When it comes to the world of Crypto x Music, it really is the wild, wild west out here.I haven’t seen something so exciting, so explosive, so disruptive, and so dangerous since the early days of Napster.NFT mania is dominating culture. It’s a perfect storm of timing, technology, and circumstance, leading to rapid, industry-wide change. Soon, NFT will lose its buzzword status and become a household term.This week alone there was Christie’s release with JPG artist, Beeple, which yielded $63.9 Million at auction; Rob Gronkowski, with the help of event promotions company Medium Rare, dropped a set of NFT trading cards earning $1.5 Million on the marketplace, OpenSea; and EDM DJ and savvy investor, 3LAU, the ringleader of this space right now, has a major drop with visual artist Slimesunday coming via Nifty Gateway. The album he dropped two weeks ago earned him over $11.5 million and cemented his crypto art legacy.Brands, naturally, are getting in the game. TacoBell did a drop this week that sold out in 30 minutes. It’s reselling on the secondary market for $187,000 (100 Ethereum). There are so many opportunities for brands to get in at this moment. It’s exciting to see the collectibles space evolving to combine art, music, technology, brands, and culture.Unfortunately, some outrageous blindspots are revealing themselves. A company called BitClout orchestrated the sale of celebrity-backed NFTs without obtaining permission. That’s right, with a White Paper dropping on Friday, the company released coins of about 15,000 Twitter influencers and celebrities without their consent. Immediately, “Creator Coins” started soaring in price and the site crashed. I don’t think this stunt was legal and I’m sure it pissed off a lot of artists whose coins were trading on their names without their knowledge, but it got everyone’s attention and put new possibilities on display. Read their white paper here.BitClout sent a jolt of uncertainty (and wild spending) through the system. It was really reckless. We’re already dealing with misinformation, disinformation, and deep fakes online. There are apps and videos that can simulate stars. Everywhere I look, from TikTok (with Tom Cruise) to Clubhouse impersonators where people are being faked into mass virality within hours, there needs to be better security. How safe and secure is the Blockchain if NFTs are being stolen right from people’s digital wallets, to the tune of $5.4 million? There is only so much a marketplace like Nifty Gateway can do. The crypto world has always posed a risk of theft and fraud. Since blockchain transactions are anonymous and irreversible, a compromised password is a significant risk for people who have invested thousands in digital assets.But I truly love the action, the wildness, the transformation, and the opportunities. Growing pains, people! I’m watching the space closely and devising ways to build a bridge for artists and brands into the market. When the Craps table is hot, you want to have the dice. Nue can help guide you as things stabilize in NFT world. Our bet is that digital collectibles mixed with real-world experiences and culture will be the future!Don’t hesitate to holler with your Blockchain & NFT questions and ideas.
