Reznor lashes out against record labels

A few days ago Trent Reznor lashed out against record labels he believes are ripping off fans. (The statement was originally post on the official NIN website, but has since been removed, so I’ve appended it to this post.)

I entirely agree with him, particularly on the “Maxi Single” point. I’m a sucker that bit of extra content they tack onto releases to get you to buy the same thing twice, and to discourage you from buying cheap imports. In the vast majority of cases this exciting extra content is under produced filler bollocks that you’ll watch once and forget about.

It’s this kind of attention that makes Reznor such a worthy rock star. Here’s the origional post from Reznor:

Posted on [05_13_2007]

As the climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the consumer over even more. A couple of examples that quickly come to mind:

* The ABSURD retail pricing of Year Zero in Australia. Shame on you, UMG. Year Zero is selling for $34.99 Australian dollars ($29.10 US). No wonder people steal music. Avril Lavigne’s record in the same store was $21.99 ($18.21 US).
By the way, when I asked a label rep about this his response was: “It’s because we know you have a real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when you put something out – you know, true fans. It’s the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy.”
So… I guess as a reward for being a “true fan” you get ripped off.

* The dreaded EURO Maxi-single. Nothing but a consumer rip-off that I’ve been talked into my whole career. No more.

The point is, I am trying my best to make sure the music and items NIN puts in the marketplace have value, substance and are worth you considering purchasing. I am not allowing Capital G to be repackaged into several configurations that result in you getting ripped off.

We are planning a full-length remix collection of substance that will be announced soon.