first, listen to the song:
Jon Waltz is searching for freedom.
We hear the first longing scream and start letting loose. We get into a call-and-response rhythm with the “oooh”s and the “brr brr”s, enhanced by a panning beat that sounds like someone created a groove at home hitting whatever surfaces they had available, and we’re flying fast, energized in Waltz’s Comet. Making a quick metaphor about Django Unchained, the song’s intro feels like it could have been straight out of a Tarantino movie. The resonant electronic kick enters with the verse, adding an element of power to the rhythmic percussion, and Waltz elevates it using soft melodic background voices as textures to complement his fierce rapping voice.
There is no denying Jon’s artistry, effortlessly combining visual metaphors with authoritative melodic rap lines to convey the truths he is finding in a broken industry. There is no out of place syllable as he uses childhood and Anime references to represent the struggle between remaining in an industry that exploits artists, or aiming for their head and charting a new independent path. Trying to earn a living as a musician from a sink full of cut-throat label piranhas, we hear Waltz’ cry for freedom. Freedom from the shackles of a legacy music industry that has not been able to evolve to provide a living for non-top-10 mainstream artists. Freedom from the constant money grind artists are placed on, which requires them to spend more time marketing themselves than making music and show off money as status. Freedom from existing musical conventions and what other people think about his music (”I’m Americana I think, I don’t care what none of y’all say”).
What should we do when facing a broken system? J. Krishnamurti’s (a 20th century Indian philosopher) tell us:
“Does society help man find truth or does the individual seeking truth create a new society? Must not the individual break away from the existing society or culture? Surely, in the very breaking away he discovers what is truth, and it is that truth which creates the new society, the new culture”
Although “Comet” was released in 2019 as the first track of Waltz’ first full-length album Monochrome, it is as relevant as ever. It’s a weird time for music. Big artists are selling their catalogs for hundreds of millions, some worried about the coming AI-generated-music revolution and the role humans will play in it. Old music (songs released over 18 months ago) already accounts for ~70% of the music market, and so, as AI-artists continue to get better and prolifically crowd the ever-smaller new music market, it is no wonder that many artists are left wondering how they will cut through the noise. Jon Waltz’ answer for this question follows Krishnamurti’s guidance - breaking away from existing structures, creating a new culture by focusing on the most human thing of all: one-to-one, human-to-human, artist-to-collector relationships.
We’ve spoken about the evolving relationship between artists and their fans and how onchain music enables a deeper connection in a previous review. However, rather than appealing to the masses and looking for thousands of mints, Jon Waltz’s treats his music like fine art, developing a one-to-one relationship with a few high-value patrons. Waltz still uses every tool available to him in his effort to remain an independent musician: he has over 70k monthly listeners on Spotify (with a couple of songs reaching 3M+ streams) and is the #18 top selling artists on Sound (~39 ETH generated) while having the lowest unique collectors in the top 20 together with Matthew Chaim, indicating higher prices per edition. But it is his Catalog collection that is the most meaningful and disrupting. Waltz understands the value of the music he has made and continues to make, and also understands the rarity of an onchain 1/1 digital record. In almost exactly 2 years since pressing his first Catalog 1-of-1, Waltz has sold 17 1/1 records to 12 collectors (table below), generating ~30.4 ETH (~$50k in today’s price). Ethventurer, his top Catalog collector, owns 5 of his records and has paid ~13.7 ETH to Waltz. Jon is likely in the top 3 Catalog artists of all time (although it is hard to tell since there are no global or artist charts on Catalog), up there with big web3 artists like Daniel Allan, Bloody White and Oshi for most records pressed and most ETH made on the platform. Comet is his only unsold 1/1 record on Catalog, and it is safe to say we don’t expect it to last much longer on the market given Waltz’ track record, and the song’s quality and historic importance in his career.
Instead of waiting to become a mainstream artist to sell his catalog for millions decades later, Jon Waltz is finding freedom in the simplicity of 1/1 human relationships and 1/1 digital records. This path gives him enough financial freedom to remain dangerously independent, and to have the creative freedom to be whoever he wants to be without worrying about marketing himself and without giving up his masters or future earnings to a major label that probably doesn’t care about him. It is this very path that allows him to shed light on the existing broken structures for other musicians to see, like his statement piece “REDACTED”, 2/3 on sale on Foundation now, where he published each page of a publishing deal that would grant 50% ownership of Waltz’s compositions as separate 1/1s. The first page was already bought by CXY for 1.5 ETH, the same collector who chose this song to be reviewed by musicurator as a benefit of being the first active musicurator collector.
Comet’s flame continues to burn strong in our listening atmosphere, as Waltz transforms his rapping voice into a much softer, drier, layered singing voice on the hook. He simplifies the beat on the hook’s first pass to let the voices and ever-looping synth line shine, pairing it with an EDM-like synth that plays a similar call-and-response with the isolated “like a side-eye” wail. The song carries on with more of Waltz blending his rapping and singing prowess over the same synth loop that plays throughout the song, at times adding new elements like a Frank-Ocean-like electric guitar riffs or a subtle scream after the 4th beat every 8 beats. This Comet fades away from Earth with a classical guitar and distorted vocals over a modified beat, leaving us wanting more. More visual analogies over spitting verses, perhaps more musical complexity beyond a single loop, more and newer sounds that break from the traditional R&B and hip-hop landscapes, and definitely more new music from Jon Waltz as he continues on his path towards freedom.
More on the song:
Date of mint: August 7th, 2023
Mint details: 0.36 ETH, 1/1, unminted
Current price: unminted