Saul Williams and Trent Reznor plan Radiohead-style donation album

 

October 26, 2007, 05:02 AM

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Radiohead's surprising move to sell their album directly via donations has already inspired others with the new album from rapper Saul Williams to be released in a simlar form.The album is a collaboration with Nine Inch Nail's Trent Reznor, another outspoken critic of the label system, and Trent describes the project as his biggest collaboration since Antichrist Superstar, the Marilyn Manson album he co-wrote back in 1996. The record is titled the Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust and it will be released on November 1st. Trent elaborated a little on the nature of the project:

There are obvious similarities in how Radiohead just released their new record and the way we've chosen to. After thinking about this way too much, I feel we've improved upon their idea in a few profound ways that benefit you, the consumer. You obviously will be the judge of this in the end. One thing that IS very different in our situation is that Saul's not the household name (yet!) that Radiohead is, and that means we need your support on this more than ever. If you like what you hear, spread the word.

The biggest difference will be that the album will be released in significantly higher quality formats including DRM-free MP3s at 192kbps and even FLAC, a lossless audio format identical to CD. One of the more common complaints about Radiohead's offering was the lackluster sound quality due to extremely low bitrate encoding of the MP3s. Reznor previously gave away multi-track versions of songs from his last album, Year Zero and encouraged fans to mix, mash and remix the songs as they saw fit.Of course, it's worth noting that even thought Radiohead and Trent Reznor are doing this now, our friends and Quote Unquote Records did it first and are therefore totally ahead of the curve.

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