Trent Reznor Speaks Out Against Price Of New Album - Page 3

Black Mambo · #11 05-16-2007, 06:05 AM

Man, this takes me back a wee while! I remember going into HMV in about, I dunno, 2001/2002, with the specific intention of buying The Downward Spiral and The Fragile, and then walking the damn hell out of there on seeing that they were both going for about £18+ a pop. I'd only entertain paying that much for an import. At this point, I had no internet and so no handy option like amazon to check out. I don't know what it is about NIN, but even with TVT/Nothing their albums have been outrageously overpriced, at least in record stores. Had I wanted to buy those albums when they were intitally released and charting, I wouldn't have paid more than, I reckon, £14 in today's terms. Thereafter, the prices are just stupid.

Of course, it's easy peasy to get these things cheap on the web now, but why should a person who prefers to frequent an actual tangible record store be penalised that much? I can understand a quid or two for overheads (not that amazon doesn't have overheads, presumably lesser) but to charge £18 for a CD where most others in the same store kick around the £12-14 mark is just ridiculous. And yeah, it's pretty easy to get a CD here from a supermarket for £9.99 but you've got to catch it when it's charting or else you're doomed to pay stupid prices to HMV/Virgin and their like. Even the independent record stores round this way, on the few occasions that I checked, didn't have NIN albums particularly well priced. I wish I could say it's purely a record store thing, and I suppose some of it is, but I'm sure a lot of it is also down to the record company, like he says.

Idk. I'm just really glad the man actually noticed.

sugarshot · #12 05-16-2007, 06:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LibbyJ

Perhaps Trent just has his cranky pants on:

ROCK REVIEW
NINE INCH NAILS
The Metro, city, May 13

It was all going so well. At the first of three nights at the Metro on Sunday, Trent Reznor and band were in searing form, tearing through the catalogue of his musical alter-ego Nine Inch Nails.

Indeed, almost everything on Sunday night (except for the Metro's bar prices) felt like a throwback to those halcyon days of 1995. Reznor's black-clad devotees even endeavoured to dress as such. The highlight of a crowd that prided itself on presentation: a petite, dreadlocked woman with a T-shirt administering the most sanguine of messages: "I Love Gay Porn."

Guitarist Twiggy - who used to play with another 1990s vestige, Marilyn Manson - even indulged in that most 1990s of concert activities, stage-diving, during a frenzied guitar solo early in the show.

This week's shows mark Reznor's fourth visit to Melbourne. His latest album, Year Zero, is a concept album that basically re-imagines the US as a police state 15 years in the future. It's an overwhelmingly paranoid and cynical stab at political and social commentary.

Although the excitable crowd were clearly craving material from Reznor's unsurpassed career highlight, the 1994 album The Downward Spiral, the new songs sounded excellent. There's the strangely hypnotic single Survivalism, The Beginning Of The End (which boasts an intro eerily reminiscent of My Sharona) and the almost catchy Capital G.

Midway through the show, the tide slightly turned. When a device with a keyboard and a laptop joined together was rolled on stage, "technical issues" lent an eight-minute pause to the show.

Reznor apologised, in his own way, blaming computer issues. Clearly agitated, he pressed on. The evening's most compelling moment should have been Reznor alone behind a keyboard playing his aching torch song, Hurt. Yet after a punter audibly inquired about Reznor's post-show activities midway through the intensely personal track, Reznor abruptly stopped playing.

"Am I supposed to pretend I can't hear an arsehole yelling at me?" he sneered. "Let's move on," he said, to a chorus of boos, as he terminated the track and lurched into The Hand That Feeds.

As that song ended, he slung his guitar in disgust, skulked off stage and the house lights immediately came on. There was clearly no encore (and therefore no hits such as Head Like A Hole, Perfect Drug, or career highpoint Closer).

Bemused fans mulled about for a time, patently confounded by Reznor's show-closing tantrum. The outburst was particularly disappointing considering that this was the first of three shows and his most fervent followers in Melbourne would have been in attendance. And it was going so well . . .

Nine Inch Nails play their final Melbourne show tonight. Tickets still available.

Anyone go????

He's 'postponed' all his aust dates, i heard on the radio today. god i find him to be such a tool