Hard truth of market hammered home to Nine Inch Nails frontman

Trent Reznor has decided to tell all about his recent engagement with a new music business model and it's not pretty.

The Nine Inch Nails frontman produced Saul Williams's The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust album. When it was released last November, listeners had the option to download it for free or to pay $5 for higher-quality MP3s.

Reznor and Williams thought that fans would shell out the token $5 to support the artist, but they were in for a rude awakening. While Williams's self-titled 2004 album sold 33,897 copies worldwide, only 28,322 of the 154,449 people who downloaded Niggy Tardust - just 18 per cent of the total - put their hands in their pocket this time around.

"I thought if you offered the whole record free at reasonable quality - no strings attached - and offered a hassle-free way to show support that clearly goes straight to the artists who made it at an unquestionably low price, people would do the right thing," Reznor said.

But this was not to be. While Reznor argues that more people now have Williams's music than ever before and may well go to see him when he tours, the fact that fewer than one in five downloaders were willing to pay $5 a pop means a shortfall for the artist when costs are taken into account.

Reznor describes the outcome as "disheartening" and the figures may explain why Radiohead, the other high-profile proponents of the tip-jar business model, are keeping quiet about the facts and figures from their recent In Rainbows release experiment.

Yet the record business is very keen to point to the increased number of people now paying for downloads. The BPI reported that there were 77 million downloads sales in 2007 in Britain - a 50 per cent increase on 2006's figures. Yet album sales are falling year on year: the 138.1 million sales in Britain in 2007 represented a drop of nearly 11 per cent on the previous year.

And as Reznor and Williams discovered, the revenue from downloads is certainly not enough to offset the costs involved in recording the album in the first place. The probable solution? You mean you have to ask? Expect a big bump in ticket prices for the live show.


Hit the decks

There are a couple of big dates on the Dublin clubbing calendar for 2008. Chilean-German minimal kingpin Ricard Villalobos will visit Dublin for a Remedy gig on May 4th. The same night, MSTRKRFT, Gui Boratto (the Brazilian behind one of 2007's spellbinding tune, Beautiful Life) and Navid Tahernia play Spy. Other Spy visitors include Richard Dorfmeister (January 25th), Justin Robertson (February 15th) and SebastiAn (February 29th).

Bragg brewing up another storm

He's back. Six years have passed since the last album from Billy Bragg, but next month will see his Mr Love & Justice arrive in shops and download outlets.

Not that Bragg has been idle since releasing England, Half English in 2002. He forced MySpace owners News International to review their terms and conditions of use after noting some ambiguous legal clauses.

He established the "Jail Guitar Doors" initiative to buy instruments for prisoners in UK jails. Bragg marked his 50th birthday last December with a performance and public interview at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. And he's seen a host of new-school acts like Jamie T, Hard-Fi and Kate Nash acknowledge his influence on their music.

Mr Love & Justice, which features a guest appearance from Robert Wyatt, will be released on Cooking Vinyl on February 29th.

Cutting edge

One Irish album from 2007 which didn't make the Choice Music Prize cut this week was Boxcutter's Glyphic.

Released on the Planet Mu label, it's the second album from Armagh electronic producer Barry Lynn under the Boxcutter moniker.

Boxcutter fans should check out his forthcoming live session for Lyric FM's Nova show on January 27th, which will feature brand new tracks as well as reworkings of past glories. His third album, Balancing Lakes, is set for release in the coming months.

Ticket Gig of Week

"Astral Weeks", in Belfast's Black Box last Saturday, was a celebration of the classic Van album's 40th birthday. Performers including Brian Houston, The 4 of Us and Ursula Burns, but it was homecoming hero Duke Special's aching Ballerina which provided the day's most sublime moment. The event was superbly contextualised by

Stuart Bailie, whose between-song narrative provided background on the album and explanations of the individual numbers.