
"I’ve
waited a LONG time to be able to make the
following announcement: as of right now Nine
Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any
recording contract with any label. 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. Look for some
announcements in the near future regarding 2008."
With no
major-label contract, Nine Inch Nails is more likely
to experiment with free downloads, using MP3s as
promotions and other tactics that the mainstream
industry has been avoiding. NIN’s move follows a
similar announcement from Radiohead.
While the
announcement is likely to generate a lot of this is
the end of mainstream music industry posts, the
labels don’t make their money from aging
singer-songwriters - they make their money from
young bands that make a splash before they have the
clout to get decent contracts.