THE NIN HOTLINE

**NIN beat out the DEFENDING CHAMPIONS 54% to 46%! Thx Marc, midnight, alteredgod and everyone who voted!!**

Tonight at 7PM (EST I guess) NIN will go up against the Dropkick Murphy's in WBCN's March Madness. This will be a hard one to win!
At 7PM you can either vote by calling 617-931-1041 or you can use this feedback form and put NIN in the comments.

Thanks Marc and midnight.

Arch! I'm at work and my access to a radio and streaming audio is nonexistent. So, I have no idea what the details are going to be when NIN faces Tool this afternoon. I think the time is 2:00pm and I'm guessing the voting option is going to require texting "2" to 48258. If someone can email me the details to be certain, it'd be a huge help! Thanks in advance! The link to stream The Point is below this post.

*EDIT* Thanks to laststepdown and AT for keeping me in the know. Text "N" to 48258 to vote for Nine Inch Nails! Unlimited texters, get going!

*Results Edit* Tool won with 73% of the vote. Oh well, we tried. Thanks to everyone who participated in this and thanks to everyone who emailed me today!

I guess they're playing the songs first before announcing how to vote for this thing. I'll edit this as soon as I get the details. Get your texting fingers ready!

*EDIT* Text "2" to vote for Nine Inch Nails. The number is 48258. Everyone has until 11:00am CST to vote.

Oh yeah, you can vote as much as you like, so you people with unlimited texting should keep it up, though take a five or ten minute break for your fingers.

*FINAL RESULTS* NIN smashed Radiohead, 72% to 28%. Tool is the next opponent according to The Point's bracket (they won this thing last year). Chances are voting for that round will be either in a few days or next weekend. Thanks to all who voted!

The Meathead Perspective has been updated for the sixth time this month, as part of the NIN Hotline's conspiracy to censor Ron Paul supporters.

105.7 The Point, "St. Louis' new rock alternative" (heh) is finally getting into the act with many of the other radio stations in the country and will be hosting its first round of March Madness, er, March Music Mayhem this weekend. NIN is battling Radiohead at 10:00am CST with Radiohead being the favorite.

Chances are that you'll probably have to text either the letter "N" or "NIN" or "Nine Inch Nails" to The Point's text number, 48258. I'll update this once I know what it is you exactly have to do since The Point sucks at giving instructions on their website. See the time here and check out the brackets if you want to vote for other bands. You can also stream The Point from this link, though you'll have to use IE to actually hear it.

*Q101 UPDATE* Looks like Incubus beat NIN today. Let's really push it here in St. Louis!

*105.7 UPDATE* Talked to one of their DJs, Cornbread, and he told me that each DJ is doing their own rules for the voting process so he isn't sure how the voting will go other than it will go through the texting number. I'll have an update tomorrow morning with the instructions around or after 10:00am CST with everyone having an hour to vote.

See what I did there? NIN beat U2, 61% to 39% in the second round of Q101's March Madness. Woo Nine Inch Nails, they're good!

Tomorrow they are up against Incubus (who beat hometown heroes The Smashing Pumpkins)

If you know the exact time pleeeeease write in

Thanks Zomarkaan

Finally, something to really get excited about, a new Meathead Perspective.

Go to nin.com for more info. Wachovia Center in Philadelphia is August 29th, a Friday, shit yeah!

Wired is doing a feature on Radiohead vs. Nine Inch Nails in terms of their innovations to the music industry.The article doesn't add anything to what's already been said, but it does allow for a satisfactorily smug feeling to see Trent get recognition for going above and beyond what Radiohead's been up to. Digg the article while you're at it.

Thanks to Mitch, k-skill, and Andrew for the heads up.

Rachel and Liz wrote in to let us know that NIN beat Filter in Chicago's March Madness, 91%-9%. To quote Liz, SLAUGHTER

*update* Whoops. Naut already posted about that.

We also destroyed Flyleaf in Las Vegas. Tomorrow, it's NIN vs. Mudvayne. Heh.

