Can Live Music NFTs Revive ‘Cassette Culture’ and Boost Indie Bands?

Crypto advocates see NFTs as a approach to revitalize music possession within the streaming period, and startup Vault is taking a very distinctive method: utilizing restricted version reside live performance recordings to revive the traditional idea of “cassette tradition,” and probably profit indie artists within the course of.

Starting this week, Vault’s “Cassette Tradition 3.0” initiative is providing weekly drops of reside recordings from underground and impartial bands by way of its Solana-based NFT music platform. It’s designed to recall the method by bands to create and distribute novice recordings by way of cassette tapes to assist construct a following.

Because it stands, 10 reside recordings from bands acting at iconic New York venues together with Child’s All Proper, Bowery Electrical, and The Brooklyn Monarch can be found to buy as music NFT albums, with over 30 extra artists already confirmed. Artists like Sid Simons, Sum Solar, and Charlotte Rose Benjamin are a part of the preliminary lineup.

Homeowners can take heed to the reside albums by way of a devoted cell app. Sometimes, Vault sells every reside album for between $5 and $10, with simply 100 or 150 editions out there for every drop so far. Followers should purchase them utilizing crypto or bank card, and also will get entry to different options together with efficiency movies and behind-the-scenes content material.

Artists will obtain 70% of the proceeds from every sale, with Vault protecting minting prices, storage, and bank card charges. Vault additionally handles the precise recording and mixing of the reside efficiency. This system will subsequent increase into Nashville, and the corporate can be in talks with venues in London and Amsterdam too.

“There’s an actual urge for food from music followers to search out out extra about these grassroots scenes,” Vault CEO Nigel Eccles instructed Decrypt. “With loads of these bands, they’re coming at it from a distinct path [than] loads of TikTok artists. They do not have many followers on Spotify or Instagram, however they’ll promote tickets in New York. Spotify doesn’t service these bands or actions, however we will.”

It comes as a brand new wave of bands are specializing in increase a reside status earlier than formally releasing music on streaming platforms. The London-based act The Final Dinner Social gathering, for instance, racked up tens of hundreds of YouTube views on live performance movies shot by followers, whereas reside periods filmed by Audiotree and NPR often attain hundreds of individuals.

Brooklyn-based indie pop band Center Half had a latest gig at Bowery Ballroom recorded by Vault for an upcoming Cassette Tradition 3.0 launch.

“The primary factor I’m hoping for is that followers will get to gather a second in time for Center Half,” the band’s singer Andrew Selkōw instructed Decrypt. “I’m pumped to provide followers an opportunity to expertise our music outdoors of our studio recordings, digitally.”

Whereas some distinguished artists promoting music NFTs by way of different platforms or strategies—together with Snoop Dogg, Justin “3LAU” Blau, and André “RAC” Anjos—are vocal advocates of crypto and blockchain tech, that’s not the case for Selkōw. He’s simply enthusiastic about one other alternative to get Center Half’s music on the market.

“I personally don’t care about NFTs or the cash, however I do admire what Vault is doing,” he added. “Illuminating a scene, with a possibility to achieve some capital and doing all the things freed from cost, is actually huge for an indie scene that’s in any other case fairly extensively ignored.”

Elsewhere, the continuing vinyl resurgence has proven Vault that followers care about music possession, regardless of the abundance of content material supplied by streaming subscription giants like Spotify and Apple Music.

Blockchain builders see NFTs as a approach to current true digital possession for followers and collectors, fueling curiosity in rising platforms—together with Sound, an Ethereum-centric music NFT platform that just lately raised $20 million.

“The primary factor followers need from a band is entry to music,” stated Vault’s Eccles. “These distinctive recordings gained’t be out there anyplace else, and followers will personal them eternally.”

Vault has beforehand labored with high-profile artists like Fletcher on NFTs round her “Woman Of My Desires” tour, however Cassette Tradition 3.0 focuses on impartial and underground artists. Many lesser-known artists make a pittance on streaming royalties, and usually depend on reside reveals to make a residing—a framework just lately threatened amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“That’s key for us,” defined Eccles of this system’s indie-centric method. “They’re the artists who want this essentially the most. Twenty years in the past with CDs, much more artists might have a full-time profession simply from promoting music. That is simply not true as we speak, as a result of streaming kinda sucks for them. It solely actually works for the superstars.”

“We wished to concentrate on the impartial and underground artists as a result of that’s who we will impression essentially the most,” he continued. “It’d solely be a couple of thousand {dollars}, however truly—for lots of those artists—that’s greater than they’ve ever created from streaming.”

Cassette Tradition 3.0 takes affect from the worldwide music scene that flourished from the late Nineteen Seventies to the early Nineties, which noticed DIY musicians create tapes of house recordings to fund their profession. That ethos continued by way of on-line platforms like SoundCloud and MySpace within the 2000s, however artists weren’t in a position to simply monetize their house recordings in the identical manner.

For the undertaking, Vault has curated a variety of bands that it believes represents simply how thrilling grassroots music scenes are, however bands may put themselves ahead for the undertaking. Eccles hopes to include extra genres over time too, and sees the undertaking as a approach to probably assist artists get away and maintain themselves.

“This gained’t change streaming, however we wish to complement it,” stated Eccles. “We wish to provide followers the chance to gather distinctive items, and we wish artists to have the ability to make a residing by way of their music.”