Saul Williams hasn't given up on the internet, though his pricing-optional album didn't sell nearly as well as Radiohead's In Rainbows — the album that inspired his strategy. Nonetheless, his taste for commercial and sonic experimentation is alive and well — and probably means his next album will feature a similarly "out there" approach.
Thepoet and spoken-word artist made waves last November when he decided to eschew record labels in favor of the internet, electing to release his album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust, as a digital download. Williams gave listeners the option of downloading a free version or forking over $5 for a higher-quality download of the album, which was produced by Nine Inch Nailsfrontman Trent Reznor.
The album, a diverse soundscape that blended Reznor's gritty, industrial backbone with William's baritone-intoned lyrics, was well-received by critics, though perhaps the good reception wasn't echoed in the figures. In January, Reznor revealed that just one in fiveconsumers chose to pay for the higher-quality download.
While Williams'
label side-stepping partner in crime, Reznor, openly expressed frustration atthe album's sales, Williams was more neutral, stating that it was too early in the album's economic lifespan to consider the promotion a flop.
Wired.comcaught up with Williams before a performance on his 2008 college tour at a Berkeleyhaunt, the Shattuck Down Low. Williams chatted about the anniversary of the release of Niggy Tardust, if he's sworn off labels for good and what's next for him as an artist.
Wired.com: It's been nearly a year since Niggy Tardust was released. How do you feel about the experiment and how it all went down?
Saul Williams: It was a huge success for me. All theexcitement that was generated marks an inevitable shift in the music industry. I've felt like a part of some sort of a movement towards independence. On one hand, it’s liberating, but there's still alot to figure out and barriers to cross.The struggle continues. There are still so many artists that are dying for an opportunity to capture the attention of a wider audience, and how that happens has really yet to be discovered. There's still a lot more to figure out and learn along the way. Overall, I just found awonderful window of opportunity with that album.
Wired.com: In a way, you've become a pioneer in a new industry of music distribution.
Williams: I wasn't thinking about being a pioneer.
I was just thinking about one thing — releasing an album and getting it to asmany people as possible. [Using a pay-what-you-want distribution model] madethe most sense for me, because [NiggyTardust] didn’t easily fit into what is normally spoon-fed to the public bymainstream outlets.
Wired.com: Would you consider the same distributionmodel for future projects?
Williams: I have no idea how I’ll release my nextalbum. I always work independently and then decide what the best outlet is for [analbum], but I haven’t talked to anyone — or any labels — yet. It's still open-ended.
I'm more interested in developing the sound of the new album. I didn't have to have a publicist because ofthe innovation and approach of the release — it was its own publicity machine.
And now that it's happening so much [Girl Talk], there’s no guarantee [theattention from the press and media] would be self-generated. I’ll have to weighdifferent ideas this time around.
Wired.com: So a label isn't out of the question,
then.
Williams: I'm not anti-label. Some of myfriends — like Michael Franti, — are all over Anti. There're def some placeswhere people seem to feel at home. So who knows? As long as whomever I'mworking with would be open to my ideas, I would be open to talking with them. I
will sit down and talk with the enemy.
Wired.com: What do you have in mind for your next album?
Williams: I'm working on a few, but there's one [album]
that I'm waist-deep into. I'm aiming to finish it up nextmonth. Trent wants to work on a sequel for Niggy that I think would be cool and I also have an album and new songs demoed at home that I'm ready to go into the studio and lay down. It’s a complete reflectionof how I feel in this country; it's a very transformative time. There's so muchgoing on and ideologically, it's the end of — well, hopefully the end of cynicismand apathy. We're finding the courage to hope and dream and the music reflectsthat. It's new ground for me because it's music written out of a sense ofconnection and exuberance even. I never planned to make angry, or politicalmusic, but the times had left me angry and politicized and the [earlier] musicreflects that. My anger has turned intosomething else. This [new] music is a personal reflection.
I have been talking to [TV on the Radio keyboardist] David Sitek about working together, but I don'tknow if those collaborations will be a part of the album that I'm describing.
Wired.com: Describe the new album a bit more.
Williams: I've been listening to a lot of Charles Erland, a lot of live Nina Simone recordings. The focus of the new album is percussion. For all intensive purposes, it's a discussion of percusson. If I have to label some of the songs, maybe some are dance punk, dicso-y, or prog-rockish, but I really don't know how to categorize it. Some of it makes me think of De-Loused in the Comatorium, The Mars Volta's first album — there's a lot of live instrumentation with a hip hop filter. I lived for a year in Brazil as a teenager, and percussion was always present in my appreciation for music, but not necessarily in my music. So that's where my head is at.
Wired.com: Not long after the release ofNiggy Tardust, Trent said he was "disheartened" by the figures, but you noted that it was a bit early to make that call. So now that its been nearly a year, have the numbers shiftedyour way at all?
Williams: The last numbers I saw — now it’son iTunes, which makes it harder to calculate — we did 200,000 downloadsthrough July, when the vinyl album and CD were released in stores. And that did well also.
Wired.com: Do you think that thefree-download phenomenon is ruining the industry? Or is it already doomed and headingthe way of the dinosaurs?
Williams: I don't think it'scontributing to the demise, I see it more as a transformation. We're goingthrough changes that are inevitable; the music industry is not immune tochange. It's like the auto industry, which is running on oil. Most people recognizethe need for alternative fuels — it's the same tactic. They're both old schoolmodels that have to address the fact that that times have changed.
More people are downloading iTunes anddownloading legally than have in the past — that is a breath of fresh air fora lot of labels.
[At the same time], more avenues are available to [less conventional] artists who maynot be [exactly what] major labels are interestedin. The demise of the label has nothing to do with the pay scale; it has to dowith [labels] not taking chances that they once took. There's little room forexperimentation, there's a formulaic approach that works on a large scale and it'sgreat for business — but not necessarily great for music itself.
The industry is in need of new energy,
blood and ideas. Some labels are stepping to the plate but others are holdingon to an old agenda that is dying with the old administration.
Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
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