Nine Inch Nails released a new instrumental double album last night.
Yeah, just like that. One minute their website had tour dates and the next it displayed a link to download this new album for five dollars.
Nobody really cares too much about instrumental albums, true, but the fact still stands: Nine Inch Nails, previously notorious for taking as many as six constipated years between releases, just dropped two hours of new music in the same way other bands might announce a new t-shirt design.
The internet has destroyed the traditional model of releasing new music.
It used to be so simple. A band would go in the studio, record a bunch of songs, and submit the cream of the crop to the record label, who would then package the album and release it to the public, sometimes after a lead single with accompanying video had been serviced to radio stations. Once the band had toured awhile and as much money had been squeezed out of the album as deemed possible, the band would start writing new material and the process would begin anew.
Not all bands in all genres followed this model, of course, but the point is new music was generally released every couple of years, with no small amount of accompanying fanfare and money burned. Each album took great financial investment. Each album was The Next One from the band that brought you The Last One.
Then along came the internet.
When Radiohead announced last fall that--surprise!--the new album was done and would be downloadable in a couple days I felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under me. What, no slow build-up of promotion and teasers? No lead in single, no video? No Tuesday lunch trip to Best buy on release day to hold the plastic jewelcase in my hands and study the track listing as I waited in line at the register? Does this album even count?
Hell yes it did. Not only did Radiohead release the album of the year, but by distributing it online they guaranteed that everyone would hear it.
And now Nine Inch Nails. Trent's been hinting about this for awhile, of course, and the Saul Williams disc was a dress rehearsal of sorts, but last night he did it, just like that.
"I've got a new album you had no idea I was working on and here it is."
A sudden instrumental double album (or, more appropriately, a quadruple-E.P.). Written over a tumultuous ten weeks and released without any of the surrounding fanfare and baggage, with hint of more on the horizon.
Can he do that? Does it even count?
The dying questions of an obsolete mindset.
Just like that.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
The Ebb and Flow of Employment
I am employed as a Quality Assurance Engineer. Validating systems in high-pressure release cycles is what I do.
On a good day.
My boss recently stopped by my office and asked if I had time. I minimized the paperwork I was reviewing and exclaimed, "Yes, I do!"
He asked me to label two cluster racks in the basement to mark them as "in use" for a certain project.
"I am on it RIGHT THIS SECOND," I told him as I stood, grabbing some labels and a Sharpie.
I strode downstairs with deliberate purpose and labeled the two racks, careful to keep my writing decisive and legible. I double-checked my work, and triple-checked that I had applied the labels to the correct racks.
I walked back upstairs and found my boss. "I TOTALLY LABELED those two cluster racks!"
He laughed and said, "Well that's good."
"Let me know if you've got any more LABELING NEEDS!"
"I will, thanks," he said.
"Or ANY other work at all!"
"Okay," he said.
I walked back to my cube and sat down.
I'm looking forward to the next high-pressure release cycle.
On a good day.
My boss recently stopped by my office and asked if I had time. I minimized the paperwork I was reviewing and exclaimed, "Yes, I do!"
He asked me to label two cluster racks in the basement to mark them as "in use" for a certain project.
"I am on it RIGHT THIS SECOND," I told him as I stood, grabbing some labels and a Sharpie.
I strode downstairs with deliberate purpose and labeled the two racks, careful to keep my writing decisive and legible. I double-checked my work, and triple-checked that I had applied the labels to the correct racks.
I walked back upstairs and found my boss. "I TOTALLY LABELED those two cluster racks!"
He laughed and said, "Well that's good."
"Let me know if you've got any more LABELING NEEDS!"
"I will, thanks," he said.
"Or ANY other work at all!"
"Okay," he said.
I walked back to my cube and sat down.
I'm looking forward to the next high-pressure release cycle.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Something Old, Something New
Six years ago I created a LiveJournal to chronicle all the ways in which I am a moron. It was intended to be a sounding board for the various ridiculous thoughts that filtered through my brain on a daily basis, dressed up and packaged as entertaining reads. This was eventually broadened to encompass anything humorous that transpired in my life that merited retelling.
I documented a weekend's worth of elevator stories. I documented a farting man with a tiny erection at my gym. I documented accidentally brushing my teeth with the cat vomit brush. And, in what some would consider to be that journal's crowning moment, I documented the time I plugged up a date's toilet with no plunger in sight.
Enough.
Stories of the awkward and humiliating moments in my life only take things so far. They still happen and they will continue to be written about but I have other things to say now.
Broadening the scope of my existing LiveJournal to encompass these new topics didn't seem appropriate. It was created by a different version of me in a different place in his life with different goals and interests; suddenly shoving in political essays between the vulgar bathroom stories hardly seemed appropriate. Additionally, I grew tired of the LiveJournal format itself, as I increasingly felt I was trying to shoehorn a would-be humor column into a public diary.
Enough.
It is time to write about everything in a place where people aren't almost exclusively writing about nothing.
This is, of course, pretty self-serious talk from a guy who still can't resist a good dick joke.
I documented a weekend's worth of elevator stories. I documented a farting man with a tiny erection at my gym. I documented accidentally brushing my teeth with the cat vomit brush. And, in what some would consider to be that journal's crowning moment, I documented the time I plugged up a date's toilet with no plunger in sight.
Enough.
Stories of the awkward and humiliating moments in my life only take things so far. They still happen and they will continue to be written about but I have other things to say now.
Broadening the scope of my existing LiveJournal to encompass these new topics didn't seem appropriate. It was created by a different version of me in a different place in his life with different goals and interests; suddenly shoving in political essays between the vulgar bathroom stories hardly seemed appropriate. Additionally, I grew tired of the LiveJournal format itself, as I increasingly felt I was trying to shoehorn a would-be humor column into a public diary.
Enough.
It is time to write about everything in a place where people aren't almost exclusively writing about nothing.
This is, of course, pretty self-serious talk from a guy who still can't resist a good dick joke.
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