Trent Reznor's coming clean about the limited success he and Saul Williams with their online-distribution experiment.

Only 18.3 percent of downloaders who hooked themselves up with Williams' latest effort, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust chose to pay for it, Reznor revealed on his website. In a method similar to Radiohead's name-your-price model for distributing In Rainbows, Williams' Reznor-produced sophomore effort was available online. Fans could either opt for a free download or pay $5 for a high-quality version.

Where Radiohead still suppresses the data behind its In Rainbows distribution model, Reznor's offering a look into the bottom line of Williams' digital distribution experiment. After a couple months online, the album was downloaded 154,449 times; 28,322 of those opted to pay for it.

Reznor was a little less than enthusiastic about the results of the experiment.

"I thought if you offered the whole record free at reasonable quality -- no strings attached -- and offered a hassle free way to show support that clearly goes straight to the artists who made it at an unquestionably low price people would 'do the right thing,'" he wrote. "I know, I know."

A couple factors probably played into the somewhat disappointing results. Most obviously, many music fans are motivated by the same greed and self-interest they've so condemned in record companies (no surprises there). There's also the chance that, after sampling Niggy Tardust, some listeners weren't too impressed, deleted it off their hard-drive and didn't give a second thought about paying for it.

Whether the self-interest or quality-control explanation proves more significant in Williams' relatively modest financial gains hasn't been revealed, though Reznor hopes he and Williams' transparency in the matter provides other artists some ammunition in crafting their own models for self-released digital albums.

"Perhaps by revealing of all our data - our dirty laundry - we can contribute to a better solution," he wrote.

aversion.com

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Well, it was no Goodburger.

I don't know if I just imagined this, but I think this might have been posted already?

Edit: yep, must have imagined it. This must be one of the very few occasions where I've read something elsewhere before KR.

28,322 x $5 doesn't seem that bad, especially with pretty low overheads. I wonder how the money Saul will actually see from this compares to his previous s/t album? And, despite Reznor's endorsement, he's always going to be a niche artist.

I doubt many people download the album for free then go back and pay for it when they like it. But how many people will buy something else he's put out or go see him live off the back of this? I know I do this when I download something I like. It would have been smart for Saul to tour off the back of this.

Plus there wasn't much media coverage of this and I'm sure most people checked it out through word-of-mouth and messageboards and the like. I would have missed it if it hadn't been posted here.

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His last request was a bulletproof vest or a god

I heard that Trent Reznor was releasing something Radiohead-style from a friend, but I didn't realize it had already been put out.
Has anyone heard it? If so, how was it?

Wait. Was it Saul Williams & Trent Reznor or was Reznor just endorsing Saul Williams' album?