For one reason or another, I hesitate to post a single news item about one album review. Perhaps it's the way my eyes glaze over when reading reviews, after implementing an article management system that allowed me to easily document almost every. single. review. for With Teeth, and to a lesser degree, Year Zero. Nonetheless, I was doing some research for an essay I may or may not finish/post about Reznor vs. Radiohead the (lazy) fourth estate, and came across a review of Ghosts I-IV on TinyMixTapes. If you, the dutiful fan, are twisting your face up at the mention of TinyMixTapes but don't know why, it's probably because of this aborted Hershey-squirt of a review they ran back in 2005.

John Jolley's writeup is much more than a review, but does not fail to lend a critical eye to the music, which as he notes, is something that a lot of the press about the album has been guilty of. He spends 1700 or so words introducing some history about NIN, explaining the importance of the method of its release, and lauding the forward direction the music is taking. All kinds of stuff. Anyway, I thought it was a good read.

In the third of a series of interviews being released to radio stations, I think (NastyLittleMan, I'd love for you to write back to me) Trent talks about releasing multitracks, and the benefits of Creative Commons, among other things. I'm working on making a central repository for these audio interviews, so if you missed any of the earlier ones, we'll have you covered. No doubt when the whole series is done, we (or someone else) will put them all together into a torrent or something. Thanks to nordlyss from ETS for the lead.

Unfortunately, YouTube screwed the sync, which makes this a little less magical, but a fellow named Adam got in touch with me about his brother's Rock Band chops on The Perfect Drug:

That was in late February, so he might not still be #3 in the world, but that doesn't diminish his Perfect Drug abilities. So, without any further delay, enjoy the split-screen Rock Band action:

***EDIT AGAIN: Nine Inch Nails 91%, Filter 9%! Next up, U2!***

**EDIT: The time to vote is 7.40PM CST**

Tomorrow/Today (that's Tuesday March 25, for those not from the future like me) Chicago's Q101 will be having the Nine Inch Nails vs Filter March Madness Match Up.

We *think* the match up will be 4.40PM CST and voting is open for 10 minutes. You can vote by sending a text message to 99161. At this stage we are unsure if you need to write NIN, Nine Inch Nails or just N so if you have the answer, or you hear a different time for the NIN vs Filter match up, or you have some other important and exciting information, puhlease share it!

You can have a giggle at some of the match ups in the full bracket here if you're interested.

Thanks a lot to Patryk and GreatGazoo!

Xtreme Radio KXNT 107.5 in Las Vegas is doing their March madness. NIN will be up against Flyleaf tomorrow.
NIN loses this one early every year, so let's hope they can make it this time!

Here's the bracket And if anyone gets the voting time for this one, please write in!

Thanks to Angulique

Alliteration is fun. Philadelphia's WYSP will have Nine Inch Nails pitted against 311 tomorrow at 4pm. You need to text Nine Inch Nails (yes, full name) to 99771 to vote at that time.

Thank you to Jeff for the update.

**UPDATE** WE WON, 67% NIN to 33% METALLICA! Awesome work!

Being at work with lots going on, I'm going to be lazy and copy and paste midnight's submission in its entirety, because she says what needs to be said quite well.


If your radio station is having a similar match-up tonight, please contact us and let us know the details!

We probably should have posted this a while ago but if you weren't aware, you can hear Saul Williams' "List of Demands" in a commercial for Nike currently airing in North America. For Saul's thoughts on this, go here

Thank you to all those who took the time to let us know.

Edit: Greg has let us know that you can view the commercial at OregonLive.com. I could not get the clip to work in Firefox, only IE, so you may need to try another browser if you're having problems. Thanks Greg!
Edit again: Probably redundant but the commercial is also up on Youtube as well. Thx Wollvieh.

Caspar from luckyprick.net wrote in to tell us about a recent interview conducted with John Malm Jr. of Nothing Records infamy. The interview discusses "his early days as manager of Lucky Pierre, Prick and later with the Nails and Nothing Records"

Read Here

As the article begins:

Xfm caught up with Gary Numan to discuss his 50th birthday, his influence on other artists and Trent Reznor.

