Nine Inch Nails have done something awesome. Again. Their new studio album titled Ghosts I-IV was released on March 2nd. It’s a 36 track album and completely instrumental. But you won’t find it in stores. The album is free from the clutches of evil record label contracts, and NIN have put it up for sale on their website.

There’s several different flavours to choose from:

1. You can download the first nine tracks completely for free, no credit card required, nothing, nada, zip.
2. There’s the $5 download only, in 320kbps LAME encoded MP3, or lossless (FLAC or ALAC).
3. There’s a double CD pack available for $10, which also includes a download link to hear the music straight away (320kbps MP3, FLAC or ALAC).
4. Then there’s the $75 deluxe edition package which includes the two audio CDs in a hardcover fabric slipcase, a multitrack DVD so you can remix to your heart’s content, and Blu-ray disc with HD audio and a slideshow.
5. Last but not least, and no longer available because they sold like hotcakes in the first few days, was the $300 ultra deluxe limited edition package which contained all sorts of goodies including the album on vinyl and Trent Reznor’s signature. There was 2500 of them available, and they’re all gone.

Now let me just say that I absolutely LOVE this method of music distribution. NIN have done everything right by offering their fans a choice in what they purchase, at whatever price point they can afford or choose to pay. In my opinion, this works better than Radiohead’s method of ‘pay what you think it’s worth’. Fans still feel like they have the choice, and don’t have to enter their credit card information to download the first nine tracks to decide if its worth their money. They can just go ahead and download them right off the bat. Nice.

The amount of fans trying to download the album initially crashed the web server. Trent Reznor kindly put a note on the Ghosts website asking everyone to be patient while they added more servers. I experienced page timeouts first hand as I tried to make my purchase. According to Trent, there were three times as much traffic as what he predicted. He also put the first nine tracks up on torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay. Now, how many artists can you list who would do that?

I went ahead and purchased the 2 CD pack this morning when the flood of downloaders wasn’t quite so bad. Keep in mind, it’s $10 US, but shipping to Australia cost about $15 (I suppose there’s always a catch). However, this still brings it to about the same price as most CDs in stores, and there’s 36 tracks on this one. That’s value for money. Plus, the way this album is being distributed means I’m actually willing to part with more cash.

Speaking of value for money, the album download also includes a bunch of wallpapers, icons and web graphics for your personal use. It also includes the cover art and booklet in PDF format. Not only that, but each track has it’s own album art, which is something cool to look at when it’s playing on your iPod. Trent has also included the BPM and timing information in each track. Now that’s attention to detail.

I’m not going to review the album as it’s something that has to be heard. But I will say that it’s classic NIN, layers upon layers of textured sounds, soft and dreamy piano and strings sequences, gritty industrial guitars, pulsing electronic beats and acoustic rhythms. It’s the NIN that I like the most. It takes you places. And I’m a huge fan of instrumentals. So, needless to say, I absolutely love the album.

I hope NIN continues to distribute their music this way, and I hope we see many other artists following suit in the years to come. It’s definitely a new era in music distribution. Record labels are losing their power and domination, slowly but surely. Times are a-changin’.