tech
Page: 70
HipHopWired Featured Video
CLOSE
Source: Nintendo / The Legend of Zelda Tears of The Kingdom
Is the Game of The Year competition already over? Many critics and gamers believe so with the arrival of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Today is a big day for Nintendo. Reviews have officially dropped for Tears of The Kingdom, and it is no surprise that it keeps the same energy as Breath of The Wild and then some.
Right now, on OpenCritic, the game is sitting at a mighty 97 rating based on 62 critic reviews, earning the title of the “best-reviewed game on the website. On Metacritic, a 96. Tom Marks of IGN gave Tears of The Kingdom a perfect score, writing in his review, “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an unfathomable follow-up, expanding a world that already felt full beyond expectation and raising the bar ever higher into the clouds.”
“An excellent sequel and one of the best Zelda games ever made. A follow-up that builds upon and refines the achievements of the original while adding many new and equally innovative ideas of its own,” GameCentral said in its review, where they also gave the game a perfect score.
“Tears of the Kingdom is a triumph of open-ended game design that pays homage to the best parts of the Zelda franchise’s own storied history–and sometimes exceeds them,” Steven Watts wrote in his review for GameSpot.
Is The Game of The Year Debate Already Over?
The ridiculously high reviews for the game have gamers and critics saying Tears of The Kingdom is a lock for Game of The Year honors. That is a safe bet because Breath of The Wild was met with similar praise when it hit the Nintendo Switch in 2017.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom arrives on Nintendo Switch consoles on May 12. You can see more reactions about the GOTY lock in the gallery below.
—
Photo: Nintendo / The Legend of Zelda Tears of The Kingdom
1. Welp, that settles it.
What if we had the power to bring back the dead? As far as recordings are concerned, we might be getting pretty close.
The viral success of the so-called “Fake Drake” track “Heart on My Sleeve,” which apparently employed AI technology to create realistic renderings of vocals from Drake and The Weeknd without their knowledge, has raised the possibility that perhaps any voice can now be imitated by AI, even artists who died decades ago.
Last week, producer Timbaland did just that. “I always wanted to work with BIG, and I never got a chance to. Until today…” he said in an Instagram Reel, pressing play on an unreleased song clip that sounds like Notorious BIG, rapping on top of a Timbaland beat, despite the fact that the rapper was murdered in a drive-by shooting 25 years prior. (A representative for Timbaland did not respond to Billboard’s request for comment. A representative for Notorious BIG’s estate declined to comment).
But this is not the first time a deceased stars’ voice has been resurrected with AI. The HYBE-owned AI voice synthesis company Supertone recreated the voice of late-South Korean folk artist Kim Kwang-seok last year, and in November, Tencent’s Lingyin Engine made headlines for developing “synthetic voices in memory of legendary artists,” like Teresa Teng and Anita Mui. To see more even examples of this technology applied to late American singers, take a few minutes on TikTok, searching phrases like “Kurt Cobain AI cover” or “XXXTentacion AI voice.”
Some artists – like Grimes and Holly Herndon – have embraced the idea of this vocal recreation technology, finding innovative ways to grant fans access to their voices while maintaining some control through their own AI models, but other artists are showing signs that they will resist this, fearing that the technology could lead to confusion over which songs they actually recorded. There is also fear that fans will put words into artists’ mouths, making them voice phrases and opinions that they would never say IRL. Even Grimes admitted on Twitter there is the possibility that people will use her voice to say “rly rly toxic lyrics” or “nazi stuff” – and said she’d take those songs down.
In the case of artists like Notorious BIG or Kurt Cobain, who both passed away when the internet was still something you had to dial-up, it’s impossible to know where they might stand on this next-gen technology. Still, their voices are being resurrected through AI, and it seems these vocals are getting more realistic by the day.
It calls to mind the uncanny valley nature of the Tupac hologram which debuted at Coachella in 2012, or even the proliferation of posthumous albums in more recent years, which are especially common to see from artists who passed away suddenly at a young age, like Juice WRLD, Lil Peep, and Mac Miller.
