Niggy Tardust and the Pigs from Oink, turning Japanese
This, for me, was pretty funny.
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2007/10/trent_reznor_and_saul_williams.html
What do you think about OiNK being shut down?
Trent: I'll admit I had an account there and frequented it quite often. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world's greatest record store. Pretty much anything you could ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format you wanted. If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn't the equivalent of that in the retail space right now. iTunes kind of feels like Sam Goody to me. I don't feel cool when I go there. I'm tired of seeing John Mayer's face pop up. I feel like I'm being hustled when I visit there, and I don't think their product is that great. DRM, low bit rate, etc. Amazon has potential, but none of them get around the issue of pre-release leaks. And that's what's such a difficult puzzle at the moment. If your favorite band in the world has a leaked record out, do you listen to it or do you not listen to it? People on those boards, they're grateful for the person that uploaded it — they're the hero. They're not stealing it because they're going to make money off of it; they're stealing it because they love the band. I'm not saying that I think OiNK is morally correct, but I do know that it existed because it filled a void of what people want.
I had been exchanging email with a new "virtual" friend of mine, a fellow who is also involved in music commerce. I think my friend is far more grounded than I am!
Anyway. What I wrote to him in my email was:
In reference to the blog post at http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birth-of.html which I had read before being notified, I said;
I read that oink article a few days ago, very interesting I agree. I wasn't aware it was done by the guy that did NIN art. I knew he had proper perspective.
Oink was great, as I said, all it lacked was monetization. Interestingly, xxxxxxxxxxxxx said he fwd'd my translation of Niggy Tardust over.
Oink wasn't utopia though, it could of have been deeper, there were some bootlegs I was on the lookout for some friends in America, Neil Young stuff. But it had the modern contemporary classics like Steve Reich, etc, it was of quality. But it didn't deny current stuff, I downloaded Fallout Boy just for kicks. Would I buy that stuff? No way. I was skeptical of it at first, but I found myself using it more and more. I obviously knew what I was doing and how much it cost to make those recordings, but I wanted to see from the user perspective, what entices them to act in such ways? With oink, it was simple. Good music, filtered and recommended by knowledgeable people and a members only social filter that didn't allow any mess. SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD OLD RECORD SHOP TO ME! All that imeem stuff pales in comparison to oink.cd, too much frosted sugar coating and no meat. No hardcore. However, I am slightly impressed with imeem, they seem to use a robot/crawler or an intern to scan the blogs and they have checked out my post. The guy running oink.cd probably made no money doing it, it was 100% contribution only. I would of have paid maybe $30 a month subscription or probably $3 to $5 per album if the money went to the artists.
What makes the story even funnier is that having found out about the Niggy Tardust album, it triggered feelings inside of me. So, I translated it into Japanese. Took a few hours. Not one of my best works, but I felt if it had a chance, time was of essence. I know one of the people in the NIN camp, so emailed it over and it is now apparently in the hands of Trent Reznor. I've no idea if they will use it or not, they have their agendas and lives, so I don't really care. What is important is that I agreed to their idea and principle and acted upon it. I even blew off a date to do that (and a date for me is a rare occurence)! If any of you want a copy, here is a download link to niggytardust-japanese.pdf.