Want to get some fresh rock for your Zen or Zune (or God forbid, an iPod), for the price of just a little bandwidth?
Nine Inch Nails is following the precedent set by Radiohead and is offering up their new album, "The Slip," as a free download. You can choose to directly download an 87 Meg zipfile containing the album as high-bitrate MP3s, or you can use your favorite BitTorrent client to grab the tunes in CD quality FLAC or Apple Lossless (M4A) formats, or as even higher than CD quality 24/96 WAVE files (although you will need pretty good audio gear to take advantage of the high-def WAVE format). All downloads are DRM-free and also include a PDF file containing all the liner notes and artwork from the album. You can even download all 4 formats if you feel like it, all you have to do is provide them with an email address so they can send you an unlocked url to get you into their download location.
Way cool! Go grab yourself a copy and let the head-banging commence!
For those of you that are still hooked on retail packaging and physical media, the band will be offering this release on CDs and LP vinyl later this summer (but it won't be free). Mucho thanks to NIN - you guys truly do ROCK!