Tyler, the Creator has voiced what many others have felt about the posthumous album trend. At an April 26 concert in Los Angeles, he noted that he’s written it into his will that he does not want any unreleased music put out after his death. “That’s f-cking gross,” he said. “Like, half-ass ideas and some random feature on it…like no.” It remains unclear if Tyler’s dying wishes would be honored when that time comes, however. Labels often own every song recorded during the term of their contract with an artist, so there is financial incentive for labels to release those unheard records.
Some who look at this optimistically liken the ability to render an artists’ voice onto a cover or original track as an emerging, novel form of fan engagement, similar to remixing, sampling, or even writing fan fiction. Similar to where this new technology seems to be headed, remixes and samples also both started as unsanctioned creations. Those reworkings were often less about making songs that would go toe-to-toe with the original artists’ catalog on the Billboard charts than it was about creativity and playfulness. Of course, there were plenty of legal issues that came along with the emergence of both remixing and sampling.
The legality of bringing artists’ voices back from the grave specifically is also still somewhat unclear. A celebrity’s voice may be covered by “right of publicity” laws which can protect them from having their voices commercially exploited without authorization. However, publicity rights post-mortem can be limited. “There’s no federal rights of publicity statute, just a hodgepodge of different state laws,” says Josh Love, partner at Reed Smith. He explains that depending on where the artist was domiciled at the time of their death, their estate may not possess any rights of publicity, but in states like California, there can be strong protection after death.
Another potential safeguard is the Lanham Act – which prohibits the use of any symbol or device that is likely to deceive consumers about the association, sponsorship, or approval of goods and services — though it may be less of a potent argument post-mortem. But most cases in which rights of publicity or the Lanham Act were used to protect a musician’s voice – like Tom Waits v. Frito Lay and Bette Midler v. Ford – were clear examples of voices being appropriated for commercial use. Creative works, like songs, are much more likely to be deemed a protected form of free speech.
Some believe this could be a particularly interesting new path for reviving older catalogs, especially when the artist is not alive to take part in any more promotion, for the estates and rights holders who control the artists’ likeness. As Zach Katz, president and COO of FaZe Clan and former president of BMG US, put it in a recent press release for voice mapping service Covers.ai: “AI will open a new, great opportunity for more legacy artists and catalogs to have their ‘Kate Bush’ or “Fleetwood Mac’ moment,” he said. “We are living in a remix culture and the whole fan-music movement is overdue to arrive in the industry.”
Though Covers.ai, created by start-up MAYK, was only just released to the public today, May 10, the company announced that it already amassed over 100,000 sign ups for the service leading up to its launch, proving that there is a strong appetite for this technology. With Covers.ai, users can upload original songs and map someone else’s voice on top of it, and the company says it is working to partner with the music business to license and pay for these voices. Its co-founder and CEO, Stefan Heinrich, says this idea is especially popular so far with Gen Z and Gen Alpha, “the product we’re building here is really made for the next generation, the one coming up.”
Between Supertone, Lingyin Engine, Covers.ai, and others competitors like Uberduck coming into the marketplace, it seems the popularization of these AI voice synthesizers is inevitable (albeit legally uncertain) but playing with dead artists’ voices adds another layer of moral complexity to the discussion: is this more akin to paying respects or grave robbing?
MAYK’s artificial intelligence-powered voice recreation tool officially launched to all users today (May 10).
Covers.ai lets users upload their own original songs and then try on other AI-voices on top of it, including the voices of Billboard Hot 100-charting talent. According to a company press release, Covers.ai’s tool topped over 100,000 sign-ups prior to its launch.
Its founder and CEO, Stefan Heinrich — an entrepreneur who previously worked in high-ranking positions for Cameo, TikTok, Musical.ly and YouTube — explains that, for now, most of the models available for users to work with are “community models.”
“This is open source,” he explains. “There are users that make these models with various celebrity voices out in the wild, and those can be uploaded and marked at ‘community models’ on our site. At the same time, we are working with artist teams to license the voices of specific talent so we can find a way to compensate them for their official use.”
