Nine Inch Nails is back at it again by throwing more free music towards the masses with its latest album entitled "the slip." This time around the free download is working a bit different — the band isn't even allowing for donations.
The album can be found over at NIN's Web site. It was only two months ago when NIN released an instrumental album online with a unique pay structure, with a $US5 fee for the standard 36-track album being the most popular choice. Now NIN frontman, Trent Reznor, just wants his music to be heard as there's no options for payments or donations.
The new album can be downloaded in a few different formats including high-quality MP3, the CD-quality FLAC lossless, M4A Apple lossless and the high definition WAVE 24/96 for very high-end audio equipment. The MP3 options comes as a direct download from the NIN site, but the other three options come as torrents that can be downloaded using client software BitTorrent, uTorrent, and Vuze. This was likely done for the sanity of the NIN's servers, which took a big hit with the previous online album release.
Radiohead may have been the first to try out this current generation online music distribution model, but if anything, NIN has perfected it with multiple album releases and enough positive PR to make Enron jealous. The rest of the music industry is taking notice as well as Metallica, one of the biggest online music distribution naysayers is even considering the model.
If anything is left to say it's thank you to Trent Reznor and NIN. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a new CD to give a thorough listening to.