Read and listen to the interview here

I almost completely forgot about this but there's a brand new, US release of David Lynch's Lost Highway that is coming out on DVD this Tuesday. There's never been a "proper" DVD release of the movie stateside, unless you count the crappy Pan and Scan version that came out ages ago and the repackage of that with Mulholland Drive. Check out some info here at DVD Active and pre-order it here at Amazon.

Oh yeah, I guess Trent did some work for the soundtrack too. Forgot about that.

Thanks to Richard for reminding us about this.

I'm a little slow on this but there is a physical release of The Rise and Inevitable Liberation of Niggy Tardust coming up late spring/early summer on the Fader label, according to the San Francisco Weekly. Good news for those of us who want to see that artwork in hard copy! (Vinyl plz)

Apparently there will be seven new tracks which are "the most hardcore, the most dance-y, and thought-provoking" of all written for the album.

Thank you to Bart Van Hemelen for writing in.

Nine Inch Nails came in at #4 on Kerrang TV's 100 Best Bands Ever countdown shown on Friday night.

Unfortunately because I don't live in the UK and the Kerrang site (which works better in IE...) hasn't put the list up I don't actually know who won yet (Google failed me as well) but I imagine the list will be up soon.

Edit: Apparently My Chemical Romance won. Emo power is alive and well!

Thanks for RobW for the info.

At last night's Seattle show (which from all reports kicked serious ass, btw) Saul Williams announced to the crowd that he recently got married, on Feb. 29th.

As a happily married man, (she's happy, i'm married...BOOM TISH!) i'd like to take this opportunity on behalf of all NIN fans to congratulate Saul, and wish him and his bride mucho happiness and prosperity for the future.


Thanks to Richard for writing in...

There's a new Meathead Perspective up if you're interested. If you're not, here's something else for you to check out. (Just kidding, that's the same link LOL)

nordlyss over at ETS kindly transcribed last night's radio interview, which discussed the GhostsI-IV release and plans for 2008. Read the transcript here

After getting Rick Rolled from nin.com here are some less annoying things to look at.

Rolling Stone's little review
News.com.au can do their times tables too

Mike Leader also wrote in with an article he wrote and published on CC2K titled The Ghosts of Trent Reznor: Digital Music Evolutions and Nine Inch Nails Growing Legacy

Thank you to Mike, badpauly and TK421.

I had the good fortune of interviewing Alessandro Cortini and Pelle Hillstrom about all things Modwheelmood and a few other things here and there. Check it out here and Digg it here. Enjoy!

94.1 WYSP in Philadelphia is having a 'Rock Madness' event beginning next monday. NIN will be up against 311 during the Tuesday, 4pm slot. Go to WYSP's site right now, and submit your brackets!

Thanks to Jeff for the update

If you got RickRoll'd thanks to the exciting announcements update on nin.com, you do not have a virus. If you do discover you have a virus after this incident, quit downloading porn and visiting sketchy sites. :)

It's been confirmed again - Trent Reznor will be on Radio 1 in the UK in the next few minutes.

Going out of your mind waiting for "soon"? Put that energy to good use - fight the good fight and astound everyone by the power of the ninternet by joining March Music Madness on Chicago's Q101.
You need to register to vote and you can make your selections this week, although first round voting starts on Monday March 25. There are five rounds including the final championship round. Nine Inch Nails is in bracket 4 and is up against Filter (teehee). If you're having trouble in Firefox you might need to switch to *gasp* Internet Explorer.

Cheers to SwimFin.

As those of you who are on the Nine Inch Nails mailing list may have noticed, at the bottom of the recent bulletin, which is largely about this Youtube business, is the following statement:

check https://www.nin.com for exciting announcements regarding live performances soon

Lt. Randazzo traded emails with Pelle and Alessandro in advance of their latest release, Pearls to Pigs, Vol. 2. Things happening as they do, we got the interview a little bit later, and while Randazzo has sent me the whole thing along with a handful of images, I keep not putting it online. That pattern ends on Tuesday night! I swear! (Okay, now I'm going to bed.)

If you hadn't noticed, a new pair of letters has been added to the list of themes, WH, which was my way of communicating the word 'white' to you. If you had trouble with the contrast of the previously available themes, or just missed having this site available with a white background, clicking on WH is for you! It's not flashy, it's not really that ugly, and it's probably a whole lot easier to read than the other themes on the site.