Eventually, Heinrich says he also hopes to find a way to license song catalogs from rights holders so that users can mix and match tracks with various artists’ voices they find on the site. Through these licensing agreements, he hopes to find a way to create a new revenue stream for talent, but to date, these licenses have not yet been finalized.
MAYK is backed by notable music investors including Zach Katz (president/COO of FaZe Clan, former president of BMG US), Matt Pincus (co-founder and CEO of MUSIC), Jon Vlassopulos (CEO of Napster, former global head of music at Roblox), Mohnish Sani (principle, content acquisition, Amazon Music) and more.
The launch arrives as conversations around AI and vocal deepfakes are at a fever pitch. Just last month, an unknown songwriter called Ghostwriter went viral for creating a song called “Heart on My Sleeve” using supposed AI-renderings of Drake and The Weeknd’s voices without their knowledge. Soon after, Grimes responded to the news by launching her own AI voice model to let users freely use her voice to create music.
In just a few minutes of searching, it’s apparent that TikTok is already flooded with songs with AI-vocals, whether they are original songs employing the voices of famous talent, like “Heart on My Sleeve,” or mashing up one well-known song with the voice of a different artist.
This AI vocal technology raises legal questions, however.
Mimicking vocals may be a violation an artist’s so-called right of publicity – the legal right to control how your individual identity is commercially exploited by others. Past landmark cases — like Tom Waits v. Frito Lay and Bette Midler v. Ford Motor Company — have established that soundalikes of famous voices cannot be employed without their consent to sell products, but the precedent is less clear when it comes to creative expressions like songs, which are much more likely to be deemed a protected form of free speech.
Heinrich hopes that Covers.ai can help “democratize creativity” and make it far more “playful” in an effort to get music fans from the lean-back forms of music discovery, like listening to radio or a pre-programmed editorial playlist, to a more engaged, interactive experience. “I think what music is really changing right now,” he says, noting that Covers.ai’s earliest adopters are mostly Gen Z and Gen Alpha. “The product we’re building here is really made for the next generation, the one coming up.”
As the music industry grapples with the far-reaching implications of artificial intelligence, Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl is being mindful of the opportunities it will create. “Framing it only as a threat is inaccurate,” he said on Tuesday (May 9) during the earnings call for the company’s second fiscal quarter ended March 31.
Kyncl’s tenure as chief business officer at YouTube informs his viewpoint on AI’s potential to contribute to the music industry’s growth. “When I arrived [at YouTube] in 2010, we were fighting many lawsuits around the world and were generating low tens of millions of dollars from [user-generated content],” he continued. “We turned that liability into a billion-dollar opportunity in a handful of years and multibillion-dollar revenue stream over time. In 2022, YouTube announced that it paid out over $2 billion from UGC to music rightsholders alone and far more across all content industries.”
Not that AI doesn’t pose challenges for owners of intellectual property. A wave of high-profile AI-generated songs — such as the “fake Drake”/The Weeknd track, “Heart on My Sleeve,” by an anonymous producer under the name Ghostwriter — has revealed how off-the-shelf generative AI technologies can easily replicate the sound and style of popular artists without their consent.
“Our first priority is to vigorously enforce our copyrights and our rights in name, image, likeness, and voice, to defend the originality of our artists and songwriters,” said Kyncl, echoing comments by Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge in a letter sent to Spotify and other music streaming platforms in March. In that letter, Grainge said UMG “would not hesitate to take steps to protect our rights and those of our artists” against AI companies that use its intellectual property to “train” their AI.
“It is crucial that any AI generative platform discloses what their AI is trained on and this must happen all around the world,” Kyncl said on Tuesday. He pointed to the EU Artificial Intelligence Act — a proposed law that would establish government oversight and transparency requirements for AI systems — and efforts by U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer in April to build “a flexible and resilient AI policy framework” to impose guardrails while allowing for innovation.
“I can promise you that whenever and wherever there is a legislative initiative on AI, we will be there in force to ensure that protection of intellectual property is high on the agenda,” Kyncl continued.
Kyncl went on to note that technological problems also require technological solutions. AI companies and distribution platforms can manage the proliferation of AI music by building new technologies for “identifying and tracking of content on consumption platforms that can appropriately identify copyright and remunerate copyright holders,” he continued.
