Well, this is certainly interesting.
Trent Reznor (aka, Nine Inch Nails) has certainly been very open to getting his music out there and also seeing what others could do with it. When With Teeth came out, he released the sources to some of the songs in GarageBand format, so that fans could remix his songs and see what they could do with them. Well, I was making one of my occasional checks of my MySpace, and there was a bulletin from NIN there announcing the existence of remix.nin.com, which is… well, let me repost the bulletin and let them say for themselves. :-)
– Download multitrack audio files for NIN songs and create your own remixes
– Create a profile and post your mixes for the world to hear
– Listen to, rate, and discuss thousands of other fan-made and official remixes
– Find remixes based on your specific tastes
– Create custom playlists and share them with other fans
– Download full quality MP3s of every song on the site
– Subscribe to any playlist as a podcast, and get automatic MP3 updates you can sync to your iPodOh, and it’s all free. Enjoy!
Damn. Honestly, I can’t think of another big band off the top of my head that would do anything close to this. I took a quick listen over there and was impressed by what I heard. In a way, it makes me feel guilty that I haven’t bought Year Zero yet; I try to make a point to buy every major NIN release that comes out. On the other hand, I imagine the record company suits are frothing in anger right now. Ah, well… I’ll have to keep an eye on the site and see. I just wish I had the talent or ability to do remixes like that… :-)