Nine Inch Nails declare freedom from record labels

Trent Reznor
Last week brought news of Radiohead's parting ways with the recording industry for its new album. Now another band has jumped the sinking ship.

In a post yesterday on the band's site, Nine Inch Nails' frontman Trent Reznor declared, "I've waited a long time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label."

Reznor seemed to promise something like Radiohead's direct-to-fans model of record sales:

I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate. Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008. Exciting times, indeed.

Nine Inch Nails Dumps Record Labels, Going Direct to Fans [Gizmodo]
[Flickr picture by jonklinger.]

Posted in: Music

Farhad Manjoo is a Salon staff writer covering technology and tech culture. He lives in San Francisco.

E-mail Farhad at
machinist@salon.com

About Machinist

Farhad’s new book, “True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society,” examines propaganda on the Web, cable news and talk radio.

» Order from Amazon

Subscribe

Machinist RSS Feed

Salon

Login to Salon Premium

Currently in Salon

What John McCain didn't learn in Vietnam
By Joe Conason
WayLay
By Carol Lay
In search of the holy grand
By Kevin Berger

Posts by date

July 2008
SuMoTuWeThFrSa
12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031