I have this crazy idea for a site that involves a massive database about NIN collectables and an application that digests eBay data, but until I get my act together enough to launch that, I've set up a kind of preliminary pre-alpha version. This new merch page quickly shows you a number of eBay auctions, filtered into three groups: vinyl, posters, & promo stuff. I've done a significant amount of filtering to try and keep some of the junkier stuff off the page, but we'll see how it goes.

There are also quick links at the top of the page to nincollection.com (a great source of information on NIN releases, all from one guy's collection), the Marketplace forum on Echoing the Sound (registered users only), and a link to the Amazon Store I set up ages ago, now with MP3 downloads, and of course our Goodrock store with inexpensive official merch, at least whenever they get any sent their way. Woo! Now I'm going to sleep.

A few more nice articles about Ghosts for your reading pleasure:

Reznor's Radiohead Smackdown

Techno-classical music from the fathers of alt-goth

Nine Inch Nails scares up sales with 'Ghosts'


Thanks to Gewalt Warten and Matrixchic for writing in...

Rumour has it that Trent Reznor will be calling in to Zane Lowe's evening show on BBC Radio 1 tomorrow night (7-9pm GMT) for a chat. If his last radio interview was anything to go by, it will be entertaining in one way or another. International listeners can catch a stream via the website.


Thanks to Icarus_ks over at ETS for the intel.

Several readers have written in to report that This American Life (an National Public Radio show for those not in the know, like myself) has been playing tracks from Ghosts in their most recent show, in particular tracks #6 and #13.
Now if only my local stations would play Ghosts instead of J-pop marathons.
Thanks to Daniel and Matt.

We at the Meathead Perspective (me) consistently strive to be on top of all the hottest trends of three years ago, and as such, have just added an RSS feed for those of you who don't like having to look at all this other NIN Hotline crap every day while checking for new Perspective updates. I hope this makes you feel all happy inside. :)

Edit: The link to the feed has been updated, so if you've already subscribed to it (for some reason), please take a minute to unsuscribe and resubscribe to the link above. Thanks! Let's all go have coffee somewhere (my treat)!

Apparently it's not just NIN fans that jump to wild conclusions every time Trent opens his mouth. Rolling Stone, the Cnet News Blog, and Arts Technica (along with several other sources, I'm sure) have run away with the fairies regarding his comments on the Radiohead release model. Thanks to Vega Chastain and the guys at ETS for the info.

An interesting reflection on the release of Ghosts I-IV from The Guardian this week, which states "forget sales, radio-play, singles or downloads: an album's success is now measured in "transactions"."
Read the rest of the article here.

If the Brits among you have stopped pinching yourselves after hearing The Hand That Feeds on Hollyoaks on Friday, head down to your local newsagents, where this week's Kerrang! magazine has a small article on Ghosts I-IV, as well as a review that gives the release 3 K! ratings out of 5. Thanks to neon.

In slightly less tabloid news, a whole bunch of people have spotted that NPR Radio have a very interesting bit of audio on the future of digital music, which, according to alphaXnumeric, succeeded a play of 6 Ghosts I.

The Meathead Perspective has been updated (kind of) for the third time in 2008. That's fantastic! Way to go!

Still hesitating over whether or not NIN are really playing the Pemberton Festival? Well don't - the festival's site has gone live, and is full of tasty details such as ticketing information, more news on the line-up, and where in Christ Pemberton is.

Time to take that post-Ghosts-purchasing credit card out of the freezer.

*edit* And now nin.com are showing it too - nice one! Thanks to Esoterrorist for the message.

We've had a few submissions lately referring to a "20th Anniversary NIN release" popping up on sites like this, and speculations as to whether this is actually a deluxe edition Pretty Hate Machine.

While it may be not entirely impossible, given recent events, that we're going to be sprung with something out of the blue, the artwork, catalogue number and publishing house seen here would suggest that this is just another knock-off dvd.

Still, good news for those of us who like to get our bootleg on!

