Came across this really interesting interview with Trent Reznor, the mastermind of Nine Inch Nails. It’s chock full of goodies. First, in a refreshing bout of honesty he calls file sharing stealing, but then admits that he does it too:

But on this record, I know people have it and I know it’s on everybody’s iPods, but the climate is such that people don’t buy it because it’s easier to steal it…. I understand that — I steal music too, I’m not gonna say I don’t. But it’s tough not to resent people for doing it when you’re the guy making the music, that would like to reap a benefit from that. On the other hand, you got record labels that are doing everything they can to piss people off and rip them off.

Next, he blasts his label because they were pricing his latest release, ‘Year Zero’, considerably higher than other releases:

[They said], basically it’s because we know you’ve got a core audience that’s gonna buy whatever we put out, so we can charge more for that. It’s the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy it. True fans will pay whatever”. And I just said “That’s the most insulting thing I’ve heard. I’ve garnered a core audience that you feel it’s OK to rip off? F— you’… They’re thieves. I don’t blame people for stealing music if this is the kind of s— that they pull off.

He also goes on to say that he came up with and funded out his own pocket, the online promotion for ‘Year Zero’, and now the record labels are playing it off as though it was their own idea.

He even mentions that this is his last album on his current contract with the label and that he’d like to release his own material through his website, which, by the way, I think would be a great idea. All it would take is one major artist like Reznor to do this, sell 200-300 thousand copies and the whole market would blow wide open when other artists realize that at those (relatively) smaller numbers they make 3-4 times as much as they currently do and they have total control.

Very interesting indeed! Check it out.

Full article here.

I don’t know how many of you have been following the whole ordeal regarding the RIAA wanting the Internet radio stations to pay royalties, but basically that has turned into a situation where if they go forward, most webcasters are going to have to close. That means, more than likely, no more Pandora or any other srevices like it, at least as we know them.

In these proceedings, the webcasters’ argument has been “Why are we different from regular radio?” And today, the LA Times is reporting that the RIAA has responded with “Good point! They should have to pay too!” Seems that suing grandma’s and children hasn’t given them as big of a revenue stream as they would like.

My take… Good for them. A part of me says that they should make the restrictions increasingly over the top. As they get further and further restrictive, it makes indie artists and Creative Commons music that much more attractive. This could make radio stations start paying more attention to free music and playing them along side the major acts. Either way this is just one more example of the fact that the music industry as a whole is in a serious period of upheaval and eventually the market is going to work its way out in the consumers favor.

For my inaugural post, I thought I’d begin by sharing one of the recent lists that Bogtrotter and I made recently. We come up with the topics and then debate them over e-mail for the weeks that follow. Geeky? Why yes it is, thanks for asking.

Also, we’re throwing up links to the songs on Rhapsody’s service. Mostly because that’s what he and I subscribe to. They’ve got a ridiculous amount of music and it’s a pretty good deal. Not quite as good as free, but as far as legal goes, not a bad deal. Although, as you can see from my post, not all songs are in their catalog.

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Hi everyone and welcome to the official Gigatracks blog. Here we are going to be tossing up articles and what-not that fall outside of the usual Gigatracks content. We’ll be bringing you music lists, news, reviews, rants, playlists, mix CD’s and any other assorted crap that we come up with. Basically, if it has to do with music, you’ll find it here.

So check us out often as we hope to be constantly adding new material for you to peruse and new opinions for you to disagree with. And don’t forget to drop us some comments and let us know what you think.