NIN Joins Radiohead in Shunning the Record Industry

A-list artists ditching the record industry's business model is totally the new black. Industrial rockers Nine Inch Nails have announced that they're joining the ranks of Radiohead by most likely ditching the industry's middleman-heavy distribution model. Front man Trent Reznor (pictured right) explained the new direction on the band's website:

". . .as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate."

It's unlikely that anyone in the record industry is seriously spooked yet -- especially since there's a world of musicians still dying to use the industry's current business model to break it big. But if the army of independently distributing A-listers continues to grow, we may see one of the biggest revolutions to hit the music business since the MP3. Only time and album sales will tell.

[Image via Gotham City Insider]