Multitracks for 10 Ghosts, 19 Ghosts, 26 Ghosts, 34 Ghosts, and 35 Ghosts are available for download on remix.nin.com. Click the Mix link and then click Download Multi-Tracks.
Thanks to prsgod for the heads up.

That's right Canadians, read it again. Vancouver. Billboard.com has learned that Coldplay, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Jay-Z and Nine Inch Nails will headline the first-ever Pemberton Festival, set for July 25-27 in Pemberton, B.C.. Okay, so, when I used the word 'near' in the headline, that was the Canadian meaning of 'near', as Pemberton's about a two and a half hour drive to the north. But considering it's going to be mid-July, the weather should be splendid. If you're in Pemberton and reading this, you might just barely have time to run to Live Nation's meeting with the Pemberton Chamber about the Festival. Snacks and drinks will be served! Thanks to -sleepz for the news.

Straight from the horse's mouth:

Read more at nin.com, and view Trent's video introduction to the project at the official NIN Youtube profile.
Digg it here

Congratulations! NIN all but dominate the Last.fm charts for the past week.

A few more reviews and reactions to Ghosts I-IV from the net:

Lefsetz Letter gives a very technical review of the release
Rocky Mountain Review says it's only for the hardcore fan
Don't read too much into the title of this Paper Thin Walls review
The New York Times speak positively of the release

Thanks to Kelly, wizfan, carrie, Brooks, and joymode for writing in.

Got a letter from Mike yesterday:

Irked WBCN DJ -- you should be pumped! One of your own, Brian "Home Depot" Viglione, is on the newest NIN album. He even talked with the Boston Herald about it last week. Now, we don't expect to really beat out everyone, but even if we do, consider it a kind of applause for your homeboy Brian.

UPDATE, courtesy Brett: [Mike] is obviously not familiar with the Hardy and Roadsteamer show. Robby Roadsteamer is a local comedian/musician who only recently got that DJing gig. [He] and Hardy go back and forth and basically play good cop/bad cop. Robby talks shit about EVERY band played and Hardy will defend them.

UPDATE UPDATE: It's okay guys, Brian Viglione and Robby Roadsteamer are clearly pals, and Robby is definitely not a douche.

KROQ talked with Trent about his thoughts and ideas while he was creating Ghosts. Listen here. Thanks to piggyW for the heads up.

According to So Hood (and several other sources), Ghosts has made over 780,000 transactions and over $1.6 million. Thanks to Matthew Harris for the heads up.

This message brought to you by the best website with a rabid NIN-fanboy perspective.

Q101.1 in Chicago, 92.3 K-Rock in New York, WMMR in Philadelphia (where you can now recommend bands for the tournament), and possibly The Katt in Oklahoma City are all doing this Madness thing on Monday, March 24.

WCBN in Boston is bucking the trend and starting theirs up on March 17, with NIN going up against Blink 182 in the first round, followed by the winner of Metallica vs. The Offspring. It'll be a good test run to see if it's worth slamming the rest of the country with our fan blitz. Thanks to everyone who wrote in! As the time draws closer, we'll also keep track of this on Echoing the Sound.

Last year was a lot of fun, particularly when we bewildered the DJs into speechlessness with our ridiculous comebacks. I wouldn't be surprised if we see some stiff competition this year, or if the votes end up rigged to counteract our reach, but... who cares.

A lot of people wrote in to point out that tracks from Ghosts I-IV are all over the charts at Last.fm, most notably in the "Top Track Charts," where it the entire first volume is accompanied by tracks from Radiohead's In Rainbows and a couple of Amy Winehouse tracks. NIN also jumped 25 places in the Top Artist Charts, garnering a total of 1.6 million plays amongst 55,000 listeners. Ghosts I-IV continues to be the #1 download at Amazon's MP3 download store. The story announcing Ghosts' release on Digg is Digg's most popular entertainment story in the past month, despite being just over a week old. It's the fifth most popular entertainment story all year.

Mafu and Smart Wayne let me know that Trent's done his first interview post-Ghosts with esteemed Australian public radio station JJJ. Read the summary and then listen to the interview. If you don't care for MP3s, you can read a transcript that Opernimalus typed up at Perfect Isolation. Yeah!

