wavWRLD's Weekly Wavs 🌊🌐🎶 Issue #29
Your Guide to the Best Emerging Artists & Songs in Music x New Internet
To kick it off, we hope everyone had a wonderful Women’s History Month and we want to give a thank you to Steph Guerrero for how hard she’s working to make sure that historically marginalized groups of people (first for Black History Month and now for WHM) receive the love and flowers they deserve. This one’s for you, Steph!
Next up, the EVOLUTION EXPERIENCE, which is a series of METAVERSE events celebrating women making music history in web3 🚀 is happening TONIGHT at 8pm CST/ 9pm EST!! featuring 7, yes 7 incredible women artists! Curated by the magical CHARM.
Conference season has slowed down slightly as everyone prepares for NFT NYC in April, while a ton of great new music continues to drop. Thankfully, the collapse of the western banking system no longer feels imminent, but there’s still an air of uncertainty that has permeated our little internet subculture.
And understandably so—it’s difficult these days to figure out how to structure music NFT drops, even as platforms continue to add more tools for artists. It feels like a race to the bottom for pricing, which (spoilers) yes, that’s exactly what has happened to music NFT prices. Just this week I happened upon this passage from a TechCrunch article this past December:
“NFT-type tech has been applied to music as well, offering the capability of limited releases of digital tracks the way you might have a limited vinyl run. At least that’s the idea — I don’t think it’s quite caught on, and with the cryptocurrency world currently in disarray, it’s hard to blame anyone for declining to take part in a potentially risky ecosystem.”
Yikes. That’s not even from 2023, and they’re hitting us with the heavy-duty FUD. You know what I say? F*ck it. I’m here to build, and I don’t know if I want to be hanging out with anyone who’s turned off by a little potential risk. To the moon, y’all.
Note: If you have an event you’re throwing in NYC or just want to see what the deal is, check out Hifi Labs’ Magic Map! You still can’t make it to two events at the same time, Hermione, but at least now you know what you’re missing.
wavNEWS 📰
It’s a big week for news! For starters, on Tuesday Sound.xyz announced Sound Swap—essentially their version of a bonding curve. It’s a funky hybrid model that I’ll do my best to break down right quick.
As with Sound drops we know and love, we kick off with a 24 hour open edition; the golden egg winner is based off that initial mint. After the initial mint has closed, new collectors can now collect on Sound Swap by buying at a price that increases as more editions are minted.
When they buy, a small percentage goes to the artist, but most of the cash lands in a “liquidity pool” that just kind of sits there—Sound and the artist get a cut, but for the most part that money is just hanging out. As more people buy the NFT, the price to mint goes up and thus the liquidity pool grows exponentially.
On the flip side, if someone wants to sell their NFT, they can do so by pulling from this liquidity pool at a price determined based on how many editions have been collected. As more people sell, the more the price decreases. This gives artists access to additional revenue past the original mint, and it helps make investment in NFTs less risky for collectors (since they don’t need a buyer to sell to the liquidity pool).
It’s not a revolutionary feature, but because of Sound’s market share this has the potential to unlock levels of liquidity from collectors that might otherwise be tough to achieve. As many have been pointing out this week, music NFTs are still a tiny market even just when compared to NFTs as a whole.
While we do want people spending their money across the entire space and not just on any one platform, someone has to be leading the charge … Oooooo you thought the Sound news was done, but it’s not! They also refreshed their mobile interface & launched a mobile app. Bang!
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Our friends at Reveel have shipped Revenue Path Templates, an exceedingly useful tool aimed at improving workflows for artists leveraging splits for their releases. The new templates include:
Recoupment + Splits: Splits only kick in after an initial investment is recouped.
Primary vs. Secondary: Artists can modify splits based on primary vs. secondary sales.
Create your own: For those feeling especially innovative!
I for one love self-serve artist tools and Reveel is hard at work building resources to help independent artists collaborate and grow. Kudos!
