“…that most of the people that chose to download Saul’s record came from his or my own fan-base - is it good news that less than one in five feel it was worth $5? I’m not sure what I was expecting but that percentage - primarily from fans - seems disheartening.”
Pssh! I’m still one of those who believe digital is the way to go. And just because Saul didn’t make a huge payday, doesn’t mean anything for all digital music. They practically gave the album away (I did pay for it, btw). But I truly believe in the next year or two, we’ll see better examples on how to go about this. I think Trent even pointed out that it was “sort of” an experiment, see how this works out, which clearly it didn’t. But I think the point both Trent and Saul were out to make is that digital is the way to go, and how they weren’t too concerned about record sales as it was more about integrity and getting the music out there. But i’m sure better ways will be thought out on how releasing music digitally without the help of labels.
I would use neubauten as an example, but even their way was just insane. I couldn’t afford that, and still can’t. 60 or so to join, and that’s not even considering buying the albums you want (which are only exclusively sold to the supporters). Meh.
But I have faith in all of this label-free nonsense.
This is a duplicate of what i posted on the board over at AtEaseWeb (big Radiohead fan site):
Trent seemed a bit disheartened, but by his own admission ‘primarily fans of NIN or Saul’s were interested’ and Saul sold 33,000 of his last and effectively ‘sold’ 26,000 of this, with NO MARKETING. Another 125,000 roughly ‘heard’ it , and chose not to pay (myself amongst them). I chose not to pay up-front, having only heard his prior works and I don’t part with even $5 bucks that easy these days.
Still, I TOLD OTHER PEOPLE about it. (Marketing)
This is not a failure, it just needs to be considered that Saul’s last album was released in 2004, had 3 years to rack up some sales. Not to mention he’s NOW touring and should see some folks purchasing it post-tour date. At least one would hope anyway!
The one fallacy Trent is operating on is that ‘Niggy Tardust’ is HIS album. It’s not, he’s not co-credited as an artist on it (Producer can mean many things varying) and I would say Saul’s fan base isn’t a perfect cross-over for his own. Most of my friends that like NIN, never heard of Saul, and henceforth didn’t give a shit.
Give it 3 years and see if his numbers stack up to his last release by then. If nothing else he’s helped expose roughly 100,000 people to Saul’s work, and perhaps NEXT time they will pay.
In all ‘new’ things, there’s a risk of failure, and sometimes what works for some, doesn’t work for others.
trent actually sang some backup vox and supplied a great deal of beats/samples, instruments and other bits and pieces, i would imagine. he doesn’t say “this is MY album”, at least i never saw such statements.
as for fanbase crossover yes, i agree. i didn’t like the album at all although i rarely listen to nin these days.
they are also planning on probably releasing a physical version of it too. i mean, how else could they sell it, say, on tour dates along with other merchandise?
trent actually sang some backup vox and supplied a great deal of beats/samples, instruments and other bits and pieces, i would imagine. he doesn’t say “this is MY album”, at least i never saw such statements.
I’m aware of that, I actually read the credits, but I was referring to his tone on the nin site post. You can tell he’s trying to decide if it’s a viable method for the next NIN release.
My point is the album doesn’t say ‘Saul Williams & Trent Reznor’ or ‘Nine Inch Nails & Saul Williams’ etc. And since Saul’s fanbase is smaller than Trents, obviously he’ll have less interest generated.
If Saul still releases it on regular CD and sells 10,000 sales in the next 3 years, he’ll have still picked up more fanbase.
oh, that. i see what you mean. yea i got a feeling that it was an experiment for trying out a way to release “year zero part 2” too, some time after they started the whole thing.
It’s saul’s album through and through. When manson released his first two albums, did anyone say “that’s trent’s album”? No, they didn’t and he’s never said that. He produced this album, did some backing vocals and a good deal of the music. He’s been backing saul for awhile. Hell, they’ve just about traded off on each other’s releases just about.
