NINE INCH NAILS: Ghosts I-IV - new album available now(ish)

Last night at 9pm Nine Inch Nails released Ghosts I - IV, a brand new 36 track instrumental collection, on their website. The album is almost two hours of new music composed and recorded last fall and is available in a variety of digital download/physical CD/LP options: fans can receive the first nine songs for free; can pay $5 for the entire collection via digital download (see picture below), can purchase a standard double-CD set for $10, a deluxe edition that comes in a hardcover fabric slipcase with a DVD that has multi-track files for the music and a Blu-Ray disc with high-definition stereo mixes for $70, or for $300 (wealthy) fans can purchase the "ultra-deluxe limited edition" package which features all the elements in the deluxe edition plus a four-LP vinyl set and two Giclée prints amid "luxurious packaging." This extra-pricey edition is limited to 2,500 copies and is autographed by Trent Reznor.

Reznor explains, "I've been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn't have made sense until this point. This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective - dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams. I'm very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference. I hope you enjoy the first four volumes of Ghosts."

Being a NIN fan from the long long ago, I'd love to enjoy the first four volumes of Ghosts. There's just one small problem...

So, last night I decided to try the free download link. I knew I'd ultimately be wanting the entire package of songs, but opted to test the free download experience first. I was entirely unable to download anything. I figured it was due to high traffic on the first day of release - not that big of a deal. However, I returned to the site today to pay $5 to get the entire record digitally (surprisingly, they're offering the album in full lossless CD-quality audio, see above screen grab) and encountered problem after problem. At first, I wasn't able to input my credit card expiration date because my card expires in 2014 and the NIN site apparently doesn't believe the world will exist beyond 2013. Fine, I went with Paypal, which worked. Then I encountered a second download problem. And a third, and fourth, and so on. Time after time, I couldn't (and still can't) download the album. I've contacted their customer support and have yet to hear back - we'll see. Hopefully it gets resolved quickly because I'm quite a fan of this manner of album release and would hate for issues for paying customers to prevent other artists experimenting with similar digital releases. Frankly, this experience has thus far been quite the opposite of the experience I had when downloading In Rainbows.

Here is what is posted on the site in regards to the above mentioned technical difficulties:

The response to this album has been overwhelming, causing our website to slow to a crawl. We THOUGHT we were ready, but... We've been adding more servers to accommodate the unexpected demand and we expect to be running smoothly in the next few hours. In the meantime, if you've had any problems with downloads from the Ghosts site, don't worry - you'll be able to use your download link again when the site is more stable. Thanks everyone for making this such an immediate success.

Fair enough, I guess we'll just have to go elsewhere to find a few of these tracks to listen to in the meantime.

Listen:
“Ghosts 1 Track 1″
“Ghosts 1 Track 3″

Click HERE to attempt to download/purchase the album for yourself on the NIN site or head over to Amazon to buy the album there for $5 sans technical difficulties.

Visit Nine Inch Nails on MySpace.