Nine-Inch Nails. Peter Gabriel. The Rolling Stones.

Many popular rock bands have, over the past few years, turned to digital technology to enhance their music both on record and on video. This week we'll consider some of the more interesting achievements in this regard.

Since the mid-1980s, musicians have increasingly been producing their albums in the digital domain; the rewards in terms of sound quality are clear even to the novice listener. But more fundamental aspects of the music have gone digital as well.

For instance, while Nine Inch Nails is ordinarily considered a "band" and performs as such in concert, all of NIN's albums are essentially the work of one person: Trent Reznor. Using digital rhythm samples and computer-sequenced synthesizer loops, Reznor builds his music alone rather than playing with a live band. While he may collaborate with other electronic musicians during the studio production process, the concert performance involves an entirely new band built more for aesthetics than for musical purpose, as most all of the music can be pre-programmed anyway.

Other musical groups aren't quite as ready to replace human players with machines in the studio, but some are taking advantage of the current multimedia craze to release CD-ROM versions of their recordings. These special editions often contain both sound data from their audio CD cousins and computer data that can be loaded into a Windows or Macintosh PC to provide a graphical interface to the music.

Earlier this year at the Digital World trade show in California, Peter Gabriel demonstrated "XPlora j: Peter Gabriel's Secret World," his latest multimedia release. Other artists who have released interactive kits include David Bowie and Todd Rundgren.

The software development industry took notice when folks from the music world began including computer-readable data on their CDs, responding in kind by including traditional audio data on their CD-ROMs. Today, many of the latest CD-ROM releases include audio soundtracks that can be played either through the PC or separately in a standard audio CD player.

Some rock groups have not incorporated digital information on their recordings as readily as others, but instead have built fan services on the Internet. The Rolling Stones, for example, maintain a World Wide Web site with URL http://www.stones.com. The site features graphics and sounds from the band as well as tour merchandise. Earlier in November, 25 minutes of Stones concert footage was transmitted live over the Internet Multicast Backbone (MBONE), a net-wide experiment in real-time audiovisual broadcasting. This was the first such broadcast by a major rock act.

Radio stations have also joined the fray. Local classic rock station WZLX 100.7 FM maintains a Web site with URL http://www.wzix.com/wzix. Features include "WZLX Promotions," "Upcoming Classic CD Releases," and the "Rock and Roll Diary."

(If the above talk of URLs and such seems completely arcane, be sure to keep an eye out next week, when the Crimson will take an in-depth look at the World Wide Web.)

Before we close this week, an addendum to my recent column on HOLLIS Plus: Thanks to several members of the University Library staff for pointing out that telnet, the software used to access many of HOLLIS Plus features, automatically quits when you press Control-X. Thus, if you are lost inside HOLLIS Plus and cannot use gopher menus (which include navigation commands at the bottom of the screen) to find your way home, hitting Control-X should bring you back to a familiar gopher menu.

Eugene Koh '96-'97 is Remote Staff Manager, Media Services, as America Online, Inc. He also composes soundtracks for CD-ROMs and may be reached online as "ekoh@fas.harvard.edu"