Again, Kyncl’s employment at YouTube comes into play here. Prior to his arrival, the platform built a proprietary digital fingerprinting system, Content ID, to manage and monetize copyrighted material. In fact, one of Kyncl’s first hires as CEO of WMG, president of technology Ariel Bardin, is a former YouTube vp of product management who oversaw Content ID.
Labels are also attempting to rein in AI content by adopting “user-centric” royalty payment models that reward authentic, human-created recordings over mass-produced imitations. During UMG’s first quarter earnings call on April 26, Grainge said that “with the right incentive structures in place, platforms can focus on rewarding and enhancing the artist-fan relationship and, at the same time, elevate the user experience on their platforms, by reducing the sea of noise … eliminating unauthorized, unwanted and infringing content entirely.” WMG adopted user-centric (i.e. “fan-powered”) royalties on SoundCloud in 2022.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Christopher Furlong / Getty / Twitter
If you haven’t used your Twitter account in a while and plan on keeping it, you better log on now because Elon Musk wants to get rid of it.
Elon Musk said on his janky Twitter app to warn his followers and other users, “You will probably see follower count drop” after revealing that the platform will begin “purging” accounts that “had no activity at all for several years.”
The announcement didn’t reveal an exact date for this purge, but you can bet one is on the way from Twitter in the form of a blog post.
Musk’s tweet about inactive accounts comes after reportedly threatening to reassign NPR’s Twitter handle after the news outlet ditched Twitter for other social media platforms after labeling NPR “state-affiliated media,” putting it in the same category as Russia’s RT.
Per Engadget’s reporting, Musk told NPR in an email exchange that it’s Twitter’s policy to “recycle handles that are definitively dormant,” and the “same policy applies to all accounts.”
Elon Musk Says His Company Will Archive Abandoned Accounts
Responding to his tweet, a paid subscriber to Musk’s profile “strongly” urged Musk not to purge inactive accounts. “Deleting the output of inactive accounts would be terrible. I still see people liking ten year old tweets I made, but the threads are already often fragmented with deleted or unavailable tweets. Don’t make it worse!”
Musk replied to the user by revealing his platform would archive the “abandoned” accounts.
Currently, the platform’s policy page on inactive accounts says to “log in at least every 30 days,” adding it will delete accounts due to inactivity.
We shall see if Musk keeps his word on this policy update.
—
Photo: Christopher Furlong / Getty
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Jerod Harris / Getty / Snoop Dogg
Snoop Dogg wants to know, “Where the f*ck is the money?”
The WGA is currently in the streets demanding better pay and other assurances from Hollywood, and Snoop Dogg wants the same for music artists.
Speaking on a panel earlier this week alongside his business partner and former Apple Music executive and Gamma founder Larry Johnson, plus Variety‘s Shirley Halperin, the West Coast rapper urged artists to boycott streaming services for being stingy with the coins, and they can take some lesson from the writers to make that happen.
“[Artists] need to figure it out the same way the writers are figuring it out,” the “Gin & Juice” crafter said. “The writers are striking because [of] streaming, they can’t get paid. Because when it’s on the platform, it’s not like in the box office.”
He continued, “I don’t understand how the fuck you get paid off of that shit. Somebody explain to me how you can get a billion streams and not get a million dollars?… That’s the main gripe with a lot of us artists is that we do major numbers… But it don’t add up to the money. Like where the fuck is the money?”
YouTube also caught a stray from Snoop after Jackson spoke about Gamma only receiving $15,000 in payout money from 500 million YouTube Shorts streams. “YouTube, y’all motherf*ckers need to break bread or fake dead!” he added.
Snoop Dogg’s Beef With Music Streaming Is Nothing New
With the help of Jackson’s Gamma, whom he has a long-term deal with, Snoop Dogg pulled the iconic record label’s music catalog back on streaming services.
Gamma also quietly helped get Death Row’s music on TikTok in February. That move came a year after Uncle Snoop acquired Death Row Records, hence why he has been handing out Death Row chains like they’re Halloween candy. He also pulled the label’s music off streaming services because he was not feeling the artist payout situation.
