Trent Reznor Releases Latet NIN album as DRM-free Download

On May 5th, Trent Reznor, frontman for industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails posted a short message on his blog stating “This one’s on me,” and released the band’s latest album The Slip for free on their site.

The Slip is the band’s newest studio album, a followup to the four-part instrumental album Ghosts I-IV released in March, the first volume which he also released free on file sharing sites. The remaining portion was released in a variety of formats include low-cost digital downloads and inexpensive CDS, along with a higher cost deluxe edition.

He posted the album’s 10 tracks - which are available in a variety of audio formats accompanied by files containing the album’s artwork and credits - “as a thank you to our fans for your continued support.” CD and vinyl versions will go on sale in July. He also urged fans to share the album however they like:

We encourage you to remix it, share it with your friends, post it on your blog, play it on your podcast, give it to strangers, etc.”

Reznor has been an outspoken opponent of the traditional model for music distribution and NIN split from record label Interscope in late 2007:

I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.

As of this writing, there are 8759 Comments on the NIN blog about the download.