✖️ URL vs IRL - Tyler's "What even is an NFT" & Dua Lipa's reluctance for Studio 2054
And: Develop a Jamaican Music System; 1.3 billion online video subscriptions; Indie artists navigating the aftershock of the NFT boom; Travis Scott charity donations gag order; Spotify x Barcelona
How much time do you spend online? I don’t think you want to know. We spend hours each day scrolling through social media feeds, watching streaming video, listening to streaming music and sending messages. Pre-pandemic this was close to 7 hours per day, just imagine how that grew while we went from lockdown to lockdown. Moreover, everything in our daily lives seems to be organized online - from work meetings to grocery shopping. Why do I bring this up? Because I was watching Tyler Talks and his critique of NFTs was just on point. Basically, Tyler, The Creator likes to go outside and have IRL experiences with other people. For sure, that’s not something inherently part of an NFT. It’s just a token that’s connected to a blockchain and that can signify a bunch of things, but those are all digital. But if so many of our experience is digital already, doesn’t it make sense to codify things like ownership in that digital world of ours? I’m not setting up Tyler as a straw man here, but I’m using his critique to take a broader look at the difficulty we have, as people, to accept that digital isn’t a replacement for analog, that URL isn’t a replacement for IRL. Instead, the digital lives next to, or even extends, the analog world.
Studio 2054 wasn’t a livestream, it was a TV special
There were several pandemic-era massive livestream events that were also massive successes. Billie Eilish had one, Sam Smith had one, The Weeknd did a really cool one, but the standard bearer has to be Dua Lipa’s Studio 2054. What’s so great about all of the shows I mention here is they set out to reimagine what music can look and sound and feel like through a digital medium. Dua Lipa was apparently hesitant at first when she was approached to do a livestream. She just wanted to get back to performing in front fans IRL. What tipped the scale for her was how her management company then pitched their idea. In the words of Wendy Ong:
“This was an attempt to be multidimensional, set build, have special guests, and have it shot in a way where it’s more like TV or a movie, and she was up for that.”
In other words, it’s just not a concert the way it would be in a regular venue. The world-building element is important and reflective of some of the best TV and, of course, theater. Moreover, the fact that the camera leads, or better yet directs, the attention of the viewer means that details can be made as abundantly clear as any overarching storyline. Would you like the viewer to notice that little flower on top of a violin for dramatic effect? No problem. While at a regular arena-sized gig hardly anyone in the audience would notice that little flower.
I’ll right-click-save that JPEG of a monkey for you
One of the defining elements of NFTs is how they signify ownership in a digital world. In the analog world we have the intellectual property and the artefact itself. Now that we are going through a phase where the digital starts to fuse with the analog, a third layer of ownership is injected into this model. That’s where NFTs come in - as certifiers of that form of ownership. The only reason we value these NFTs is because we have learned to value things that only exist in a digital form: music lovers buy MP3s, gamers buy skins, fashionistas buy AR ear rings, etc. Of course, there’s NFTs that seem ridiculous, and those monkeys are certainly part of that area. However, even with the Bored Apes, there’s some highly creative projects that are being developed. One of them is Jenkins the Valet, where the IP of the apes gets put into a book or a film. This is all about storytelling and world-building and having the tools to bring ideas to life.
NFTs are an extension of the creator economy
When you think about world-building, and I’m going back to Tyler here, it’s all about a feeling. There’s this first idea, this sense of what that something you’re creating should feel like. And this doesn’t even count for whoever gets to experience the end result, this is about the feeling the creator has. Nail that down and then focus on all the details. However, that can be really expensive and there’s a lot of free content out there for people to enjoy. To get people to pay, creators need to appeal to their selfishness. In order to that, it’s necessary to make a philosophical shift as much as anything. If and when something is deemed valuable by a consumer then they will pay for it, even if a similar thing is available for free elsewhere.
Two examples of tools that many creators nowadays use to monetize their work stem from this simply philosophy - monetize those people who value what you create directly. One of these tools is the one you’re reading MUSIC x through - Substack - and the other is the one you are maybe supporting our work through - Patreon. Both of these tools were born from the frustrations of their founders. Looking back at that first Substack post from 2017 by Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie, they said:
“We believe that journalistic content has intrinsic value and that it doesn’t have to be given away for free. We believe that what you read matters … Now, more than ever, publishers of news and similar content can be profitable through direct payments from readers.”