During a Drink Champs episode last year, he didn’t bite his tongue about streaming services being cheap with the dough.
“First thing I did was snatch all the music off those platforms traditionally known to people, because those platforms don’t pay,” he told the Drink Champs crew. “And those platforms get millions of streams, and nobody gets paid other than the record labels.”
“So what I wanted to do is snatch my music off, create a platform similar to Amazon, Netflix, Hulu. It’ll be a Death Row app, and the music, in the meantime, will live in the metaverse.”
We don’t know if that metaverse or app will hit, but more power to the Doggfather.
—
Photo: Jerod Harris / Getty
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Activision / Call of Duty / Kevin Durant
Kevin Durant calls himself Easy Money Sniper, and now we will see if he can live up to that in Call of Duty as the latest operator.
The writing was on the wall literally, and Call of Duty players saw it coming. Fans of the franchise figured it all out when they spotted Easy Money Sniper, the Phoenix Suns All-Star’s Instagram handle written on one of the buildings hinting he would be coming to the game.
Related Stories
That was confirmed when Call of Duty announced that the professional hooper, business mogul, and avid gamer would be the next available skin.
“@easymoneysniper is drafted to Call of Duty for his rookie season, ” Call of Duty writes in the caption of the IG post. “Kevin Durant will be available in a special, limited-time Store Bundle to be released during Season 03 Reloaded.”
Immediately after the announcement, the one question COD players had on their minds was if Durant would be in all of his 6’11 glory when he becomes available, making him a very obvious target in the game, or will he be shrunken down to the exact size of the other operators.
Durant’s addition to the game follows the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle villain, The Shredder’s operator skin.
[embedded content]
We can’t wait to see how Easy Money Sniper looks and feels in the game. We also wonder how good Durant is in Call of Duty. He didn’t make a good impression in the NBA 2K Players Only Tournament.
On the other hand, his teammate, Devin Booker, is an excellent COD player, so he might be jealous that KD got an operator skin before him.
We are sure Booker will eventually get into the game too.
8 photos
—
Photo: Activision
DistroKid is all grown up, with the launch of its first-ever branded mobile app.
Initially available for iPhone, DistroKid’s app puts the independent digital music distributor’s tools at the fingertips of artists, all the time.
From today (May 4), clients can upload new releases, receive instant payment alerts, access stats from Apple and Spotify, and edit metadata, all from their devices, according to a presser.
“The number one request we’ve gotten from DistroKid members is a dedicated mobile app,” comments Matthew Ogle, VP of product at DistroKid. “With music consumption, promotion, and increasingly even music creation happening predominately on mobile, we are meeting artists where they’re at, on their phones.”
British R&B singer Xadi participated in the beta-rollout, and, in a statement, vouches that the app “felt so familiar and easy to use.”
It’s unclear when the app will be available for Android.
The DistroKid iPhone app is the latest innovation from DistroKid, which claims to distribute 30-40% of all new music in the world and, in 2021, was valued at $1 billion.
Earlier in 2023, the business pressed the button on Mixea, an AI-powered intelligent mastering tool that helps artists prep their tunes for radio.
Last year, DistroKid officially got busy in the music video space with the launch of DistroVid, which enables artists to upload an unlimited number of music videos to leading digital service providers for one flat price.
And in 2021, the rollout of Upstream, a service that would allow independent artists using the platform to share data with record labels in hopes of grabbing attention, and getting signed.
Now in its 10th year, DistroKid pays artists 100% of their earnings, and claims to have processed more than 25 million songs.
Britain’s competition watchdog said Thursday that it’s opening a review of the artificial intelligence market, focusing on the technology underpinning chatbots like ChatGPT.
The Competition Markets Authority said it will look into the opportunities and risks of AI as well as the competition rules and consumer protections that may be needed.
AI’s ability to mimic human behavior has dazzled users but also drawn attention from regulators and experts around the world concerned about its dangers as its use mushrooms — affecting jobs, copyright, education, privacy and many other parts of life.
