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Who's the Indy-est? Reznor vs. Radiohead

by mbaumgartner | March 27, 2008 at 04:53 pm | 471 views | 2 comments | 2 recommendations

Wired has a great comparison of what two industry breakers have taught us about the future of music distribution.

Reznor vs. Radiohead: Innovation Smackdown

By Eliot Van Buskirk Email 03.27.08 | 12:00 AM

Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have been taking turns giving the music industry the finger. The British band made headlines last October for releasing In Rainbows without the support (read: control) of a record label, and Trent Reznor's group followed suit with last month's Ghosts I-IV.

The two bands have also been busy one-upping each other with their innovative promotion strategies. We were tempted to let the groups coexist peacefully at the forward edge of digital distribution until Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor accused Radiohead of betraying fans by selling them low-quality files. In light of Reznor's accusations, we put together a 10-round, voting-enabled smackdown to find out which band is really blazing the trail of innovation.

When I checked the results Reznor was scoring far ahead in the numerical comparison... and even talking smack... why can't even the indy-est get along?

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Rob Peters

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 17:35 on March 27th, 2008

For me question 4 on substance is the most important, and Radiohead comes out on top. Reznor may be winning the distribution smacktalk competition, but he's got nothing on Team Rainbows in terms of art.

Full disclosure: I haven't listened to NIN since high school.

jordan

at 08:42 on March 28th, 2008

I see Radiohead and NIN as natural allies: two different combinations of popularity and longevity, and both are using online distribution in different ways.