Airlines have started charging a fee for just about everything. Checked bags, seat assignments, food, and a whole lot more. In fact, I saw that Spirit Airlines is going to start charging a fee for you to buy their ticket anyplace other than in the airport. Considering that no one really buys a ticket at the airport, it basically amounts to a fee for the privilege of giving them some of your money. Whatever.
Apparently Nine Inch Nails loves airline fees and surcharges and making sure their fans get hosed as much as possible. Instead of making things easier or less expensive for their fans during the recession, Trent Reznor and company have decided to screw all of you over.
How so? Well, when you go to the NIN website, you can download their new album Strobe Light. Of course you have to pay $18.98 to get a copy, but that is not my problem. My issue with Trent and the other money hungry a-holes who advise them is that if you choose to download the album off their site they are going to charge you an extra $10 which they are calling a digital delivery convenience fee. Ummm. I'm confused. If I buy a CD at a store it is much more expensive for the record company than if I just download it digitally. There are packaging and marketing costs. They might have side deals with the retailer which cuts into the margins on the albums. Distribution expenses. So many additional expenses.
You would think that instead of paying $18.98 online which is the same price as the store, the band would actually knock a few bucks off for the money you are saving. Nope. Instead they want to make sure their most loyal fans pay extra. If you are a die hard NIN fan and want the new album now and don't want to go to the store, they are going to screw you over by making you pay an extra $10 for the privilege. This seems to me to be a way to drive all your fans to look for the album for free in other places. Why am I going to pay you an extra $10 for something that is probably already saving you $10? How effing greedy do you have to be?
Thanks Kelly
You don't pay for a website, do you?
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ReplyDeleteummm i think that was his joke for today..
ReplyDeletehttp://agentbedhead.com/index.php/archive/trent-reznor-comedian/
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ReplyDeleteIf you put your email in, you'll see that you get lots of special extras that make the extra $10 worth it!
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't pay 18.98 just to get it ahead of time.
ReplyDeleteIt was an April Fools joke. And it got me good (I'm so embarassed.)
ReplyDeleteOh, c'mon. Anyone who's a fan of NIN would know instantly that it's a joke. Do you really think Trent would do songs with Alicia Keys, Sheryl Crow, Justin Timberlake, etc???
ReplyDeleteGreat April Fool's joke!!
Well, I'm not much of a NIN fan, and didn't read the song list until later. The fee got me fired up, and I didn't read any further.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's an April Fools joke, a pretty good one if you know Trent Reznor's history with file sharing. He's admitted to being a member of Oink, one of the major private bittorrent music sites before the RIAA went after it and got it shut down. He released the last album on bittorrent through piratebay.
ReplyDelete(a different Kathryn)
I work close to our airport and when buying RT tickets for a family to Florida I saved 56.00 by going to the
ReplyDeletecounter. Of cousre it was Alligiant that school bus in the sky so I funneled the savings directly back into checking 2 suitcases.
Total savings? -4bucks...
Thing is, I wouldn't put it past them. Trent Reznor is probably the most pretentious asshole in the whole music industry. I'm sure he could come of with an excuse...*L*
ReplyDeleteReznor may be pretentious, he may be an asshole, but he's a pretentious asshole who's on the side of fans when it comes to copyright/piracy issues. With the album he released online first, you could get high quality digital files free, if you wanted the super high quality files that only music snobs care about you had to pay a few bucks, but you also got a bunch of extra download stuff too.
ReplyDeleteI don't care how big of a jerk he is on other issues, he supports fans doing whatever they want with his music, and that's OK by me.
Co sign with Kathryn. He is on our side.
ReplyDeleteHell he gave his last CD away for free.
ReplyDeleteENT got Trent-rolled on April Fools Day!
I agree with Kathryn, For christ's sake he gave away his last CD for free on his website. I don't see a lot of other artists doing that.
ReplyDeleteAgree with Kathryn 100%. Trent truly cares for his fans. You don't have to pay to get special treats in his website: Pre-sale concert tix, downloads, etc. You can even remix his music anywhichway you'd like in his website.
ReplyDeleteI'm a huge U2 fan, and I'm pissed that I wasn't able to get concert tix. They were sold out in minutes. However, if I was a PAYING member of their website, then I would have had access to the pre-sale. The annual membership for U2's website is $50. I'm sorry Bono, but I don't have that kind of cash to throw around and still pay $60 bucks a tix (plus fees) per tix.
Um, it's an APRIL FOOLS DAY JOKE.
ReplyDeleteI usually love this site, but way to jump on an artist that we all know is majorly against this kind of highway robbery of the fans. And he's making fun of all of the silly hijinks from artists like Kanye (note the venetian blind glasses on the fake cover) and the super-silly collaborations.
Kelly, do your research...! And ENTY, maybe an apology is in order, or at least an update!!
Saidah, if no one fell for it, it wouldn't have been a very good April Fool's. :)
ReplyDeleteBy far the best April Fool's prank of the day. Trent in Kanye glasses = brilliant.