The CEOs of Google, Microsoft and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI will meet Thursday with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris for talks on how to ease the risks of their technology. And European Union negotiators are putting the finishing touches on sweeping new AI rules.
The U.K. watchdog said the goal of the review is to help guide the development of AI to ensure open and competitive markets that don’t end up being unfairly dominated by a few big players.
Artificial intelligence “has the potential to transform the way businesses compete as well as drive substantial economic growth,” CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said. “It’s crucial that the potential benefits of this transformative technology are readily accessible to U.K. businesses and consumers while people remain protected from issues like false or misleading information.”
The authority will examine competition and barriers to entry in the development of foundation models. Also known as large language models, they’re a sub-category of general purpose AI that includes systems like ChatGPT.
The algorithms these models use are trained on vast pools of online information like blog posts and digital books to generate text and images that resemble human work, but they still face limitations including a tendency to fabricate information.
As the tech hype shifts from crypto to AI, the Web3 space is left trying to figure out sustainable use cases for NFTs and blockchain technology. Progress is being made through shared streaming royalties, Web3 fan clubs that unlock exclusive content, and a new wave of independent artists finding their first supporters and early fans by releasing their music on-chain.
However, Web3 still attracts cash grabs and, sometimes, outright scams. This mix of good and bad was reflected in April as many independent artists stood shoulder to shoulder with Snoop Dogg in terms of sales — but the month was marred by a rushed Soulja Boy NFT that was delisted from major platforms.
Overall, April was the worst month for NFT volume (in ETH terms) on the popular sales platform OpenSea since July 2021 and that weakness was reflected in the music NFT market. Volume across the 10 biggest projects netted 278.4 ETH, down from 381 ETH in March. In dollar terms, it’s $509,714, compared to March’s $697,393. Based on analysis of sales data from 19 different NFT platforms, independent releases combined with secondary sales volume on OpenSea, here are the 10 biggest-selling music NFTs and collections in March 2023.
1/ Soulja Boy – 3D Game NFT (Delisted by OpenSea)Monthly trading volume: 114 ETH ($208,734)Primary sales (March): N/ASecondary sales: 114 ETH ($208,734)Drop date: April 6
After Soulja Boy was charged in March for promoting cryptocurrencies without disclosure by the SEC, the rapper dropped a series of NFTs, with one collection removed by OpenSea for copyright infringement.
Soulja Boy launched a collection of 500 3D NFTs which promised to unlock exclusive extras in his upcoming video game. The NFTs sold out within hours, generating 68 ETH ($124,508), but the collection was later taken down by leading NFT platform OpenSea because the artwork featured the Ferrari logo — a copyright infringement. The NFTs still exist on the Ethereum blockchain but cannot be traded or sold by holders. A second collection followed (without the Ferrari logo) generating 10 ETH ($18,310) volume, and a third collection of pixel art generated 36 ETH ($65,916).
The NFT community hit back at Soulja Boy, not only for the fumbled NFT projects but for pocketing as much as $730,000 over recent years for promoting crypto and NFTs — many of which turned out to be scams.
2/ Snoop Dogg – Various collectionsMonthly trading volume: 39.896 ETH ($73,049)Primary sales (March): 5.775 ETHSecondary sales: 34.121 ETHDrop date: various
A rare Snoop Dogg NFT — the “golden egg” from his XYZ track — sold for 20 ETH in April, the highest price paid for a single music NFT on Web3 music platform Sound.xyz. The “golden egg” is a unique 1/1 collectible associated with the song within the bigger collection of 10,000. Golden eggs are often valued highly by music collectors on the platform. Snoop Dogg also dropped another song, Let Me Hit That, on Sound.xyz last month, netting a further 5.74 ETH ($10,509), while his “Bacc on Death Row” NFT collection generated 14 ETH ($25,634) in trading volume on OpenSea.
View the collection on Sound.xyz.
