Don't lose faith in Web3 music...
+ a major music company embraces NFTs
Gm music fans,
This week has been characterised by lots of soul searching in Web3 music.
Artists, collectors and companies are all asking tough questions about the value of NFTs and the future of crypto’s role in music. Many are weary as sales have slowed down, prices dip and royalties are taken away.
It’s partly a symptom of this part of the bear market… the long, hardest part where the slow bleed of apathy starts to kick in.
I’m still incredibly optimistic about the long-term future of NFTs and Web3, but I also want to bring you the real story and not just wagmi soundbites… so we’ll start today with some insightful threads and articles from those deep in the crypto music culture this week.
Don’t lose faith, don’t tear each other down, and support the ones who are still building authentically.
The state of Web3 music
1. Stvdio Nouveau - for anyone feeling low
2. Verité - on Web3’s branding problem
3. Latasha - on believing in the space
4. Domino - on almost dipping out of Web3
5. Steph Guerrero - on not feeling very wagmi
6. Marc Moglen - A brilliant essay on the current state of Web3 music.
7. Dan Fowler - Putting crypto music in long-term perspective (a throwback to 2021 article).
8. Syd Sidney - on drops not selling out.
Despite the slump in morale, the legacy music industry is still making moves into Web3. So let’s jump into the biggest news stories of the week
1. Beatport enters Web3
Leading electronic music platform Beatport teased an NFT marketplace for digital collectibles built on the Polkadot blockchain. The waitlist is open now.
2. Helix Records sells out its Genesis Pass
Helix Records sold out 3,333 NFT label passes. The label is founded by Patrick Moxey — the music industry veteran behind PayDay Records and Ultra. The NFT pass gives fans access to the label and can submit their own tracks for feedback and consideration.
3. Latasha’s Sotheby’s auction sells out
Latasha sold a music video trailer at Sotheby’s auction house for $5k. However, it came after an original bidder pulled out and Latasha was asked to lower the reserve price (she refused).
Respect to Latasha for being open about the process and calling for traditional institutions to do better. And congrats to Super Chief Gallery for winning the auction and collecting a piece of history.
4. 3LAU gives away royalties to his collectors
DJ and producer 3LAU is back with a new remix and he’s sharing a portion of streaming royalties with all previous collectors.
5. Catalog and Songcamp team up for huge NYCNFT event
The leading 1/1 music marketplace Catalog is teaming up with Web3 music collective Songcamp to host an epic two-night event at NFTNYC.
The first wave of tickets sold out immediately via an NFT drop with Metalabel. The second wave of tickets will be available next week and the lineup will be revealed soon.
(Catalog also announced its new Cycle 4 curators this week)
6. More NFT sample packs are dropping
Get a sample pack from MSFT - a bass producer and one of Web3’s leading artists.
7. Water & Music announces first ever conference
The leading music tech research community Water & Music just launched a conference in New York. W&M has been on the cutting edge of impartial Web3 music research for the last two years. Get notified when tickets drop here.
8. A new Web3 album format?
SuperCollector just launched a new NFT album format for artists to play with. Fans can collect the full album, a few tracks or just one song — much more like the Bandcamp / iTunes model for NFTs. It’s priced at an accessible 0.01 ETH per track and available as unlimited open editions.
9. Soundmint returns with vinyl offering
Generative music NFT platform Soundmint has pivoted to launch an on-demand vinyl production service called Pressly.
Thanks for reading!
If you found this useful please forward it to your group chats and hit me up on Twitter to let me know if I missed anything.
I still feel that without the artists, the platforms, record labels, etc. have nothing. The artists have to force the issue for appropriate compensation. The success stories are doing this but I’m afraid when these companies join the space many artists eager for exposure and hopes of dollars will dilute the movement back to square one.