We got a couple emails about Perez Hilton trolling for reactions from NIN & Radiohead fans. So who's going to clock in more angry replies, Radiohead fans, or NIN fans? Time will certainly tell.

Over at the unofficial Nine Inch Nails wiki, an article about the latest release, Ghosts I-IV has been undergoing a lot of revisions and editing, but is at a point worth sharing. Each track has been documented, but you can help expand it! For example, although each of the articles on each of the tracks has credits and stuff like that, none of them have the individual artwork posted. If you've got some time to kill, maybe you can help remedy that. Anyhow, check it out. Thanks to everyone at NINwiki.com.

The Chicago Tribune is reporting "Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails are expected to headline the fourth incarnation of Lollapalooza in Grant Park Aug. 1-3." Thanks to Tony L and Laila K. for the news!

UPDATE: Pitchfork is reporting that "Both bands and Lollapalooza say that nothing can be confirmed at this time." Hopefully this isn't a replay of the events of 2004.

Over at ABCnews' "On the Record", Allan Raible has penned a full review of the latest NIN album, including a refresher for people who may not have been paying attention to Nine Inch Nails in the last decade or so.

He goes track for track in describing the album, so unlike, say, Maxim or The AV Club, it's pretty evident this guy listens to the music he reviews. Check it out, maybe leave a comment when you're done.

Hey, you know what would be great? A fucking banana split. I haven't had a fucking banana split in forever. But since Dairy Queen is closed, I guess we'll just have to settle for a new Meathead Perspective. Shit.

Just a general heads-up to those who might be scouring ebay in the hopes of picking up the sold out $300 Ultra Deluxe Limited Edition Ghosts package.

There are a number of unscrupulous ebay sellers who have written misleading listings that are either trying to suggest that the $75 Deluxe Edition (still available at ghosts.nin.com and Artists in Residence) is also sold out or imply that the $75 edition they are selling is actually the $300. (I saw one asking for a $150 "Buy It Now" price.)

At the time I'm writing this there is no indication that any of the other editions will be limited. This includes the CD and 130 gram vinyl releases headed for retail April 8th.

Last year around this time, several radio stations across the country (radio? what's that?) did a "March Madness" kind of thing, where they'd pit bands against each other, ultimately leading to one band winning the top spot, whatever that was worth. Well, we hear that Yrock on XPN in Philly is starting their contest up on the 17th. If you're still tuned into the radio, let us know if you've got a station doing this kind of thing. It was a hell of a lot of fun last year. Anyway, if your station's got something like this planned, drop me a note, thanks!

NIN's Myspace has been update with some Ghost-ly flare, and they have added a few songs off the new record to boot.

Also, Kerrang TV is letting you be the judge in deciding the 100 Best Rock Bands Ever! On the planet! Head on over to their voting page, submit your name, hometown and why you think NIN is great. The best comments will be aired during the artists' video (if they win a spot). You can vote for as many bands as you wish, so happy voting.

Thanks to Tone on ETS for the heads up.

Jim sent this in, thought I'd share.



Yeah, that's it. Thanks Jim!

Over at the financial news site Motley Fool, Alyce Lomax expounds on the revolutionary release of Ghosts, following the events of the last few days pretty well, and marveling a bit at the official profiles on The Pirate Bay, Waffles and What.cd:

Indeed. Over at Newsweek, John Shearer writes his account of excitement and frustration over the new release, and how he took the same route as me and downloaded it from Amazon despite already having paid for a copy on hobbled-at-the-time ghosts.nin.com. He concludes that "Reznor was right when he claimed this would be worth all the hassle,"

Yes, that's right, we're finally making the transition from stories that are simply "Holy crap! What just happened?" to "So, what does it sound like?" Okay, so, the first article online about Ghosts was a review, but I'm still using this as my segue. One of the first post-meathead reviews posted was over at FEARnet, which suffers from an awful scrolly thingie that can be bypassed if you turn off Page Styles in Firefox. Porter Richards calls Ghosts I-IV "astonishing" in his review at Sputnik Music, where he gives it a 4.5 out of five... and 14 out of 15 people found his review to be well-written, to boot.
Also of note, the Boston Herald interviewed Brian Viglione, who spoke about taking part in the process, and also describes the album a bit. Nine Inch Nails made it to the front page of Slashdot again today on the news that the ultra-deluxe edition sold out in the course of a little over a day.

