The NIN & Saul Williams Experiment
At the New Rockstar Philosophy, we’ve been writing about the importance of embracing the internet as a friend, not an enemy. AC/DC has chosen to ignore the changing times and have, arguably, missed out on paid downloads from the leak (400,000+ downloads and counting).
On the other end of the spectrum we have artists who are choosing to embrace the net.
Saul Williams is one of those artists. For his 2007 release, Saul Williams collaborated with Trent Reznor and released his album as a pay-what-you-want download. As of January 2, 2008, two months after it got released, 154,449 downloads were made. Of those, 28,322 people chose to pay $5 USD ($141,610 USD Total).
Today Saul Williams’ download sales have pretty much matched his last albums sales, (30,000 copies) and he’s only 2 months in. He’s got over 100,000 new people into his band, and he’s just released a limited edition physical edition: A CD and Double Vinyl with 5 bonus tracks in July 08.
The internet is a beautiful thing.
Take Control of Your Music,
Hoover and Voyno
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Hey, nice blog, i followed your link from stereogum, commenting on blogs is a decent way to get some traffic for small blogs like ours. I have that AC/DC album, i’m pretty excited to review it. Well nice site you got here, and i’ll make sure to check back.
~Kaitis
we-rate-stuff.com
Thanks Kaitis,
I just got the new AC/DC it’s… it’s definitely AC/DC.