New technological developments in the digital realm enabled creators to earn revenue directly from their fans, readers, supporters. By 2017, Patreon had already had four years of development under its belt. Similar to Best and McKenzie, Jack Conte had trouble getting through in a revenue model based on ad revenues. So what if he could get just some of his YouTube followers to fund his work directly? That’s how Patreon was born - as a way to bring the crowdfunding model into a monthly recurring revenue model. Adding an ownership layer to that model through NFTs, and blockchain-based technologies more broadly, makes a lot of sense. Especially if you let those broader Web3 rails help in the world-building of the creator involved.
Artist Empowerment
Digital immersion has helped many artists make a living from their art. With each new iteration of the internet, a new set of people have found ways to monetize what they create. A lot of the examples I’ve shared here sit firmly on their ‘artist empowerment’ ideals. And yet, there’s an issue. In each new business model for music artists, we see the same 90-9-1 model where 1% earns a good living, 9% does okay enough to pay the bills, and 90% does what they do for their own pleasure more than anything. This is the case in the streaming economy, and we also see this in the creator economy more broadly, including with Substack and Patreon. So whether you see NFTs as a great way to invest in your community, or simply as a way to offer some digital collectibles, or even if you don’t care for any of the URL stuff and want to focus on IRL experiences the whole point is that there doesn’t seem to be a blueprint for any specific artist empowerment tool. And this goes back to world-building again. Start with that feeling and figure out which tools help breathe life into it instead of seeing the tools and trying to get your feeling to fit them.
LINKS
🇯🇲 Develop a Jamaican music system (Dennis Howard & Shain Shapiro)
“It would incorporate music technology into accelerator and incubator programmes to foster the next generation of creative entrepreneurs. And it would create a dialogue between artistes and the Government, through a music reconciliation forum which brings together disparate voices, to understand better the challenges inherent in Jamaica's music community and how music can be used as a tool for harm reduction and community activism. But to do so Jamaica needs a wholesale music ecosystem strategy, one led by the Government but composed of ideas led by musicians, local communities and stakeholders across the entire island. There is an urgent need to designate spaces within inner-city communities as zones of creativity where people can practise, hone and refine their artistic and creative skills within the framework of a creative city initiative.”
🧭 How Independent Artists are Navigating The Aftershock of The NFT Boom (Eric Ravenscroft)
“For now, artists appear to be treating the current phase of digital art’s evolution as a case study. One that’s rearing more questions than answers at the moment. And it’s unclear whether NFTs can sift out enough bad actors, private and/or corporate, to fully gain the trust of those who stand to gain and contribute the most in its ecosystem.”
⚽ Spotify and FC Barcelona Announce a First-of-Its-Kind Partnership To Bring Music and Football Together (Spotify)
I wanted to highlight Spotify’s own blogpost about this new sponsorship deal, because I want to focus on one specific element here:
“As we look to grow the Spotify brand worldwide, there are few partners that have this sort of scale and global reach. Being able to connect music and football fans from Barcelona to Mumbai, Jakarta to Rio de Janeiro, is really a unique opportunity.”
What I read here, is a company that knows it’s reaching a saturation point in terms of finding new subscribers. What remains, are much more old-school advertising plays that simply bring a brand to as many eyeballs as possible.
📹 Theme Report 2021 (Motion Picture Association)
There’s still a valuable play for music streaming services to differentiate their offerings. Of course, all the major players have tried to bring exclusives to their platforms without much success. Consumers simply expect all music ever released to be at their fingertips. And yet, there’s 1.3 billion online video subscriptions now. That’s not talking about users, just the subscriptions. If we take into account that with each subscription there’s more than one profile involved, the number of users will balloon. So while Disney+ and Netflix compete on exclusive content, Apple Music and Spotify compete on little else than ecosystem and general ease-of-use.
🌬️ Travis Scott Charity Donation Draws Blowback From Astroworld Victims (Ashley King)
“Attorneys working for the family of Ezra Blount accuse the rapper of trying to use the media to win favor with potential jurors. The launch of a charitable initiative called Project HEAL on March 8 prompted the filing. Scott’s lawyers argue that his philanthropy work is genuine, and adding him to the gag order would violate his right to free speech.”
MUSIC
Two of my favourite artists have collaborated, or actually one of them started working with the music the other had long ago created. Chilly Gonzales had heard Plastikman’s 1998 Consumed and started making piano-based reactions to what he heard. In the end, Richie Hawtin and Chilly got in touch about this and now they’re releasing Consumed In Key together. It’s a stunning blending of ambient techno and piano keys.