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IF you now hate Ticketmaster because it fumbled your front row seats for Taylor Swift’s tour … cry me a river. They’ve been ruining the lives of jam band fans for years. Just kidding, we can connect through our mutual hate for Ticketmaster and in celebration that the ticketing platform has launched token-gated ticket sales!
Besides the importance of simply acknowledging the use cases of NFTs, Ticketmaster has done what very few large brands have been able to accomplish: integrate with web3 in a sensible way. While it will come down to bands and artists to take advantage of this capability, this will hopefully help reduce the bot activity and price gouging that comes nowadays with hyped-up concerts. Hopefully.
wavLIST 🎶
Fresh wavs & what we’re listening to (& watching) this week from the WRLD:
Heno’s “NEYBORS” Music Video featuring Elujay & J.ROBB, with a cameo from one of our favorites, Iman Europe!! 🎥 Mint on Zora!
Open edition for .005 ETH
“Golden Hour,” the first single from Cam Murdoch’s forthcoming EP “Play This At Sunset” is now live on Decent. Read more about his journey & recent challenges.
Open edition for 33 MATIC
“FEEL MY FACE,” Bana’s first music NFTs on Zora! It’s an ethereal song, with gentle words encompassed by lush electronic soundscapes. Read more about this release. ✨
40 editions at .01 ETH
Tadziu’s looper jam and song “Ethereal” on Lenstube. This song was composed with some samples from splice and cymatics.
5 editions for 2.22 WMATIC
Mavi’s song “SAY IT,” which has 25,000 streams. To celebrate this milestone she minted her first collection on Zora and gave collectors the chance to enter a lottery for a hand painted jacket—Sweetman won the raffle! 🎨
50 editions at .011 ETH
wavALPHA 👀
Upcoming & current drops & projects that you need to know about:
Grimes’ drop of Gen 1 Avatar on Zora!! ONLY 1 day left to mint!
Open edition for FREE
On April 4th at 3:30pm EST, Songcamp & CHAOS fam Yadzi releases his Sound genesis of song “Catch Me”
Open edition at .005
Omotayo’s pre-save on Showtime for her song “Grief”–Out on April 6th. Pre-save the song and collect this free NFT to be allowlisted for her upcoming Sound drop, as well as be entered into a raffle to win an NFT from her “Medicine” collection.
X&ND’s pre-save on Showtime for his song “Take You Back”–Out on April 7th. Pre-save to collect this free NFT! Don’t forget to RSVP for his The XANDYLAND Experience, if you’re in Atlanta on April 6th. Keep an eye out for his album release–Out on April 14th!!
Our very own KarmaVioletta’s pre-save on Showtime for their song “So Deep”–Out on April 14th. Pre-save to collect this free NFT of the alternate album cover!
wavTIPs 💡
Do we really come up with these every week? You’d think at some point we’d run out … but not today! This wavTIP is to value the people that show up for you and support you.
This is especially true for those around us in web3 music. It feels like we’re competing for the same listeners and collectors, but in reality the folks to our left and right in Twitter spaces understand this grind better than anyone else on the planet. Sure, there are disagreements, and many are legitimate—but at the end of the day, we’ve surrounded ourselves with an intelligent, tech-savvy, forward-thinking community that loves to create.
I’ll speak for myself when I say that two years ago, I could only dream of this type of environment. It’s messy when ideas crash into the real world, but that’s the point: we’re all working to build here, and it’s something to cherish when another human being shares and supports your vision. Much love and we’ll see you next week!
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Thanks to our contributing writer Fred•Riko & our curator & editor-in-chief Violetta!
It’s all about the wavs we make with friends along the way.
-wavWRLD 🌊🌐🌱
Disclosure: Writer Fred Riko & Curator/ Editor Violetta Hyland may occasionally own the NFTs of certain artists mentioned & certain platforms/ protocols highlighted. Their wallet holdings & activity can be viewed openly on the blockchain. We prioritize featuring wavWRLD members & contributors.