First Radiohead, now Nine Inch Nails bids adieu to music label
(CNN) Less than a month after calling executives at his music label an unprintable name, rocker Trent Reznor has signaled that his days of working for a record label are over. The only official member of the band Nine Inch Nails, Reznor announced Monday that the group is now a “free of any recording contract with any label.” Representatives from Reznor’s music label, Universal Music Group, were unavailable for comment. Reznor provided few details in a note on the band’s Web site about how the group plans to proceed, but his announcement raised hopes among fans that he will follow the lead of British band Radiohead, which last week announced it would handle sales and distribution for its upcoming album, In Rainbows without the backing of a label.
Mystech: In other news, RIAA lobbyist have been pushing Congress on a bill that would require all musicians to be registered with a special music committee governed by the Recording Industry before they could create, perform, distribute or sell musical works. RIAA executives claimed that the measure was the only way to keep the ears of Americans safe from the Terrorist Threat. š
Two well-known bands taking to the Internet to sell their own albums is not yet a trend, but it certainly must be a cause for concern in the halls of the four major music companies. The question raised by the defections is whether well-established performers need big music conglomerates in the digital age.
It costs relatively little to distribute songs over the Web. So why can’t bands do it themselves from their own Web sites?
Groups like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails already have established followings. So promoting their music may require little more than posting an announcement online (that is all Radiohead did to trigger enormous demand for In Rainbows).
Who needs middlemen?
Still, the groups are breaking ground and nobody knows whether they can pull it off. Radiohead is offering digital downloads for the upcoming album, which goes on sale Wednesday, and fans are required to pay whatever they want for the music. Is this a smart business move? Time will tell but a more important question may be whether musicians are willing to become merchants.
One thing is for sure: the numbers of performers dissatisfied with the current music-industry business model continues to grow.
Bands like Cheap Trick and the Allman Brothers have sued their record company, Sony BMG, because they say they aren’t getting their fair share of money from digital downloads. Eminem’s music publishing company has sued Apple because it wants to cut its own publishing deals with the online store, and not be represented by a record label during negotiations.
During a performance in Australia last month, Reznor expressed frustration with the high prices that labels charge for CDs.
“Steal it,” Reznor told the audience. “Steal away. Steal and steal, and steal some more and give it to all your friends.”
We’ll see if Reznor continues to feel the same when the buck (hopefully there’ll be more than one) stops with him.
The truth is, sales of the music has never been much of a moneymaker for the artists – they’ve always made a very small percentage of the sales of any album. They’ve always made most of their money off of touring and ticket sales at shows. At one point, record labels were necessary to promote artists and print the media that was used to distribute their music. That’s no longer necessary today, promotion can be done through the internet and out of the artist’s own pocket much cheaper than what the record labels charge, and if the artists are smart, they’ll realize that the paltry sum that they were making off of music sales isn’t going to help them much, and simply put all of their music out for free download – to advertise and drum up attendance for their real moneymakers – shows and ticket sales.
Artists need to start looking at the above business model, and realize that being part of organizations that sue their fans isn’t doing anything for them. I personally won’t buy any music made by an RIAA-affiliated artist because of it. If more fans started doing the same, the artists would jump ship when they realized that being part of the RIAA isn’t doing them any good.
I couldn’t agree more. The number I hear batted around amounted to something like 25 cents per album for a highly popular and successful artists while breaking bands or moderately successful artists could end up OWING the recording industry money.
A couple years ago, I said I’d buy (not lease, rent, or rights manage) non-DRM music directly from artists at a fair rate. Looks like I may get a chance to put my money where my ears are very soon. š
Me too. I’ll be buying both albums, but the artists will see the full price of the album, it won’t be going toward funding suing their fans.