Welcome to Web3 Music, your weekly newsletter to the captivating world of music in the realm of Web3!
Here you can read about music news in web3, musicians spotlights & their latest music NFT drops, opportunities for musicians, upcoming music spaces on X (formerly Twitter), curated content and more!
Join me on this captivating journey as we dive deep into the intersection of music and tech!
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Contents:
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News
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Opportunities
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Curated Content
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Music NFT Drops
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Shooting Star
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Featured Tweet
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News
Nina Protocol v2 launched.
Nina Protocol v2 has officially launched, introducing user-friendly enhancements and highly requested features. Notable additions include the introduction of Albums, a Discovery feature, and the removal of the crypto requirement. Nina seeks to empower independent artists by returning control to their hands. Nina v2, built on publicly available code, allows users to sign up with an email address and instantly release music, offering flexibility in selling albums or singles, providing bonus material, and supporting various payment methods.
Steve Aoki amplifies new album with NFT trading cards.
DJ Steve Aoki has released his eighth studio album, 'HiROQUEST 2: Double Helix,' with an exclusive "collectors' bundle" available on NFT platform Kolex from November 17. The bundle includes exclusive tracks, digital trading cards, a graphic novel, and merchandise as NFTs. Aoki initiated the HiROQUEST journey at 'Collect-A-Con' in Texas, followed by a Discord discussion and an official album release party in Los Angeles. Kolex, with its Web3 technology, realizes Aoki's vision of an immersive trading card game, making the 'HiROQUEST Collectors Edition Bundle' a unique blend of music, technology, and art.
SAN Sound launches SANWEAR!
SAN Sound is launching a new product called SANWEAR™ — combined with a mobile app and digital IDs, called Soundscape Avatars. SANWEAR™, bundled with every Avatar, introduces "Hyper Reality Audio™" technology for lifelike audio experiences. To unlock advanced features like Audio Mining, users need to hold a SANWEAR™ NFT and redeem the physical unit. The community-tested SANWEAR™ is set to ship in mid-December, with a Mint starting on December 3rd, 2023, at 3:33 PM PST, offering 3,333 avatars. Avatars are associated with specific factions, each represented by a unique color within The Soundscape™. The factions include CHI for fashion, UMI for music, SORA for fitness, MECHA for tech and gaming, and NOMAD for balance and travel.
Vault Music launches Fantasy Record Label!
Vault Music, co-founded by FanDuel creators, enables fans to sign emerging artists to their “Fantasy Record Label”, earning cash prizes based on listener gains. The platform introduces a new music economy with three pillars: a Primary Market for limited-edition releases, a Secondary Market for buying, collecting, and trading vaults, and the Fantasy Record Label game rewarding fans for early artist support. This creates a win-win scenario for artists and fans, providing resources for emerging talent, meaningful fan engagement, and transforming the landscape of music discovery and sharing. Cash prizes and points are awarded based on the highest 7-day monthly listener gains on Spotify.
Songcamp teases Camp 4 Collection aka “C4".
Songcamp has introduced C4, a fusion of music, generative art, smart contracts, and a touch of 1990s nostalgia, revolving around burning CDs. Fifteen musicians formed five groups of three, crafting five songs in three weeks for the C4 EP. When these songs release on the Songcamp app, listeners can mint blank CDs as ERC-721 tokens with identical artwork. These blank CDs have no audio initially but can store one song each. Collectors can select a song from the EP to inscribe onto their CD, allowing up to one song per disc. Writing a song onto the disc generates unique p5.js CD artwork based on the chosen song and the collector's wallet address and token ID. C4 drops on Friday, Dec 1, 2023, at 5:00 pm ET, priced at 0.01 ETH per blank CD.
Origin Stories launches a new music event where fans co create the experience!
ORIGIN STØRIES, a creative tech studio, launched a live music concept in Helsinki and will premiere in Amsterdam on December 9. The concept involves artists and audiences co-creating visuals, with fans playing a unique role on stage. The Helsinki lineup includes MARKOMALLOW, RAMITHAWI, LORENZO, and Sean Bradford. Using AI and Web3, fans contribute to visuals before the event, displayed in an Oslo art gallery. Fans and artists co-own the generated art, potentially for merchandise or videos. Origin Støries utilizes generative AI video technology, aiming to enhance storytelling in live music events. The Helsinki event serves as an experimental showcase for this technology.
