Nine Inch Nails scares up sales with `Ghosts'

If you thought Radiohead's In Rainbows strategy was smart, get a load of Trent Reznor's brilliant idea.

BY GLENN GAMBOA

Newsday

JAMIE JAMES MEDINA

Nine Inch Nails includes, from left, Josh Freese, Jeordie White, Alessandro Cortini, Trent Reznor and Aaron North.

In chaos, there is opportunity. And yes, cynics, that even applies to the free-fallin'-sales chaos of today's music industry.

Just ask Trent Reznor.

The Nine Inch Nails mastermind racked up a minimum of $750,000 in one week when he sold out 2,500 copies of his Ghosts I-IV project at $300 apiece through his website earlier this month. That doesn't even take into account the thousands of others who ordered Ghosts -- four albums of instrumentals that range from rockish to experimental -- in one of its other options. Depending on their interest, fans could get nine tracks for free, get them all for a $5 download, a $10 double CD and a $75 deluxe package that provides a Blu-ray disc high-quality version and all the songs in multitrack format that can be remixed to their hearts' content.

Radiohead was smart to release its In Rainbows album in the groundbreaking, pay-what-you-will model as well as the high-priced super-deluxe versions. Of course, In Rainbows was a commercially viable album from one of music's top bands that would have been a hit no matter what way it came out.

But Reznor's project is nothing short of brilliant. Four albums of instrumentals, even from a known hit maker like Nine Inch Nails, would never have found a big audience in the traditional music industry release system. What Reznor has done may end up being the turning point for artists who want to follow their muse wherever it takes them and still get compensated for the journey.

And they don't necessarily have to handle the whole thing themselves. Though Reznor did set up sales through his nin.com website, he also used the artist-friendly service TuneCore -- which allows any artist to sell music on iTunes, Rhapsody or, in Nine Inch Nails' case, Amazon.com, for a flat fee -- to take the songs to a broader audience.

Reznor isn't the only one coming up with inventive ways to involve fans in the artistic process. Singer-songwriter Jill Sobule recently launched a website, jillsnext

record.com, to raise enough money to record her next album -- with pledge levels ranging from $10, which gets a fan a copy of the album when it's done, to $5,000, which gets a Sobule concert in your house, and $10,000, which buys you a vocal appearance on the album.

Sobule surpassed her goal of $75,000 earlier this month and ended up feeling empowered, even as she asked for help. 'I have always been a sort of special-needs child (like a good percentage of artists in my industry) who wait for the label, the manager, the `man' to do everything for them -- after taking any or all profits,'' she wrote on her website. ``But now I've learned to rely on myself and . . . well, you.''

That sentiment will become increasingly important as more and more conglomerates that used to at least pretend to care for artistry -- because it brought them profits or respect, or in rare cases, both -- continue to wobble and fall. And artists will learn that they could do quite well for themselves simply from the support of their fans and from going after little payments here and there that record companies felt were too small to bother collecting.

Smaller companies are starting to realize that there's no reason any album should be out of print. Merge Records, home to Arcade Fire and Spoon, as well as label founders Superchunk, recently launched its own online store that will make its rarities and out-of-print albums available for download.

It's a model that every label should follow since all the overhead associated with making the music has essentially been paid already. The only new overhead is associated with collecting the money and, gee, isn't that a tough problem?

If record labels don't want that money, no doubt brainy artists like Reznor will soon figure out how to get it instead and cut the middlemen out completely.

NHS trust in superbug outbreak that killed 90 plans hospital with a room for each patient

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The C diff bug was linked to 90 deaths last year at the Maidstone, Kent and Sussex and Pembury Hospitals in Kent

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The NHS trust at the centre of a major C.diff scandal that claimed scores of lives is set to build Britain's first anti-superbug hospital - with a room and en suite bathroom for each patient.

An outbreak of clostridium difficile at Kent hospitals run by Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, between 2004 and 2006, was directly linked to 90 deaths and affected more than 1,100 people.

Now Health Secretary Alan Johnson has given it the go-ahead for a new £226 million hospital which completely abandons the traditional NHS ward.

Building work on the privately-funded 512-bed Pembury Hospital near Tonbridge, Kent, will start within weeks.

Its doors could open to patients early in 2011.

Trust chief executive Glenn Douglas said it would "set a new standard in NHS care".

He added: "Local people have waited a long time for this fantastic news and we look forward to the day when the doors of this world-class building open in three years' time."

Architects say the new development will spark a revolution in hospital design, enabling hospital staff to manage and control the spread of infections and introduce a natural "healing environment" to NHS care.

Chief architect John Cooper, said: "It is the first major NHS hospital where you won't have to share a bedroom. This is so important for reducing hospital infections, which has become such a major issue."

The trust came under fire last year after a Healthcare Commission directly linked the C.diff bug to 90 deaths at the Maidstone, Kent and Sussex and Pembury Hospitals in Kent. The report blamed poor hygiene.

Mr Douglas's predecessor as chief executive, Rose Gibb, resigned from her £150,000-a-year job last October, days before the report criticised her handling of the outbreak.

In the year to March 2007 there were 6,378 MRSA cases reported in Britain. C.diff, which usually affects the elderly, can prove fatal and is very difficult to eradicate from the ward environment.

The five-storey Pembury Hospital, to be built on land below the current Pembury Hospital, near Tunbridge Wells, will replace both the existing Pembury and Kent and Sussex hospitals.

Treatment and emergency areas will be separated to reduce infection risk.

Maternity and children's services will be combined in a women and children's zone.

Inpatient and outpatient facilities will also be separated for the sake of patient privacy.

An array of safety features will include bedrooms with en-suite doors on the same wall as the bed so patients do not risk slips, trips and falls when crossing an open floor.

Mr Cooper said the surrounding land would be stripped of commercial plantings and returned to the heathland that existed on the site until 200 years ago.

The ancient woodland will stretch into the building area to create a "healing environment" and "therapeutic landscape" for patients, according to a trust spokesman.

He said: "The revolutionary building is great news for the trust and all patients that will enjoy the many benefits of having single rooms with privacy and dignity."

But he emphasised that new designs would not replace basic health practices, saying: "Good hand hygiene and cleaning remains one of the most effective measures."

Greg Clark, Tory MP for Tunbridge Wells, welcomed today's announcement.

He said: "The whole community has campaigned so long for the new Pembury Hospital to be built, and after years of frustration and setback we now have the final go-ahead."

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