God Bless Trent Reznor

God bless Trent Reznor. Now those are words I never envisioned myself saying. Nine Inch Nails were never my cup of tea but I now find myself a big-time fan of Mr. Reznor, as some of the pull-quotes from his upcoming SPIN interview are reverberating across the web.

In case you missed it, the undeniable highlight, headline and attention grabber was “It’s worth ten bucks or go fuck yourself.” Reznor was defending his decision to go back to a major label for the upcoming NIN release, after releasing the band’s previous album online for a buck. Reznor goes on to say, “I’m not super-comfortable with the idea of Ziggy Stardust shaking his cup for scraps." As a kid coming of age with the album Ziggy Stardust, this line REALLY resonated for me.

The elephant in the room, of course, is what is the true monetary value of music? Growing up, you could pick up 45s for under a buck and a new album for about $6. Not only did I not complain about those prices, I dutifully saved up my money for the express purpose of buying one of those suckers, and then laid about my room with friends listening to it non-stop for days on end, studying the album cover as if searching for clues.

Well. Those days are gone. Those pastimes, too. All of ‘em. A perfect storm of technology, hackers and self-entitlement have forever changed the music industry, artists, and music-buying habits (listening habits too, but we’ll save that one for another day). Napster long ago let the genie out of the bottle where music had value, as in "you need to pay for that” for much of the youth of today. A twenty year old actually said to me once “Why should I pay for music?” After a brief economics lesson, I honed in on my message: “An artist should be paid for his/her work. Simple as that. If you like this artist and steal the music, that artist may not be able to continue to put out the music you like.” With the shiny MacBook under the arm, the Beats by Dre headphones around the neck and $200 leather kicks on the feet, his response of, “I can’t afford to pay for music” rang shockingly hollow.

One musician stated it even better (and I’m paraphrasing): “Try walking into the GAP or Abercrombie and walking out with an armload of clothes you didn’t pay for.”
And it’s true. The argument is rarely, I “can’t afford it.” It’s, “I don’t want to pay for it,” and that’s a fundamental difference.

We live in a world today where attention spans are about ten seconds, or roughly the amount of time it takes to find a song on the internet, download it, listen to a few bars and pass judgment. That last part is an easy thing to do if it’s free. But if you’re invested — emotionally, intellectually and, yes, financially, — into an artist and their music, it’s way more meaningful, way more satisfying. Way, way, way more.

So God bless Trent Reznor for not mincing words and for summing up this whole argument so succinctly. Because if you don't understand what he's saying, then you're simply not listening.