Ghostly Innovation

We must face it is weird having the privilege to see someone being innovative in the music field. I mean: not even the good ones do try to do something ‘different’. Take the retro artists for instance; they just have a new sound, with a mixture of new flavors added to it, but nothing like you can call new.

It seems a pattern in the good artists to go for a sort of exile to refresh their minds, and then get back with a brand new thing to do. I’ve said pretty much before that new models of distribution and marketing seem to be emerging as the recording field that we grew up with deprecates more and more. Even the labels themselves realize the need of reengineering the business…

I mentioned before that names like Prince, Radiohead, Limp Bizkit, and some others in the battlefield to redefine who’s in control when it comes to creative business, specially when speaking about music. And I also mentioned that Trent Reznor did finish his long time partnership contract with his music label, promising new ventures to come in his creative field.

Well, this post is about it: meet “Ghosts”. It has everything you need to look at to call this a genius work. You want innovation and experimentation? Ok, the album is about 36 tracks that include many moods, without the need of a voice. Isn’t that enough? Ok wait: then look at the distribution plan: you can have 3 versions of the package: buy them via the web, they offer a free version of the 9 first tracks, a $5.00 for all the tracks downloaded, by the double of it you get the 2 CD’s physical package, and there was another one but it’s sold out of an deluxe edition. In the downloadable version, you also get a pdf with the album’s art concept, as well as wallpapers and goodies like that. Still want innovation?

Well, Trent is determined to do even more by opening a channel in You Tube where people can make alternative versions to all of his tracks. Copyright problems? No! The album is licensed under Creative Commons license, so you can use it as long as you credit them and don’t make business from it be cause the guy owns that right. Cool isn’t it? This is innovation. Check this example:



The possibilities of creating in this new frame are endless. And by the way, as if that wasn’t innovative enough… wanna hear the album? Did you ever notice the graphic on the top is not a graphic but the whole album in a Flash component that am able to share without going to jail?

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