What's next for Music Artists?
Music NFTs, Collaborations and Pasoori
Hey there friends,
Yesterday was World Music Day and I hope you had a pleasant musical day!
While reading for today’s newsletter I stumbled across We Are Made of Music, We Are Made of Time by Maria Popova expanding on Violinist Natalie Hodges’ theory of music. Once you move beyond the faulty allusions to physics in a few places, the piece is quite brilliant and makes you wonder about the experience of music. Here are two of my favourite excerpts:
Music — with all the mysterious power by which it “enters one’s ears and dives straight into one’s soul, one’s emotional center” — is made not of notes of sound but of atoms of time. And if music is made of time, and if time is the substance we ourselves are made of, then in some profound sense, we are made of music.
…behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern… the whole world is a work of art… there is no Shakespeare… no Beethoven… no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself…
Virginia Woolf
I was further thinking about music, the music listening experience, the changing dynamics in the music industry, the effect of the passion economy on independent music artists, the effect of Web 3 on music production, and the overall developments in the audio industry.
There is an overload of music. 60,000 songs are uploaded to Spotify every day. Over 20% of those don’t get streamed even once. This number is encouraging and disappointing all at once. Encouraging, as it shows us the growing boom in the activities of independent and micro-artists. Production of music like other content properties has been democratized, this has also led to a saturation in the industry, there are so many artists and so much to choose from. And yet, the paradox lies in the fact that our music consumption has become more inward more playlist driven more genre specified.
So how do we move beyond this? We are constantly moving beyond this enclosed circle, thanks to TikTok and IG Reels.
Yes, as irritating as it might get to listen to the same song and watch the same hook step or the same sappy aesthetic rain and metro edits, reels, and TikToks have been crucial in viralising songs, propelling artists, and helping so many music creators find their audience.
Here’s Nigerian Artist CKay talking about the virality of “Love Nwantiti”
He is not a solitary example, think about the most popular songs of the last 6 months or of 2021. Think of songs like Heat Waves, Driver’s Licence, Comethru, or artists like Olivia Rodrigues, Maneskin, and Tai Verdes to name just a few! As much as we love bashing these trends and as much as it seem that “reels ruin all good songs” they actually don’t. In fact, these trends are giving rise to a new economy of music creation, distribution, and consumption.
What’s Next for Music Artists?
NFTs!
Yes, I am sure this is not surprising to you.
Music NFTs do not come with inherent ownership rights. They don’t include any claim on masters or royalty rights or publishing and licensing abilities. They simply represent a scarce version of a song or album - represented on-chain using web3. There are already startups and platforms like Ditto, Audius, etc enabling music artists to build superfans and monetize their work through NFTs.
NFTs will help music creators sell tokens that entitle owners to a share of revenue streams generated by a song, almost like a dividend-bearing stock. Music creators can sell shares of the copyright associated with their upcoming songs and obtain upfront cash. This cash could help them fund their new releases: hire a great producer, set up a paid promotional campaign, etc. Fans who purchase these NFTs are eligible for monthly dividends, i.e. royalties from streaming. By divesting a part of their copyright, emerging music creators could receive an intimate form of financial support from their most devout fans.
Li Jin points out how we have come a full circle from owning CDs and cassettes of our favourite albums to streaming all and every album without any ownership to NFTs, where we own exclusive material. It will be interesting to see how this plays itself out.
I also like the whole area of live coding music, watch this video to get perspective
Mention your current favourite song in the comments below! I promise I will give it a listen.
I recently watched the making of the song Pasoori, if you are hooked to the song then you should definitely watch it.
Thank you for reading till the need. For any suggestions, queries or advice reach out to me directly on my Instagram @pawan_rochwani