Opportunities
Submit an onchain song to be played by KarmaVioletta at Art Basel UVR.
Songs can come from any onchain platform and you must own 100% of the rights.
$250k grants available for artists with Somefund
The $250k grant is available for 28 creators. Deadline: December 5th at 12:00 am EST. (Midnight December 4th)
Become an ambassador for EntertainM!
We are developing mSocial & mStudio which is like the perfect mash between Twitch + Metaverse + Friend Tech. With it, you’ll be able to create your own events, host parties or even spaces in hyper realistic venues for your audience and monetize your efforts!
If you’re curious, DM me on Twitter to find out more about this opportunity! If you’re a musician, content creator, a community leader or even a marketer, you don’t want to miss this chance.
Curated Content
Takeaways from music marketing data bootcamp
From Cherie Hu, Julie Knibbe and Maarten Walraven @ Water & Music
“Key learnings & surprises
A. There is no consensus on the marketing tech stack
From session one, we instilled in our students that there is no singular “silver bullet” for music marketing.
Yes, we can draw to an extent from common industry practices, and there are clear categories of data analytics tools that artists can rely on to gain insight into their music — e.g. first-party analytics from music distributors and streaming services, third-party market intelligence platforms like Chartmetric, and social marketing automation tools like SymphonyOS or un:hurd.
But nearly all of our guest speakers emphasized that a given artist’s marketing strategy must be as unique as their music and the reasons behind their own artistry.
In turn, in part due to a lack of shared cross-industry knowledge, there is no consensus of what should be the “ultimate data stack” for today’s music marketers. Several of our guest speakers emphasized that the efficacy of a given tool or channel all boils down to how an artist and their team define a “return on investment” (ROI) — is it the engagement of a loyal fan base? Social media reach? Or simply invaluable time reclaimed back for the artist to focus on creativity?
Without a standardized playbook, hands-on experimentation is the cornerstone of a resilient, future-proof marketing strategy, with the opportunity at every stage of a project to customize the underlying tech and data stack to fit the artist’s unique scale, needs, and ambitions.
B. Even industry veterans face a benchmarking void
Feedback and follow-up questions from our students suggested that many music professionals still feel like they are navigating in the dark, lacking benchmarks to gauge their success or guide their strategies. This uncertainty leads to an unstructured, trial-and-error, spaghetti-on-the-wall approach across the industry, affecting even the most seasoned artist teams.
There is a clear need for more structured tools and frameworks for target-setting and performance benchmarking, to enable a more diverse range of artists to align their idea of “success” with those of their industry peers. (Our original music data series dives into how marketers use third-party intelligence tools like Chartmetric and Soundcharts to benchmark performance against similar artists and previous release campaigns.)
C. Data equity and autonomy are strategic imperatives
Data access was a persistent issue through our case studies and student discussions. The landscape is especially volatile for independent artist teams that rely on a fragmented suite of third-party platforms for music data, where changes in platforms’ data or API policies can strip away access to essential insights almost overnight (e.g. Spotify removing all historical artist data older than two years before a given release). In contrast, larger, more established teams have bigger budgets to build their own custom analytics tooling in-house.
At the same time, independent teams can still gain a competitive edge in their greater flexibility to innovate and experiment with new technologies, and in their strategic focus on genuine, long-term fan retention over broad, short-term reach. In fact, many of our bootcamp speakers advocated for a shift away from dependency on mass-market platforms like Spotify and TikTok, and towards a more autonomous, platform-agnostic approach to data management wherever possible (e.g. collecting email addresses and phone numbers over mere social followers).
D. The value of emerging tech is still… emerging
The past five years have seen several tech hype cycles reverberate throughout the music industry, especially around how paradigms like Web3/blockchain, metaverse/gaming, and creative AI can unlock new forms of fan connection and artist revenue.
Even after several decades of tech development and billions of dollars in investment, we are still in the early stages of music marketing teams integrating emerging tech into their campaigns in a systematic, strategic way. It was also clear throughout our bootcamp that these emerging tech paradigms are not for everybody. For example, artists already embedded within gaming culture may lean more naturally into virtual experiences, while more traditional artists may require more education and incentives for fans to participate meaningfully and delightfully.
