While Radiohead stays quiet about how much they made from the record-company-less sales of In Rainbows last October, Vulture buddy Trent Reznor is a bit more forthcoming with the data on Ghosts I-V, his new instrumental album, which he self-released on Nine Inch Nails' Website on March 2. In a press release from his publicist, Reznor says:

Nine Inch Nails' 36-track instrumental opus Ghosts I-IV, released March 2 via NIN.com, has amassed a first week total of 781,917 transactions (including free and paid downloads as well as orders for physical product), resulting in a take of $1,619,420 USD.

Wow! We're not sure if that $1.6 million includes the cost of hosting and delivering the MP3s, or the manufacturing and shipping of physical copies of the album (we bet all are relatively cheap anyway), but even if it doesn't, this is obviously an impressive haul. Given that an artist like Trent would probably never make that kind of money on an album released through a label these days (especially not a double album of synthesizer instrumentals), this sort of makes record companies look a little silly (if, in fact, any still exist). Just imagine how much he'd have made if he actually sang on a few songs!

Earlier: Trent Reznor Pulls a Radiohead, Sort of