[NewMusic] More on drm-free mp3 releases

[Matt Davignon]

Just found out about this today. Apparently Nine Inch Nails has been
working on a 4-lp-length album called "Ghosts I-IV", and it's out now.
36 instrumental-only tracks. It's available in a variety of ways, but
one of the easiest/cheapest is $5 on Amazon mp3 downloads.

I downloaded it, and poked around a few tracks. I'd say this is the
most growth that NIN has shown, probably since their heyday. The
instrumentalness has allowed for some explorations of subtlety. The
"rocker" songs are the ones that sound the most dated to me, but there
are probably enough 'pretty' tracks to make a single album. Adrian
Belew's involved too.

No-vocals - I think that's the key word here. Without lyrics, the
band's identity is very different. If someone told me this was the new
Radian album, I'd probably believe it for a large chunk of the tracks.
Somewhere between Radian, 2002-era glitch, instrumental tracks from
the last NIN album, and early 80s John Carpenter movie soundtrack.

Folks who are weird music purists will probably be disappointed, but I
grew up on Nine Inch Nails.

Matt