BEATS
Nearly 98% of 18 to 49-year-olds Didn't Tune in to The Grammys on TVThe 63rd Annual Grammy Awards were watched by a live US TV audience of 8.8 million on Sunday night (March 14), down 53% year-on-year, according to time-zone adjusted national data from Nielsen. Those 8.8m viewers were down by nearly 10m on the 18.7m live TV viewers that Nielsen counted for the Grammys in 2020. (Music Business Worldwide)
Epidemic Sound Raises $450m at a $1.4B Valuation To 'Soundtrack The Internet' The popularity of video and other streamed content like podcasts is continuing to grow at a breakneck speed, and today a startup called Epidemic Sound, a marketplace to source the background music for that media, is announcing a huge round of funding to scale along with it. (Tech Crunch)
Native Instruments And Izotope: Creator Tools Major In The MakingThe music streaming market has enabled many things, not least the era of the artist. A new generation of empowered independent artists have an unprecedentedly rich (and fast growing) array of self-serve tools and services that enable them to replicate the traditional roles once performed only by record labels, marketing agencies and studios. (Music Industry Blog)
Raised In Space, Jason Flom Join $11M Investment Round In Music Licensing Tech Platform Songclip Music licensing technology platform Songclip has closed an $11 million funding round led by Gregg Smith of Evolution VC Partners. Songclip has patented a technology solution for integrating popular licensed music as a feature in social apps. Founded by former Bandsintown and Zynga execs, Songclip has raised $22m to date. (Music Business Worldwide)
90% of Professional Musicians Report Mental-Health Decline Amid COVID Nearly 90 percent of professional musicians say that their mental health has deteriorated since the COVID-19 pandemic began last March, according to a study conducted by Help Musicians UK.The 100-year-old charitable organization just recently revealed this and other less-than-encouraging stats, which reiterate that the impact of COVID-19 lockdown measures and large-gathering bans hasn’t been purely financial – especially for musicians. (Digital Music News)
Music Vacation: Moon Crush Takes Place in Miramar Beach, Florida As the U.S. vaccination campaign ramps up and music fans slowly begin to think about congregating again, festival talk is building. Bonnaroo in Tennessee, Milwaukee’s Summerfest, and Life Is Beautiful in Las Vegas all have dates on the books for September. (Rolling Stone)
Amazon Music Launches In-App Merch Integration, Exclusive Artist Collections Starting today (March 10), merch will appear on participating artists’ pages alongside their songs, albums, live streams and music videos, allowing fans to shop directly from the Amazon Music app. The majority of this merch will be available with Prime shipping for Amazon Prime members. (Billboard)
Inside the 'Black Market' Where Artists Can Pay for Millions of Streams “Streaming manipulation has been an unfortunate blight on the industry over the past few years,” declared John Phelan, director general of the International Confederation of Music Publishers. “There is a black market for pay-for-play.” (Rolling Stone)
Lena Waithe Partners With Def Jam to Start Up Hillman Grad Records Emmy-winning television producer Lena Waithe (“Twenties,” “Boomerang,” “The Chi”) is taking a big step into the music sphere, partnering with Def Jam Recordings to start up a new label, Hillman Grad Records, with the goal of what Def Jam describes as “leveraging opportunities across music, TV and film… to capitalize on the cultural significance generated when these worlds meaningfully intersect.” (Variety)
Chloe x Halle Are The New Neutrogena Brand Ambassadors Neutrogena named Chloe and Halle as its newest faces, making them the first-ever sister spokespeople for the brand. The gig is their first foray into the beauty world and a fitting one. (Refinery29)
Shuttered Venue Grants Coming In April, Promising Relief For Concert Presenters It's March now, and the website for businesses to apply for this program — known as the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) — isn't up and running yet. The SBA says they expect to have the portal for applications up by "early April." (NPR)
BYTES
On “Literally! With Rob Lowe”, check out this GRAMMYs special in which Rob and music production legend Clive Davis discuss the formula for a hit record, signing The Notorious B.I.G., passing on John Mellencamp, a new biopic about Whitney Houston, and the painting of Earth Wind & Fire hanging in the National Portrait Gallery.
On Sunday, Lil Baby brought the 63rd Grammy Awards outside the Los Angeles Convention Center and back to this summer’s Black Lives Matter marches against police brutality for a sprawling performance of his protest song, “The Bigger Picture,”
Wombo is free and easy to use. Just snap a picture of your face or upload an image from your camera roll, and push a button to have the image lip-sync to one of a handful of meme-adjacent songs. The app’s software will work its magic on anything that even vaguely resembles a face and many things that don’t.
World-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma gave an impromptu concert in the waiting area of a Massachusetts vaccination site after receiving his 2nd COVID-19 dose. During the customary 15-minute observation period that follows each dose, Ma performed Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria" and the prelude to Bach's "Cello Suite No. 1" on his cello, which he'd brought with him.
This week's newsletter was carefully curated by the Nue Agency staff and our editor Rachel Meisner. If you think we missed something this week or have any suggestions/comments for next week's newsletter, let us know!