Just in case you haven’t hit these yet, if you’ve been looking, Nah Right, is playing host to three new Lupe tracks, sharing ‘em out liberally.

Which reminds… Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor has been downright manly about using some of all that celebrity he put together over the years to push hard against music company hypocrisy. The latest chapter has him posting on the NIN site all about the gouging greedy madness he’s seen fans subjected to by Universal, the band’s label, all of it maddening and not the least bit surprising.

As the climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the consumer over even more. A couple of examples that quickly come to mind:

* The ABSURD retail pricing of Year Zero in Australia. Shame on you, UMG. Year Zero is selling for $34.99 Australian dollars ($29.10 US). No wonder people steal music. Avril Lavigne’s record in the same store was $21.99 ($18.21 US).

By the way, when I asked a label rep about this his response was: “It’s because we know you have a real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when you put something out – you know, true fans. It’s the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy.”
So… I guess as a reward for being a “true fan” you get ripped off.

* The dreaded EURO Maxi-single. Nothing but a consumer rip-off that I’ve been talked into my whole career. No more.

The point is, I am trying my best to make sure the music and items NIN puts in the marketplace have value, substance and are worth you considering purchasing. I am not allowing Capital G to be repackaged into several configurations that result in you getting ripped off.

We are planning a full-length remix collection of substance that will be announced soon.

So who exactly is stealing, damaging sales, taking advantage of artists? Yo.

Tags: lupe fiasco, trent reznor