If you've got a fetish for pictures of music equipment, the photos posted to NIN's official Flickr account should make your day. Also released under a Creative Commons license, these pictures document some of the creative processes undertaken while recording the new NIN album. This first batch of photos shows Adrian Belew amongst a pile of guitar pedals, Atticus and Alessandro navigating patch cables... really, I don't need to keep describing this, just click the link and see for yourself.

I forget which news story about the online release postulated that the $300 version of Ghosts would take a while to sell out, and I'm at work so I'm not going to spend the time looking for the article, but all 2500 copies are now in fact sold out.

ghosts.nin.com is back online and downloads are cruising. If you were waiting for server stability before making your purchase, now would be the time to follow-up on that.

Dan Hill just got this email, and if you bought Ghosts, you probably did too. If you haven't bought Ghosts yet because you want to be sure your download is smooth, this is your cue:


While the folks in charge anticipated a lot of traffic, I think this really blew all expectations. It's good to have a timetable on the fix.

Brian "Home Depot" Viglione is the drummer for The Dresden Dolls and can be heard making a lot of noise on tracks 19 and 22 of the still piping hot "Ghosts I-IV" album. He details his contribution on his MySpace blog, but if you don't have a MySpace account, sepalotix has copied the text and images and put them in a thread on Echoing the Sound. Thanks to Christine, heartoutsteve, and the folks on ETS who pointed this out.

If you've download the free 9 track version, or bought the 320kbps LAME-encoded MP3 version of Nine Inch Nails: Ghosts I-IV, you may have noticed that embedded in each song is a wealth of information in the ID3 tags, including unique images associated with each track. If you bought the FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) version, these photographs are missing!

Leave it to ItsJustDave to remedy that for you - assuming you're on a Windows machine. Follow these simple instructions and you'll be enjoying track-by-track artwork with your lossless copy of the album in no time flat.

Note: As with anything you modify on a computer, make sure that you back up your files before attempting this. You really shouldn't run into any problems, but it's always a good idea to back things up anyway.

95% of these all say things you already know, but I'm going to link to them because I think this is the biggest burst of online press I've ever seen for Nine Inch Nails. Thanks to Clive and the folks at ETS who kept track of all this stuff.
Billboard, LA Times, Uncut, Pitchfork, TorrentFreak, the CBC, Mashable, Riverfront Times, Undercover Music News (Aus), Macworld, CNET (Aus), Paid Content, LAist, NME, Idolator, Shack news, Gaming Today, Blabbermouth, Slashdot, Rolling Stone, USA Today, Kerrang!, TechDirt, PunkNews, Vulture, SlickDeals.net, Spin, WebProNews, AltPress, AudioGeekZine, Wired, El Mundo, The Guardian, Cinemablend, Pink is the New Blog (of course!), and... Perez Hilton. The news has 7500+ Diggs at Digg.com - 500 more than the top Radiohead story there, I might add.

If that's not enough, go to Google News where it's one of the top 3 stories in Entertainment today, where I just learned that The Wall Street Journal talks about Obama and Reznor in an article posted two hours ago.

First -- When you get a moment, Digg this story about getting the album via BitTorrent.

This thread on ETS has been fantastic for keeping people abreast of support information, and I'll summarize the main points here:

You can download all 36 tracks from Amazon.com for $5 if you're in the USA, and here is the accompanying PDF. You can get the other bonus digital stuff via the torrent above. The Amazon download is a lower bitrate, and the MP3s don't have the individual artwork.

If you want a quick fix, download the first 9 tracks & digital extras via The official NIN Pirate Bay account.

If you've used up your three downloads, contact support@help.nin.com, although you'll likely get this response:

If you were having troubles, but they have been resolved, please click the link in your support email and close your ticket. This will allow the support team to skip over your request and get to someone who still hasn't been able to download faster.

