Rant: Radiohead Allows Fan Remix, NIN Does It Better

Ever since Radiohead released In Rainbows to the masses in October at a pick-your-own-price rate, anyone who has followed suit in any way has been accused of stealing their idea. Every interview conducted with label-less bands have been asked if they followed the Radiohead model. “Radiohead” adorns headlines of stories that are not even about Radiohead.

Trent Reznor, mastermind behind Nine Inch Nails, possibly one of the only bands that rivals Radiohead based on popularity and rabid internet fanbase, released both Saul Williams’ The Rise and Fall of Niggy Tardust and instrumental masterpiece Ghosts I-IV post-Interscope/Nothing Records, directly to fans. Ever since, music critics have begged to question if he mimicked Radiohead’s plan to uproot the music business.

Reznor and Williams have said they toyed with the idea of releasing Niggy directly to fans for months before In Rainbows was announced and Reznor has always been vocal about his distaste for the way record labels handle releasing music. So how come no one played up the fact that they were thinking about this before the Radiohead revolution came into play?

I suppose I could let that one slide. Despite having the idea first, Radiohead actually did it first to much acclaim and success while Reznor and Williams watched it unfold, holed up in the studio.

So – I give you this little cranie. The last few years have seen Reznor touching base with fans in a way the known-recluse never has before. For one, he has allowed fans to remix his songs since 2005’s With Teeth continuing this notion by allowing fans to remix in Year Zero in its entirety. As far as I know, NIN is the only major band that has made available this many free broken-down versions of songs for fans to play with on their own.

So on Tuesday, when I received an email from the Radiohead newsletter about fans being able to remix “Nude” I thought it was an April Fool’s joke – though not as good as the text message that jolted me awake that morning about Britney Spears committing suicide, which had me crawling out of bed, desperately reaching for my People.com.

My question is – who is stealing ideas now? Where are the headlines about Radiohead snatching Nine Inch Nails’ brilliant task that has been in play for three years?

I could compare the methods of the release-your—album model until carpel-tunnel permanently contorts my left hand into an upside down shadow puppet (ICYDN, Trent was leaving flash disc drives in the bathrooms of arena shows, thus leaking three songs and one music video from Year Zero several months before In Rainbows was even announced) but when Radiohead announced a fan-remix, I couldn’t help but blatantly conjure up the NIN concept that was clearly used.

What gives Thom? Would you like to stand up and give some credit to T-Rez for this one? What’s with selling the track and making each stem of the song available separately? And using iTunes, dude? I guess that whole sticking-it-to-the-corporate-man ploy has gone out the window. Wasn’t In Rainbows your best selling album to date and has obviously made you the most money having not gone through any record labels for the first three months of release?

Trent Reznor released most, if not all of the songs from WT and YZ, readily available, for free, and even included formats for PC as opposed to just the Garageband setup in response to some message board mumblings. Reznor has taken the cake, by far, from Thom Yorke & Co.


This rant bought to you by an equally rabid Radiohead fan.

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TAGS: radiohead, saul williams, nine inch nails, rant