Your Guide to Web3 Music: 005
Why Web3? Listen to the artists. Plus, platforms gone protocol.
Welcome to the 5th edition of Your Guide to Web3 Music, with insights, analysis, and discovery to help you thrive from music 2.0 → 3.0. Let’s jump in.
IN THIS EDITION
🎙️ How Web3 Changes the Game for Artists 🏷️ Protocols as Killer Apps 👌 Warner & Open Sea Partnership 🎧 Future Tape: Web3 Streaming App 👀 5 Music NFTs under $100
🎙️ Web3 Changes the Game for Artists
Web3 firmly places artists in the forefront.
This nascent infrastructure enables artists to directly engage with collectors, unlocks full value for their art, and provides a blank canvas to explore their creative visions.
While web3 music is still in its infancy with many kinks to be worked out, it’s becoming clear it can positively change artist careers, creative process & connection with fans.
Why Web3? Hear directly from the artists jumping in head-first👇
VERITE | Escape Hatch
BLACK DAVE | Be Yourself
More from Black Dave:
“My journey in web3 has pushed me further financially than it would have through traditional music models. Artists who are early in their journey, I'm just a couple of years in, really struggle to capture value from the fans that they have, since streams don't pay much and neither do shows. The constant battle of chasing going viral on social media is tiresome and in many ways can move you away from your original goal. Web3 has allowed me to be myself, while finding people who resonate with that, and are willing to spend money to support me based on that. I'm having a different battle with social media, finding ways to consistently be present, but at least through existing in the world of web3, I can do it by being myself. Traditional music often pushes us to not be ourselves in order to go viral or gain fans who may not directly resonate with us. I'm excited, and massively grateful to be doing well in web3.”
DANIEL ALLAN | Creative Freedom
IMAN EUROPE | Support 🤝🏽 Responsbility
More from Iman Europe:
“It’s wild to think that this time last year i felt so lost regarding my career. i didn’t know what would happen for me after the pandemic. now i’m the freest i’ve ever been creatively and have more support than ever. thank you God. thank you web3.”
RAE ISLA | Sovereignty
OSHI | Inverting Power
More from Oshi:
“We are now seeing the emergence of artists and platforms across web3 that are inverting legacy power structures in the art economy.”
3LAU | Shape the Future
REO CRAGUN | Hope + Longevity
More from Reo Cragun:
“I’m building something that I’ve wanted to do for years and web3 has given me the opportunities to make it a reality. Good intentions and high quality are the foundations of who I am as an artist. I’m not here for quick gains, I’m here for longevity.”
RAC | Music = Fine Art
More from RAC:
“i've personally taken a more fine art collector first kind of approach than mass marketing my NFTs. it's more of my speed and i can focus on a smaller subset of people. I have 3.5 million unique listeners per month on spotify, yet I made more income from 5 collectors.”
LATASHA | Tell Your Story
KARMA.WAV | Align Incentives
HIGH TROPICS | Find Your People
VIOLETTA ZIRONI | Community
So, why Web3 in music?
It’s clear that web3 is empowering & incentivizing artists to be themselves. To pursue their art in the truest sense. This infrastructure rewards high-conviction artist-fan relationships, rather than high-volumes of low-impact ones.
When systems push artists to flourish, we all win.
🤏 MICRO-DOSES
APPLE MUSIC reaches 100 million tracks on platform
WARNER + OPENSEA partner to give WMG artists priority access & tools
REO CRAGUN uses Sound Protocol to release EP on self-hosted site
ARPEGGI raises $5.1m seed round to build web3 music creator tools
MONDO.NYC conference this week, featuring NFT Success panel with Rob Abelow (Dopr), Joe Barham (HiFi Labs), Goldie Harrison (United Masters), & Cardin Campbell (Trac)
📋 Are Open Protocols Web3 Music’s Killer App?
Three major music NFT platforms have launched permission-less protocols in the last month. On Sep 21, Sound launched Sound Protocol. Last Thursday, Decent launched Decent Protocol & Creator HQ. Not to be undone, Manifold opened up their zero-fee marketplace: Gallery.
Your Web3 platform could never.
Rather than closing off their platforms, all 3 are opening up further, providing blueprints, architecture & tools for artists to build-upon. All of the protocols/tooling provide frameworks for releases, while still allowing for flexibility & creativity. Each enables drop experiences to be hosted on artist-owned websites in addition to distribution on their platform-marketplaces.
✅ Build a release exactly how you want it ✅ Host on your own website with custom branding ✅ Maintain distribution on platform marketplace 🤯
This is a great sign for what is to come in web3 music — and why it’s important for early pioneers to build music’s new foundations prior to traditional industry piling in.
🎶 5 Music NFTs under $100
🎧 Future Tape: Web3’s 1st Streaming App
Anthony Volodkin once built Hype Machine, the blog aggregator that fueled music discovery & going viral in the late 2000s era.
Anthony has now built Future Tape, a mobile listening app for Music NFTs, where you can listen to tracks from multiple platforms & blockchains, all in one place. After 1-year building the project solo, he has joined Zora to build Future Tape into web3’s leading music player.
As my FlightTest app notifications can tell you, Anthony has been incredibly busy pushing new features the last few months, with a key focus to giving prominent, thoughtful space to the unique context of artists & releases. (i.e. Future Tape deployed custom 3D artwork for Holly Herndon’s Holly+ project, as well as custom integrations for Nina’s Hubs & Headleass Chaos.)
In what is becoming a busy space for on-chain streaming aggregators, this is a big move for both Future Tape & Zora.
That’s all for this week. Til next time.
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