gm music fans,
A bit of inspiration this week. Despite broad NFT volume hitting the lows again, independent singer-songwriter TK sold out a collection of 7,000 music NFTs called ORIGINS thanks to the power of his community.
As I’ve said before, lots of people are waiting for big names to jump back in the space, but the grassroots scene is where all the magic is happening and TK’s sale was a big validation. Huge congrats to TK and his team for this one.
This week I’m shaking up the newsletter based on a poll I ran on Twitter. I’m testing a new structure as follows:
Headline stories 🗞️
Artist strategy 🧩
Web3 music tech developments 🎛️
Biggest drops of the week 🎧
Stats 🧮
Let me know what you think and we’ll keep evolving. I want this to be the most useful email in the Web3 music space so I’m always open to feedback. Let’s get into it!
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1. Headlines 🗞️
Music in the metaverse?
The Sandbox just hosted a land sale in their music district. Warner Music owns the biggest plot, alongside Pixelynx (Deadmau5 project), DJ BLOND:ISH, Slipknot and Galantis.
Indie artist sells out 7,000 music NFTS
Singer-songwriter TK sold out a collection of 7,000 NFTs tied to his new album Origins. TK has spent years building a community in Web3 and his Telegram group is one of the most vibrant in the music space. Proof that being deep in the trenches is the most valuable way to build a following in Web3. TK is also a master of putting together ambitious campaign rollouts. Instead of just dropping a string of singles, he packaged the 7 tracks into an album, with dozens of partner-platforms across Web3, and even built a custom contract allowing you to mint all 7 tracks in one transaction.
New music collector community: The Green Room
Leading artist Reo Cragun has launched The Green Room, in partnership with HedsDAO, Hume and LNRZ. It’s a community of music collectors that are pooling funds to support the emerging Web3 music space. The membership NFT is 0.03 ETH, granting holders one vote on funding proposals.
2. Artist Strategy 🧩
The ultimate playbook for music strategy on Lens
Crypto-native social media is one of the most exciting (and under-explored) parts of Web3. We’ve been using Lens heavily as part of our music strategy (for both Ziggy Ziggy and the artists and music projects we work with) and I’ve been impressed with the engagement and tools available.
This week we published a two-part series on the Lens ecosystem including a map of all the apps you need to know about and a detailed playbook for making Lens a key part of your music strategy. The articles are published on t2 — a native writing platform in the Lens ecosystem. If you’ve been curious about Lens but haven’t gone deep yet, I definitely recommend checking this out.
3. Web3 music tech developments 🎛️
NFT Ticketing company raises $4.5 million - GET Protocol raised a Seed round from Animoca, Flow Ventures and more.
Sound.xyz onboards 500 new artists - After opening up to the public, Sound.xyz saw 500+ new artist accounts and more than 200 new drops in the first week.
Lens Protocol launches V2 - A huge upgrade for Lens Protocol. Our favourite aspect is the ability to collect a music NFT directly in the Lens feed even if it’s minted on Sound, Zora or other platforms.
Web3 record label reflection - One of our favorite record labels in the space NVAK just dropped a retrospective on their recent Web3 video game campaign with Annika Rose. The campaign saw 3,300+ unique visitors and 2,500+ NFTs minted.
Earn money by sharing playlists? - Web3 music company Formless launched a new product allowing fans to earn money by curating playlists on its app SHARE.
Supercollector pivots - Formerly a music NFT aggregator, Supercollector is now a full music platform, with a focus on album NFTs.
Headphone Homies mint begins - A music-focused PFP project called Headphone Homies starts minting today.
4. Highlight drops of the week 🎧
YENDRY Colors Show
Colors Collect dropped its latest video NFT from Dominican singer YENDRY via Zora.
Cristina Spinei - Flowt
This is a nice change of pace. A rare neo-classical, piano piece on Sound.xyz.
Xcelencia - el niño estrella
Latin artist Xcelencia has released a ‘dynamic NFT’ with artwork that will evolve at certain checkpoints (for example, hitting 100k streams in a month on Spotify).
Stats 🧮
The broad NFT market is back down at the lows. Weekly volume and weekly number of traders fell this week. We can probably attribute this to traders moving capital back to BTC, ETH and other coins and crypto starts to catch a bid again. The recent $40m Azuki sale also sucked a lot of liquidity and enthusiasm out of the NFT market.
Music chart of the week
This chart tells the story of music NFTs this week. After Sound.xyz opened up to all artists, the number of new artists releasing music on Sound soared higher.
However, volume remains pretty muted with July looking set to finish below June.
Thanks for reading!
We believe a new generation of independent music will be born out of Web3 culture. Discover the best music here first. Follow us on Twitter where we share the best music every day.
Ziggy Ziggy Music Season 2 is supported by Spinamp and Lens Protocol.
Disclaimers: We may own NFTs mentioned in this article, have previous or current contracts with companies mentioned and may earn referral income from links to music NFTs. This newsletter is purely informational and should not be considered financial advice. Nothing in this content should be considered a recommendation to buy a particular NFT, only an expression of our opinion.