Our bootcamp speakers leaned into an open, experimental mindset when it comes to leveraging these emerging technologies, while still carefully emphasizing the importance of sticking to rigorous, “traditional” marketing practices upfront — i.e. segmenting audiences, benchmarking performance, and aligning strategy with what their artists really want and need.”
Your weekly dose of inspiration
How artists can reward their super-fans in web3, why bear markets breed innovation, and how to promote diversity in the space
Interesting Upcoming Music Spaces👀
Do artists have to starve?
By @grlkrash
Music and Education changed my life | What’s your story? #web3 #vibes
By @Cryptogodlui
MAGIC Music Release party | Open Mic | @soundxyz $JNGL #KONGSEASON
By @JACKPOTJB77
Melos Thanksgiving Special Music NFT Listening Party | 23 Nov
By @melos_studio
Music NFT Drops
My Top Picks This Week👇
"Sillhouette” by FonDeW
Let’s celebrate his birthday by minting his NFT!
“Silhouette is a song about passion, persistence, and the elusive nature of our dreams. Moments on the edge of our existence, captured in time.”
Utility: The winner of the Golden Egg with get both the special artwork AND a custom 1/1 Shirt to commemorate this release.
“Memento Mori" by Brenda
“Memento Mori is a personal note to my darker side, my alter ego. I firmly believe that each of us carries a mix of good and bad within; absolute purity is unrealistic. What truly matters is which side we allow to take over. There may have been times when our darker selves won the battle. I know mine did.”
Utility: All minters will have access to token gated chats, concerts, zoom meets and whitelist for most Digital On-chain Records ecosystem future drops! Top 3 minters will be awarded with an airdrop of Memento Mori's acoustic version (limited edition)! All limited edition minters will be whitelisted for acoustic version of Memento Mori.
“XRP Won" by Awesomeisjayell
“This song is a celebratory musical tribute to XRP's victorious court case in the world of cryptocurrency. Through captivating electronic melodies, energetic beats, and fervent vocals, the song encapsulates the excitement of this significant moment in the rise of digital currencies. It's a sonic journey that immortalizes a triumphant milestone in the evolution of cryptocurrencies.”
“Nice" by Mavi Taylor
“I think what makes this song special is that it started as a conversation with a friend and then a fun freestyle that we morphed into a song. We did all of the recording in about an hour with all the windows open on a perfect summer day, it was just before golden hour and everything just flowed. I love listening back to this song and reflecting on that conversation, when I listen back I can almost the feel warm air, the energy we had that day and the smell of the studio incense.”
Utility: The golden egg winner will receive a one on one zoom call to collab on a new design for a custom jacket.
“Horizons" by NIDO
“It isn't just music, it's an adventure. It takes you through different kinds of emotions, like exploring new places. Think of it as a companion for a special journey, where every song tells a story about my artistic experiences. Let it inspire your imagination."
Do you want to be in the Shooting Star section?
Send me a Twitter (X) DM with your journey in web3 and a brief description of yourself for a chance to be featured!
Shooting Star🌠
Brenna came into web3 through DAOs. After diving down the DAO rabbit hole she stumbled into the music NFT space and was able to witness the tail end of the last bull run where she was listening in on spaces with Black Dave, Domino, Violetta and other early pioneers. Her first mint on the blockchain was a free mint that she airdropped to people she respected in the space. Her official Genesis drop “HOME” that was listed at .05 ETH was on Glass. It’s been over a year since that drop and since then she minted 5 more times. “CREEP” is her most recent drop on Sound.xyz.
In parallel with her personal projects is Youni DAO. Ideated by Saiko and Brenna, made real by their initial contributors Pragmatic, LC, Sly, and Duck, they had their first Youni Fest at SXSW 2023, and they will be back again this year.
As for what’s ahead, Brenna is currently working on Wide Feels, a collector created comic series. This will be a very long-term project that engages and rewards the collectors from beginning to end. She plans to launch at SXSW 2024.
“There is music happening inside and outside my realm of existence, expect more frequencies to come to you <3”