Pay What You Want for Saul Williams
October 30, 2007 by Greg
Looks like Saul Williams is following suit with Radiohead’s new music model. A new collaboration produced by Trent Reznor is available with a binary name your own price tag. You can pay $5, or you can pay $0, it’s your choice.
My Dearest Friends and Fans,
It is my greatest honor to present to you The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, my new album produced by Trent Reznor and mixed by Alan Moulder. The wall of sound that we’ve created is tagged with such graffiti that a passerby would seek out doors and ways to ENTER. Once inside a world defined by dreams come true they’d find aligned with the simplest act of sharing what we treasure. Most people aren’t aware of the world of art and commerce where exploitation strips each artist down to nigger. Each label, like apartheid, multiplies us by our divide and whips us ’til we conform to lesser figures. What falls between the cracks is a pile of records stacked to the heights of talents hidden from the sun. Yet the energy they put into popularizing smut makes a star of a shiny polished gun. The ballot or the bullet for Mohawk or the mullet is a choice between new times and dying days. And the only way to choose is to jump ship from old truths and trust dolphins as we swim through changing ways. The ways of middlemen proves to be just a passing trend. We need no priests to talk to God. No phone to call her. And when you click the link below, i think it fair that you should know that your purchase will make middlemen much poorer…
NiggyTardust!
love,
Saul
Visit Niggy Tardust for more info.
I heard a rumor that Saul made next to nothing on this and is now mortal enemies with Trent Reznor. Just goes to show; the pay what you want policy may work for established artists with a rabid fan base, but may not be suitable for er ‘up and coming’ artists.