Saturday, January 5th, 2008

Time	Event
12:24a	Those who got Niggy with it... Some of my readers may recall me pimping the Saul Williams (Trent Reznor produced) download album Niggy Tardust a while back. The deal was this - free or pay $5 for better quality mp3/FLAK lossless version. Trent just released the data from this little experiment (which Radiohead, so far, have not for In rainbows): "Saul's previous record was released in 2004 and has sold 33,897 copies. As of 1/2/08, 154,449 people chose to download Saul's new record. 28,322 of those people chose to pay $5 for it, meaning: 18.3% chose to pay. Of those paying, 3220 chose 192kbps MP3 19,764 chose 320kbps MP3 5338 chose FLAC Keep in mind not one cent was spent on marketing this record. The only marketing was Saul and myself talking as loudly as we could to anybody that would listen. If 33,897 people went out and bought Saul's last record 3 years ago (when more people bought CDs) and over 150K - five times as many - sought out this new record, that's great - right? I have to assume the people knowing about this project must either be primarily Saul or NIN fans, as there was very little media coverage outside our direct influence. If that assumption is correct - that most of the people that chose to download Saul's record came from his or my own fan-base - is it good news that less than one in five feel it was worth $5? I'm not sure what I was expecting but that percentage - primarily from fans - seems disheartening." I know that I d/loaded the free version, as I'd never heard Saul's work - and immediately after finishing listening to it, went back and paid my $5. I'm not the only one, according to the comments thread By way of comparison: When Radiohead did the In Rainbows pay-what-you-want deal, I paid $7. I would have paid more for Tardust - and I like In Rainbows.) Seems even more likely - even if the stats are right and less than one-in-five paid - that the next NIN release will come out in a similar way. Then it gets interesting. Current Mood: contemplative Current Music: NiggyTardust-Saul Williams-The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! (2 Comments | Comment on this)
11:40p	Thoughts of Chairman Bruce Bruce Sterling's annual State of the World Address (on The Well - how retro...) has, as ever, food for thought. Like this: " This is a rather doomy conversation... it has to be, because that definitely suits the period, it reflects the facts on the ground... but one of the ways to escape a sense of learned-helplessness is to postulate the opposite. Like: imagine a world in which Bush was one of America's greatest presidents. He was still Bush, believing everything he believes, but he was a statesman whose vision had overwhelmed his critics. For instance: Imagine that Iraq had been brimming over with nerve gas, secret missiles and even some homemade nuclear devices. Every grim thing that noted RAND futurist Donald Rumsfeld (remember him?) belived about the Iraq situation was keenly prescient and accurate. So a pre-emptive invasion was completely justified; even brilliant. We'd still be in Iraq right now. EVERYBODY would be in Iraq right now. The Coalition of the Willing would probably be in Iran, too, and aiming for Pakistan. There would be a military draft, and a world war of sorts, but what other choice would we have? Bush would be a military hero who had saved us from a nuclear Pearl Harbor. Imagine that the destruction of the middle class, the K Street strategy and crazy income disparities had led to a brilliantly solid American economy. It was Republican, yet technically innovative, with a sound dollar, a government surplus, Chinese-style ten percent GDP rates, and stock market boom conservatively based on radically improved productivity and genuine prosperity... Bushnomics would rule the world. Imagine that the Christian Right set America's social policies, and that they were Christian ladies and gentlemen. Imagine that they had so much moral authority through their good works and spiritual power that one felt ashamed in combatting them. They were not demagogic Elmer Gantrys who bashed gays, ambushed women and ruined the nation... instead, wherever their kindly shadow fell, the hungry were fed and housed, sinners were rehabilitated and made active members of the community, drug abuse was abandoned in favor of prayer, Martin Luther King's southern baptist dream vision was destroying the scourge of racism from sea to shining sea... The Culture War would be all over; the USA would be a theocratic state. But none of that happened. Instead, we have what we have. And the people who voted for that -- Joe and Jane NASCAR, with their variable-rate mortgages and their cousin in the Army -- man are they ever gonna catch it in the neck. The closet is full of skeletons, and that's bad, but the skeletons are there for good reasons; they're all skeletons of rotten policies that died horribly and deserved to die. " And, for contrast, this... " Q. How many literary science fiction writers does it take to change a lightbulb? A. Never mind the technical details; I want to know how he feels about it... " Current Mood: gurgly Current Music: Groove Salad: a nicely chilled plate of ambient beats and grooves. [SomaFM] (Comment on this)

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