Nine Inch Nails, New Kids on the Block, Prince's '21 Nights'

NEW NINE INCH NAILS: Trent Reznor has done it again, releasing more Nine Inch Nails music straight to the Web. Only this time, it's free.

The album, "The Slip," is said to be a bit more "song-oriented" than "Ghosts I-IV," which Reznor unveiled a few months back. Reznor writes on his website that "The Slip" is a "thank you to our fans" and notes -- in bold print -- that's it's "one hundred percent free."

The music is available in variety of formats, including MP3, FLAC or 24-bit, 96-kHz WAV files, which are said to be sound better than a CD, although I haven't been able to test it (the download link arrived in about 90 minutes). A CD/vinyl edition will be available in July.

Why the good cheer? Perhaps because Reznor announced back in March that his multivolume set of instrumental music, "Ghosts I-IV," brought in more than $1.6 million in revenue in one week alone.

With the release of "The Slip," Reznor has once again gone without label entanglements, taking advantage of a release schedule that probably would not have been possible had he remained signed to Interscope.

In April of last year, Reznor released the vastly underappreciated "Year Zero," his last new album for Interscope. But now free of label contracts, Reznor has issued two collections in three months, a pace generally unheard of on a major, where getting music to fans comes second behind drafting a marketing plan.

NEW NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK: People.com unveiled a snippet of the return of the New Kids on the Block this morning. Apparently the public cannot be trusted with the full song.

Because I like to do things like buy groceries and pay rent, I agreed to mention the overly produced, stuck-in-the-past nostalgia ballad "Summertime" in this post. It begins with a prom-theme-worthy piano, and soon gives way to some '80s-sounding synths. Then some electronic sounds start to zip back and forth, their presence a halfhearted attempt to modernize the song.

But what sticks is not just how the song is stuck in another era, but how the New Kids on the Block seem to dreaming of the past as well, romanticizing the days when women told them not to "call after 10 p.m."

AND FINALLY, PRINCE: Entertainment Tonight reports that Prince will release his first book, "21 Nights," this fall. Said to chronicle the artist's 21-night stay at London's O2 Arena in 2007, the book will apparently include 124 never-before-seen photographs.

No word yet if the book will be overly priced by about $150, a la Prince concert tickets.

Photo: Courtesy of http://theslip.nin.com/

Comments

[River]

I just finished listening to Nasri's songs on his myspace and he is amazing. He is actually the reason the NKOTB is getting back together. Go check him out and have a listen you will love his music.

My favorite song is "NOT THE SAME"

He also co-wrote the new song Click Click Click and “summertime” for the NKOTB.

Myspace.com/nasriworld

GO NASRI

[KTri]

Actually, the NIN album is called "the slip", not "Slip", Reznor's last album for Interscope was not Year Zero, but "Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D", the remix album of Year Zero, and 24 bit/96kHz audio files do sound better than regular 16bit/44.1kHz audio files. It's comparable to looking at a picture taken on your average consumer camera and a picture taken on a high resolution, professional camera. Of course, most people won't notice too much difference and it's best if you have a high end set of speakers with which to listen to the music on.

[ryan]

Maybe I dont go to enough live shows but I thought in the last few years prince has been the most reasonable concert ticket

[Emily Glassman]

NIN also made the entire album available as an audio stream on iLike. This is after giving away an MP3 of one of the tracks, "Echoplex," on iLike late last week.

[Steven Armstrong]

Not quite sure why you had a pop at Prince there ... his arena shows in London were priced at a very affordable £31,20. That's an awful lot less than many of the current crop of rock giants charge ... Neil Young cost double that and let's not even mention The Rolling Stones or U2.

[Zobiana]

I really like summertime. It really doesn't matter if some blogger justifying their opinion by being on the la times site does or not. I think its funny that you giggle over nkotb being stuck in the past when you're busy drooling over Nine Inch Nails and promoting Prince. Thanks for giving the reunion a boost with more publicity.

[J]

Summertime is a great pop song. Maybe you can't appreciate it because it's not a 'shawty in the club' song, which is the only thing you can find on the airwaves these days.
And the song maybe be about reminiscing-- as they said, it's really an homage to their relationship with their fans from back in the day til now. Thanks for the publicity though.

[B1ng0 Br0s]

Prince's first book? Sheesh, is it so bloody hard to actually do five seconds of research? Let's see, there's "Prince in Hawaii: An Intimate Portrait of an Artist". And "The Sacrifice of Victor". And "Emancipation: Words and pictures".

Some smartass will say "but those weren't written by Prince". Pur-lease, this "21 Nights" book will be little more than a bunch of concert pics and thus will be just as much a Prince books as the ones I've mentioned.

Damn I hate lazy journalists.

And this: "24-bit, 96-kHz WAV files, which are said to be sound better than a CD, although I haven't been able to test it " is just inexcusible. Of course they'll sound better than a CD, simple logical thinking woudl have told you that.