The marketing and release of digital-only albums before a physical copy is available received another significant boost this week when the instrumental Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts I-IV brought in $1.6 million in revenue in its first week. Billboard reported the news, and indicated that the revenue comes from around 800,000 transactions, which includes free and paid downloads and pre-orders for the physical album to be released next month.

Unfortunately, sales figure to compare to "traditional" releases will not be made available to the band; similar in style to the road Radiohead took last fall when the band pioneered this style of release with seventh album In Rainbows.

Nine Inch Nails had eschewed the record label method of releasing albums after numerous problems arose with the band's previous album Year Zero last year. Much of the strife between band leader Trent Reznor and label Interscope Records, a part of the Universal Music Group, revolved around exorbitant prices for the album in international markets. Reznor deplored the pricing in places like Australia and China where fans were expected to pay the equivalent of $30 for the CD, which sold in the United States for around a third of that price.

The new album was released via the Nine Inch Nails website and utilized the same methods Radiohead had used back in October, albeit with higher bit-rate files. Now that two prominent bands have chosen this route to distribute their new music, perhaps this trend will catch on. Additionally, since it has been released, the album has also been added to Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN)'s MP3 Store.