not have afforded the services of the producers that worked on his first album without the financial backing of TVT, one is only left with the assumption that the free music world to which Mr. Reznor aspires precludes the creation of his catalog which supports this aspiration. I can’t come to any other conclusion, frankly.

(And to those that would take issue with the preceding paragraph, I direct you to the Tackhead album “Tackhead Tape Time,” wherein you will find the Adrian Sherwood/Keith LeBlanc track “Reality.” Other than Gary Clail’s robo-vocals, this is essentially “Down In It” instrumental, and pre-dates “Down In It” by three years. “Down In It” was, of course, the track that put NIN on the road to where they are now.)