If you ordered via www.ainr.com and have not received your download link, don't fret, no one else has:


For more information, visit the Ghosts I-IV forum on EchoingTheSound.org.

Billboard posted an article about Ghosts I-IV, half an hour after the site went live. Since they were undoubtedly hitting F5 on NIN.com like the rest of us, I'll post their article here. We will continue to post any other related articles in the hotline's article archive and any standout ones here, so, keep on submitting!

Even though it was mentioned earlier, don't forget to Digg it!

For the eight of you out there who have managed to grab the new NIN album so far, please enjoy or at least tolerate the super mega-exclusive Meathead Perspective review, now with less aftertaste.

FREE DOWNLOAD
Ghosts I - The first 9 tracks from the Ghosts I-IV collection available as high-quality DRM-free MP3s (320kbps LAME encoded, fully tagged) including complete 40 page PDF. Also includes the digital extras pack - various wallpapers, icons, and graphics tools for your computer, website, profile, etc.

Confused? Lonely? Tired? Visit the Ghosts I-IV Forum at ETS and get your socialization on.

Update: The OFFICIAL Ghosts volume I torrent on The Pirate Bay

$5 DOWNLOAD
Ghosts I-IV - All 36 tracks in a variety of DRM-free digital formats (320 kbps LAME encoded, fully tagged; FLAC Lossless; Apple Lossless) including a 40 page PDF. Also includes the digital extras pack - various wallpapers, icons, and graphics tools for your computer, website, profile, etc.

This version is also available from the Amazon MP3 store. - Download the PDF Booklet here

$10 2XCD SET
Ghosts I-IV - 2 audio CDs in a gatefold digipak package with a 16-page booklet. To be shipped TBD. Includes immediate DRM-free download of the entire collection in same choice of formats as $5 Download option. Download will include the 40 page PDF and the digital extras pack - various wallpapers, cons, and graphics tools for your computer, website, profile, etc.This configuration will be released to retail in North America (April 8), Australia (April 5), the UK (April 8), Japan (April 5) and most European territories (April 8).

$75 LIMITED EDITION DELUXE PACKAGE
Ghosts I-IV - Hardcover book holding 2 audio CDs, 1 data DVD of all 36 tracks in multi-track format (in .wav files readable by Mac and Windows), and Blu-ray disc featuring stereo recordings in high-definition 24 bit 96Khz with exclusive slide show. Includes immediate DRM-free download of the entire collection in all formats and with all extras mentioned above. Also includes 48-page hardcover of photographs by Phillip Graybill and Rob Sheridan. Discs and art book both housed in fabric slipcover.

$300 ULTRA-DELUXE LIMITED EDITION PACKAGE
Ghosts I-IV - Contains all elements from deluxe package, along with exclusive 4XLP 180-gram vinyl set, and two limited edition Giclee prints available exclusively in this package. Disc book, art book, and prints are all housed in a fabric slipcover. 4XLP vinyl set comes in its own fabric slipcover. INCLUDES immediate DRM-free download of the entire collection in all formats and with all extras mentioned above. LIMITED TO 2500 PIECES, NUMBERED AND PERSONALLY SIGNED BY TRENT REZNOR.

Nine Inch Nails has self-released a new instrumental album, Ghosts I-IV. Consisting of 36 instrumental tracks described as "music for daydreams" and released under Creative Commons, it is available in a wide range of formats: MP3, double CD, a package with: the 2xCD, multitracks on DVD, and a deluxe book, and finally the super-deluxe limited edition which includes all that as well as a copy of the album on vinyl.
The free MP3 download includes the first volume - nine tracks (each with unique artwork), wallpapers, and a PDF of the 40 page book. Available directly off nin.com, you also have the option to torrent it via official NIN profiles on Waffles, what.cd and The Pirate Bay. Absent from this release was any kind of leak of audio or information. Record labels and artists should take notes: This is how you do music distribution.

Digg it!

Trent just updated nin.com to say "2 hours." Sit around with us and watch as NIN fans lose their minds over at Echoing the Sound.