Geek Force Utterz #066 - 405 Gigs of NIN

by E. Christopher Clark | Friday, January 9, 2009

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Trent Reznor never seemed to be a big fan of CDs. Whereas vinyl records had felt like art to him, CDs felt like cold, disposable product. At least that’s they way I understand it. He certainly did his best to make the full package of each of his releases unique and as artistic as possible, but I always kind of got the sense that he was disappointed with the form he’d been given to work with.

When Napster and iTunes happened, and the writing on the wall all began to say that digital distribution was the way of the future, I kind of figured that he might hate that too. He did hate it at the beginning, at least as far as I can remember. But, beginning with the thumb-drives used to “leak” songs from Year Zero, and with the ARG which accompanied those leaks, it seems as if Mr. Reznor has fully embraced the future of the music industry in ways that few of his peers—Radiohead being the sole big exception—seem ready to. He released Ghosts I-IV on his own, entirely through his Website. He gave away The Slip for free. And now, within the past few days, he has given his fans the biggest gift yet (at least in terms of sheer file size): 405 gigs of raw HD concert video.

You may recall that record company politics stood in the way of a full-scale video release documenting the latest Nine Inch Nails tour. Well, this is a reaction to that. And what a reaction it is. Put the production in the hands of the fans. Let them see what they can do. If that isn’t a guy who understands what the future is going to be all about—and what the present is already all about, really—then I don’t know who is.

Check out more of my thoughts on the subject in today’s episode of Geek Force Utterz. You can listen in via the embed above, or by visiting Utterli.com.