Warner Records teams up with Adidas for Web3 activation

... and viral AI songs come to the blockchain

gm music fans,

Before we dive into the news stories this week, I was lucky enough to sit down with Cooper Turley for this week’s Invest in Music podcast.

We talked about my history as an artist in the major label system, music curation in Web3 and how blog culture is re-emerging through outlets like Ziggy Ziggy, Own the Sound, Invest in Music, LNRZ, Noise and more. I also outlined our vision for Ziggy Ziggy and teased some exciting things I have planned for Season 2 (a free NFT drop, more music releases, and helping to bring music from a major artist into Web3).

As always, thank you for reading and here’s your weekly roundup!

1. Warner Records partners with Adidas in Web3

Warner’s Web3 imprint Probably a Label just teamed up with Adidas to host an event in NYC.

Adidas is currently rolling out its new ‘Alts’ NFT project while Probably A Label continues to incubate Web3 native music projects. There are no further details on whether there’s a deeper partnership here but watch this space.

2. Viral AI track appears on the blockchain

Artificial intelligence stole the headlines this week after an anonymous artist called Ghostwriter uploaded a song with AI vocals from Drake and The Weeknd.

The song was quickly taken down from all streaming platforms… but was later minted as an NFT. I don’t think this was minted by the real Ghostwriter (probably someone trying to capitalize on the hype) but it’ll be interesting to see whether major labels bring the game of whack-a-mole to the blockchain and how much pressure they can exert on platforms in the space.

3. Ticketmaster goes deeper into Web3

We recently broke the news of Ticketmaster opening up token-gated presale for Avenged Sevenfold’s upcoming tour. Now there’s more…

Rock band Greta Van Fleet just released tickets for their September shows, and gave token-holders priority access. This integration was powered by Medallion which has also built white-label Web3 fan clubs for Santigold, Tycho, Sigur Ros and more.

The image below highlights the exclusive pre-sale access for Greta Van Fleek’s Web3 fan club.

4. Music NFT investment patent

One of the most active members of the music NFT community Jason Meinzer has filed a patent that fast-tracks the ability to invest directly into an artist’s career through NFTs.

It introduces the concept of NFTs tied to an artist and individual songs, which is then scored based on performance across Web2 and Web3. Value can accrue based on rankings with capital later distributed to holders. Jason told me more about the scoring system:

“In their simplest form, web2 data are calculated based on stream counts of each individual song and for each artist… [as well as] incorporating web3 activity (e.g. market volume) on at least one marketplace like Sound.xyz.”

The patent can be immediately incorporated by any company that wants to experiment with it. I highly recommend reading the entire Mirror post about Jason’s journey and the full details of the patent.

5. The first Web3 video game fan club?

We’re incredibly bullish on teams using Web3 to create entirely new fan experiences. Indie record label NVAK Collective and their artist Annika Rose is doing just that through the launch of a music video game.

The campaign just began rolling out with the release of four collectible ‘scenes.’

6. Sound.xyz open to all artists within 3 months

Sound is the leading music NFT platform but – until now — it has only been open to artists through an invite system and selected onboarding. Founder David Greenstein has now promised that the platform will be open to all artists within three months.

Thanks for reading!

If you found this useful please forward to your colleagues and group chats. Did I miss anything this week? Let me know on Twitter.

Disclaimers: we own NFTs from Annika Rose and NVAK mentioned in this article.