The source code of songs

In April 2005, Nine Inch Nail’s single The Hand That Feeds saw it’s online release, soon followed by Only. Not as an mp3 or wmv file, but as a multi-track file for Garageband, Apple’s music creation tool. (Simply put, when you record a song, usually all instruments and vocals are recorded separately on a track of their own. Then when you’re working on the final song, it’s very easy to add and remove tracks, put effects on them, and mix them together into your final composition.)

Having enjoyed an amazing gig by Nine Inch Nails the other week here in Amsterdam, I was happy to read they (‘he’ might be more appropriate, since all-round musical talent Trent Reznor seems to be the only consistent member of the band) released the multi-track version of their new single Survivalism as well, and not only that:

“No strings attached. (…) You now have the ability to completely reconstruct/deconstruct Survivalism any way you choose. We will soon present details on where you can upload your own mixes so get to work and have fun with this! (We plan to release every track on the album this way over the next few months…)”

Nine Inch Nails playing Paradiso, Amsterdam (21-03-2007)
Photo shot and kindly provided by furbyx4.

Every track on the album. To my knowledge – and do correct me if I’m wrong – NIN now is the first band to release a complete and brand new album for free on the internet, as ‘source code’ if you like. If you consider a normal album as a proprietary release, with all the usual restrictions applicable to it, then this is probably as close to open source music as we’ll get for a long time.

I’m very curious to see where this is going. I’d love to see fans from all over the world collaborating into creating their own, pan-ultimate version of the NIN album instead of competing with each other to make the best remix. Maybe somebody will create a Wiki- or CVS-like tool to collaborate into creating, rearranging and recomposing music together? (At a recent Think ‘n’ Stink, we already got a taste of tools that enabled DJ’s on different locations (continents even) to play music together. From there on, it doesn’t seem like such a big step, really.) Will there ever be a new official NIN album after this, or is Trent Reznor just going to release ‘code snippets’ and let the fans create the next record the way they see fit? <blah>Are we entering the age of Music 2.0?</blah>

On the other hand, collaboration on the scale described above might very well be the ultimate recipe for middle-of-the-road material, a.k.a. crap. It usually takes just a single or a few geniuses to come up with really groundbreaking material.

Either way, releasing an entire album as multi-track files is in my opinion a geeky but cool gift to your fans. Let’s hope NIN set a trend with this!

(Originally posted on the Media Catalyst blog.)