- Check out The Inevitable Rise And Liberation Of Niggy Tardust Explicit by Saul Williams on Amazon Music. Stream ad-free or purchase CD's. Find album reviews, stream songs, credits and award information for The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust - Saul Williams on AllMusic - 2007 - Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails project roared&hellip.
- Saul's latest release is a great mix of industrial rock and hip-hop. He sings, he raps, he speaks. Ambitiously, he creates a new persona in Niggy Tardust. The obvious reference is to David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust.
Saul Williams Paul Wellman (file) Be it as a poet or rapper, writer or actor, cultural watch dog or simply a street savvy philosopher, Saul Williams has a voice worth listening to. First introduced to the world in the 1998 independent feature film Slam, the native New Yorker has welded his undeniable way with words-both spoken and harmonized-to.
The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! is an album by Saul Williams, produced and co-written by Trent Reznor. Some of the songs on the album contain modifications of drum beat outtakes from The Fragile and Tapeworm sessions.
- 5Track listing
Leaks
Due to the distribution method chosen for the album, there were no leaks of the entire album prior to release. However, Trent Reznor and Saul Williams leaked a few songs before releasing it. Reznor leaked the songs 'Break' and 'Tr(n)igger' via Echoing the Sound, later, a Sendspace link appeared on nin.com making the two tracks plus 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' available as a downloadable zip file with lyrics to the songs. A few hours before the release, Saul Williams put 'Scared Money' on his MySpace music player.A promotional CDR with instrumentals of fourteen songs surfaced 3.5 years after the release.
Release
The album was released at 1am Eastern Time on November 1st 2007, with the abilty to preorder. People are given the option to either 'directly support the artists involved in the creation of this music' by making a $5 donation or to download the album for free. If you choose to pay for the record, you are able to download in 192kbps MP3, 320kbps MP3 or FLAC lossless audio. If you download for free you recieve the album in 192Kbps MP3 format. All versions include a PDF with artwork and lyrics, and 'all files are 100% DRM free, and can be played on any device. MP3s are encoded with LAME v3.97 and love'. The choice of distribution method garnered much attention and praise from the online community and was reported on by many websites. The number of downloads were not immediately released, with Reznor stating in an interview: 'We do know the presale numbers, but we are keeping them a secret.' Later, a follow-up revealing the statistics was posted on nin.com on January 3rd 2008 and on January 10th the option to download the album for free was removed, offering the following explanation: 'We have removed the FREE option from our site as it was limited to the first 100,000 customers.'
On NIN's official MySpace and YouTube pages, a mysterious clip which originally featured on the album website was uploaded with Saul Williams, dressed as NiggyTardust, sitting on a chair. The video was probably uploaded for promotional purposes.
More recently, niggytardust.com, where the album was available for download, has been taken down and redirects to saulwilliams.com. The album's physical release date has been set for July 8th, 2008, and is being released on CD and vinyl, as well as via iTunes, and is to include bonus tracks.
Trent Reznor on NiggyTardust
Reznor wrote the following regarding the album on nin.com:
Saul Williams on NiggyTardust
Track listing
CD
- 'Black History Month' – 3:15
- 'Convict Colony' – 3:24
- 'Tr(n)igger' – 3:54
- 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' – 4:05
- 'Break' – 3:18
- 'NiggyTardust' – 3:40
- 'DNA' – 4:03
- 'WTF!' – 5:29
- 'Scared Money' – 3:49
- 'Raw' – 2:50
- 'Skin Of A Drum' – 3:56
- 'No One Ever Does' – 3:15
- 'Banged And Blown Through' – 3:43
- 'Raised To Be Lowered' – 5:23
- 'The Ritual' – 5:20
- 'Pedagogue Of Young Gods' (bonus track) - 3:18
- 'World On Wheels' (bonus track) - 1:27
- 'Can’t Hide Love' (bonus track) - 2:27
- 'Gunshots By Computer' (bonus track) - 1:44
- 'List Of Demands (Reparations)' (bonus track) - 3:18
12' Vinyl
A1 'Black History Month' – 3:15
A2 'Convict Colony' – 3:24
A3 'Tr(n)igger' – 3:54
A4 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' – 4:05
A5 'Break' – 3:18
B1 'NiggyTardust' – 3:40
B2 'DNA' – 4:03
B3 'WTF!' – 5:29
B4 'Scared Money' – 3:49
B5 'Raw' – 2:50
C1 'Skin Of A Drum' – 3:56
C2 'No One Ever Does' – 3:15
C3 'Banged And Blown Through' – 3:43
C4 'Raised To Be Lowered' – 5:23
C5 'The Ritual' – 5:20
Saul Williams Niggy Stardust Rare
D1 'Pedagogue Of Young Gods' - 3:18
D2 'World On Wheels' - 1:27
D3 'Can’t Hide Love' - 2:27
D4 'Gunshots By Computer' - 1:44
D5 'List Of Demands (Reparations)' - 3:18
Album Credits
- Artwork – Angelbert Metoyer
- Backing Vocals – CX Kidtronik (tracks: 1, 6, 17, 18)
- Design [Cover] – Melody Ehsani
- Design [Graphics] – Rob Sheridan
- Engineer [Additional] – Alan Mason, Brett Bachemin
- Layout – Kathleen Dragoon
- Mastered By – Brian 'Big Bass' Gardner
- Mixed By – Alan Moulder
- Music By – CX Kidtronik (tracks: 2, 6, 8, 14, 17, 18), Saul Williams (tracks: 2, 3, 9, 10, 20), Thavius Beck (tracks: 1, 7), Trent Reznor (tracks: 1, 2, 5 to 8, 10 to 16, 19)
- Photography By [Gold Dusted Photo] – C.B. Smith
- Producer – Trent Reznor
- Programmed By [Additional] – CX Kidtronik (tracks: 6, 7, 14), Saul Williams (tracks: 4, 7), Trent Reznor (tracks: 1, 3, 7)
- Programmed By, Engineer – Atticus Ross
- Vocals – Saul Williams
- Words By – Saul Williams (tracks: 1 to 3, 5 to 17, 19, 20)
Saul follow-up and facts
The following was posted on nin.com on 03 January 2008:
Saul Williams Niggy Tardust
External Links