It’s saul’s album through and through. When manson released his first two albums, did anyone say “that’s trent’s album”? No, they didn’t and he’s never said that. He produced this album, did some backing vocals and a good deal of the music. He’s been backing saul for awhile. Hell, they’ve just about traded off on each other’s releases just about.
I’m aware of that, I actually read the credits, but I was referring to his tone on the nin site post. You can tell he’s trying to decide if it’s a viable method for the next NIN release.
I guess I have to restate my point simpler:
No one knows who the fuck Saul Williams is.
He’s not in the same ‘league’ reknown wise as NIN. So watching Trent cry about the numbers isn’t exactly a great test study. He might have completely different results if he had released a NIN record instead following the same model.
I think it’ll be interesting to see what Saul’s next record sells assuming that it is released on cd. You had 4-5k less people pay for this album in just a few months of it’s release than you had pay for his last album over the years. thats not bad if you ask me. Over 100k people on top of that downloaded it for free and were exposed to this album (a ton of them who wouldn’t have bothered with it otherwise). So who knows, his sales for his next cd could greatly increase due to this experiment. it is way too early to call this a failure.
but is trent arrogant enough to really think that tens of thousands more people were going to pay for this record just because he produced it? what is the last album reznor produced that actually sold as well as he expected? even his own albums barely go gold now when they used to sell 4 million.
He’s not in the same ‘league’ reknown wise as NIN. So watching Trent cry about the numbers isn’t exactly a great test study. He might have completely different results if he had released a NIN record instead following the same model.
Completely agreed. But, unfortunately, Trent owes part of his success to be able to do that, to the major record labels he’s fighting now.
It’s such a dismal situation because there has to be some reliance on record labels. I mean, say tomorrow, a very band unknown to some release their album. If and when we hear it, without promotion, music videos, connections that the record industry has, their music will never get out. Yes, there is the Myspace and stuff, however, you have to get people to come to you. It’s basically marketing and money is needed for that. Though bands like Interpol slaved for years on tour and relied on college radio and word of mouth - that seemed to have worked for them somewhat so maybe I’m partially wrong. I hope so.
I wonder how much it cost to make? (Tardust), because even if it sold 26,000 copies, thats still $130K, with none going to labels or whatever… and a portion to trent presumably… thats still a nice bit of dough IMO.
releasing on the internet without requiring for the customer to pay any money is a bit of an extreme method of distribution and as such is bound to be a bit of a hit or miss affair. i think the world is more than ready to forego physical distribution method today in favor of methods such as itunes or emusic; however, Trent’s method goes further than that and indeed might have been a bit of a mistake. as has been said before, it is interesting what the result would be if the album released online was a NIN record and not a Saul Williams one.
Either way, while perhaps not necessarily a monetary success, I still consider Trent’s attempts at challenging current methods of distribution a success in terms of making a point about how outdated the current system is.
well, without sounding like a back-peddler here, I think that if Trent chooses to NOT do physical product, he may hurt his own sales some as well. There are still folks amongst his fans who collect ‘Halo’ release numbers.
Other than that, I see no reason for him not to give it a try, but he’ll have to market it fairly aggressive.
Depends on how you define “hurt”. Saul sold 28,000 downloads of his album, which resulted in 100,000 profit. If the labels were still involved, he wouldn’t be making anywhere near that. And if NIN were to release an album with the same exact method he’d still come up on top financially. You don’t have the bullshit royalties of making a dollar per unit, as instead you’re making five bucks per unit. the new NIN will probably not sell as well as the physical ones, but it’s not going to hurt anyone’s pockets. I mean hell, if I released an album and sold at least 1000, i’d consider that a success even, but that’s just me.
You don’t just go independent, minus all the promotion the labels provided and expect everything to be exactly the same: that’s just naive. But he has proven that he could easily continue making a living and profit with this method, even if the new nin were to sell 28,000-30k as well. Still making more than he probably would have if he were still signed to interscope.