ReplyDeleteI'm still surprised that ENT posted this without looking at the website. And my new word thanks to brendalove is: trent-rolled
ReplyDeleteLOLOL
May I rant on airlines for a moment? My ex-husband and I share custody of our daughter. He lives in Phoenix - I'm here in So. Cal. We finally found an awesome deal on airfare - $98 roundtrip - for our daughter to go visit him. When confirming the reservation, we were informed that because she would be traveling as an unaccompanied minor, it would be an extra $100 EACH WAY! Yeah, some "deal", huh. How do the airlines justify this extra charge for a flight that lasts all of an hour and twenty minutes? And don't feed me the "liability" line. It's only for kids up to the age of 15. When my daughter turns 15, what liability is magically gone?
ReplyDeleteLong time lurker, daily reader.
ReplyDeleteI would print a retraction since the post itself was kind of irresponsible (especially since you didn't even bother to go to the site... or to Trent's Twitter...). Makes me think you aren't as connected as everyone thinks. That was an obvious one.
Ah, yes..."TrentRolled"...gotta love it. He's always been a funny bastard w/a warped sense of humor, but since he started spending more time online interacting (to varying degrees) w/his fans, it's really taken off. (Exhibit A: Twitter. Check him out on it, I insist. No, really *grin*)
ReplyDeleteHaving been a fan for 15 years, I'm quite aware that he can be a cranky SOB, not to mention that tact isn't exactly a concept w/which he's familiar (to put it mildly...). However, I do think that he's basically a decent human being at heart, and genuinely does want to give his fans the most bang for their buck possible. The official fan club used to cost $30-$60, depending on your level of membership, but this year he decided to scrap that, and has basically opened up everything from ticket presales to fun freebies to anyone willing to sign on for an account at nin.com. For the most part, he tries to keep ticket prices at a more reasonable level than many other performers do; while the forthcoming NIN/JA tour (w/Jane's Addiction) is considerably pricier than usual, you're also getting what amounts to 2 headliners plus an opening act (StreetSweeper, w/Tom Morello & Boots Riley), not to mention that he's working on instituting possibly the most open A/V recording policies since the Grateful Dead's heyday. *does the Mad Photographer happydance* And that's not counting things like, oh, making tracks available for remixing, uploading high-quality video footage so people can mix their own tour videos, etc. etc. etc. Trust me, if he were going to have any kind of extra fees involved for downloading, there'd be more than enough extras thrown in to make it well worth the money...but since this is a man who gave away his last album (with the line "This one's on me"), I wouldn't be terribly worried about that happening. (Oh, and there is no record label involved--he's totally a free agent at this point. In fact, one of the episodes that helped cement his unhappiness w/Interscope was finding out that they were charging an insane amount of money--$35, IIRC--for a CD in Australia, with the rationale being "because we can, because they'll pay it". Um, no...NOT a good rationale, and boy, did we all hear about it!)
Go back to nin.com, Enty, plug in your e-mail address on the "Strobelight" page (hell, use "dev@null" if you want), and see what happens...I double-dog-dare ya. ;-)
One more thing: Trent's not the most pretentious asshole in the music business, not by a long shot...that dubious honor (IMNSHO) is a toss-up between Billy Corgan and Michael Stipe (says one who lived in Athens, GA for 8 1/2 years). Just sayin'... ;-)
ReplyDeleteLooks like the joke is on you, Enty.
ReplyDeleteTR's probably one of the coolest guys in the business, and is the last guy you would expect to screw you over. The Strobelight page isn't meant to be taken seriously :)
For further proof, look at his track record: he's given away his last album for free, gave away part of the Ghosts album for free, and over 500gb of footage from the last tour, all up for grabs with no strings attached. There are many articles and even youtube videos of Trent speaking out against the real enemy here: greedy record labels. (Hell, he literally told people to steal his records just to spite his former record label.) Membership on nin.com or any of the handful of sites that branch from it is free, as are all the perks that come with it.
ReplyDeleteReznor is genuinely on the fans' side. This joke today was just sarcastically making light af everything that he is opposed to. I'm not just sticking up for him because I've been a huge fan for years, but because he's one of the few true artists left that has any decency or integrity.
Very (like, 2 years) long time lurker - first time poster. Ent - I'm suprised you didn't verify this. It's pretty obvious it's a joke if you read the first sentence on the site! I agree with all the pro-Reznor posts here
ReplyDeleteI'm a long time reader who enjoys your site for the most part but not checking the site before posting a rant really puts your credibility in question. I don't doubt that you know the celebs that you say you know but it certainly doesn't appear that you feel a need to check the stories that you are told.
ReplyDeletegood april fool's joke!! and Billy Corgan was nice with me .Several years ago,i waited Smashing Pumpkins before a rehearsal in france.I didn't have ticket,he saw me and my friends and me were able to go at the concert because he gave tickets and VIP pass! i wasn't a teen groupie !
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