Does he have a degree in pshychology? Is he a game designer? Does he play games? does he even associate with those who commit knife crime? I’m willing to bet that the answer to three of these questions is no. Like it or not playing video games is something that pretty much everyone does, and guess what; not everyone who plays games goes out and stabs people. As he would realise if he lived in the real world and spoke to real people and not the fawning sycophants he has no doubt been surrounded with.

He’s perpetuating the same logical fallacy that many who campaign against gaming do, which is this: People who stab people play video games, therefore the games must make them do it.I could apply the same logic to his profession: He is a popular musician, popular music is associated with drug use and rampant promiscuity, therefore he uses drugs and is rampantly promiscuous. Oh, hang on a minute.

One word describes this argument and Mr. Galagher’s involvement with it and that word is: FAIL.

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(Note: clicking on the ‘read more’ link will lead you to what looks like a broken page, this is due to the embedded music player, everything still works as it should its just the layout thats screwy. Wordpress can’t handle the <object> and <embed> tags. If anyone has any suggestions for fixing this feel free to let me know in the comments)

Trent Reznor has finally left interzone, after describing them as ‘greedy assholes’ and encouraging fans to steal his music during his last tour. The Nine Inch nails have released part of their new instrumental album Ghosts I-IV for free through their website and for a nominal payment of $5 (US Dollars, which is £2.50 in my money) you can download the whole thing DRM free. The popularity of this move was demonstrated when the NIN website went down due to high traffic over the weekend.

Ghosts I-IV is also the first offering from a fairly big name I’ve seen to carry a creative commons license. Released under an Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike license, you can basically do whatever you want with it as long as you credit the creator, don’t sell it and do it under the same license. This brings up some interesting possibilities, especially as you can order a version of the album which includes all the tracks in multi-track format encouraging remixes and sampling (its $75 though, or I would have ordered that one). I look forward to hearing some fan remixes in the future, let me know if you’re planning any and I’ll promote them here (if I deem them worthy of course :P)

This is indicative of a growing trend in the music industry as more artists become disillusioned with the traditional music industry and release their work online. With the recent controversy over the RIAA not passing on money made from suing those who copied music to the artists, whose interests they claim to be representing, I can only see this as being another nail in the coffin of a dying industry. The men in suits have lined their pockets for long enough and the artists are taking control.

Good on you Mr Reznor, I salute you.

Here is a selection of tracks from Ghosts to whet your appetite:

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This, apart from the needless Mario Bros themed interlude, is stunning. Nuff Said

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Sites so far discovered:

• http://iamtryingtobelieve.com
• http://anotherversionofthetruth.com
• http://bethehammer.net
• http://churchofplano.com
• http://www.opalescenthaze.com
• http://105thairbornecrusaders.com
• http://consolidatedmailsystems.com

Set in a dystopian future (though not a distant one), it seems to be a vision of where the world might be in a few years time.  I’ll be following the clues and will try to keep you posted on developments.

There is a full track listing and further details about the new album available at NIN.com

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