3/ DeafbeefMonthly trading volume: $61,314Primary sales (March): $46,000Secondary sales: $15,314Drop date: March 2021
Deafbeef is a music project valued like fine art by many in the Web3 space. It’s a collection of generative music, created by an algorithm, and coded into existence on a 10-year old computer by musician Deafbeef. Minted straight to the Ethereum blockchain at the moment of creation, it represents an experimental art form only possible through Web3 and it’s considered one of the most important early NFT experiments. These rare items are often referred to as “grails” and thought of like art pieces. A single edition changed hands for $46,000 last month, while Deafbeef also sold a new piece at auction for $15,314.
View the collection on OpenSea.
4/ KINGSHIP – “Keycards”Monthly trading volume: 23 ETH ($42,113)Primary sales (March): N/ASecondary sales: 23 ETHDrop date: May 2022
The Bored Ape Supergroup has become a permanent fixture of the monthly roundup with another month of strong trading volume on OpenSea through April. KINGSHIP recently launched a way for holders to generate rewards called ‘Crowns’ by participating in the community, which they can use to buy exclusive items and NFTs via a new auction system.
View the collection on OpenSea.
5/ PLS&TY – “New Color”Monthly trading volume: $37,229Primary sales (March): $37,229Secondary sales: N/ADrop date: April 27
PLS&TY is a prolific EDM producer with hundreds of millions of streams across his music on YouTube and Spotify. He’s also an early adopter in the NFT space. The producer’s latest collection on GALA Music — a Web3 music platform that Snoop Dogg called his home for Death Row Records featuring several NFTs drops from artists on the label — generated $37,229 with a collection of 300 audiovisual NFTs.
View the collection on OpenSea.
6/ X Li – “think i’m in love with you”Monthly trading volume: 20.121 ETH ($36,841)Primary sales (March): 20.121 ETHSecondary sales: N/ADrop date: April 26
Independent LA singer X Li exploded onto the Web3 music scene in April with a heartbreak ballad — a departure from the typical EDM and hip- hop sounds that dominate the space. The track quickly rocketed to the top three3 most collected songs on Sound.xyz with over 4,000 mints. X Li has previously worked with Sony Music Entertainment China but is now embracing Web3 and building a music community called Liberal Mafias.
View the collection on Sound.xyz.
7/ Violetta Zironni – “Another Life”Monthly trading volume: 11 ETH ($20,141)Primary sales (March): N/ASecondary sales: 11 ETHDrop date: Feb. 20
Italian singer-songwriter Violetta Zironi launched an NFT collection, Another Life — an EP encompassing five tracks and 5,500 unique profile picture illustrations. Holders get access to virtual shows, live concerts and the ability to use the songs for their own projects. The project launched in February but continued to generate strong secondary sales through April.
View the collection on OpenSea.
8/ LNRZ – “Satellites”Monthly trading volume: 6.3 ETH ($11,535)Primary sales (March): 6.3 ETHSecondary sales: N/ADrop date: April 21
LNRZ is a music collective founded by Reo Cragun, a pioneering artist in the Web3 music space and vocalist on Flume’s EP “Quits.” The collective is known for releasing music NFTs every week through curated drops with select artists, but in April they released their first original body of work. Satellites is a six-track album featuring five emerging musicians that came together at a songcamp in Las Vegas. The LNRZ community voted on the price, supply and rarity structure of the NFT drop, which sold out 1,250 editions in 24 hours.
View the collection on Sound.xyz.
9/ Culture Code, Araya & RUNN – “After All”Monthly trading volume: ~$9,697Primary sales (March): ~$9,697Secondary sales: N/ADrop date: April 10
After All is a dreamy electronic track that racked up 800,000 streams since its release in February. DJ and producer duo Culture Code sold a percentage of streaming royalties in the track via music rights platform Royal. The pair sold approximately 100 gold tokens offering 0.1228% ownership each, and three diamond tokens at $899 each offering 1.6204%.
View the collection on Royal.
10/ Illenium – “Illenium Fire, Ice & Ash” digital deluxe albumsMonthly trading volume: $8,908Primary sales (March): $8,908Secondary sales: N/ADrop date: April 27
DJ and producer Illenium entered the top 10 in March with a Web3 access pass that granted access to a fan club powered by tech company Medallion. He returned in April with the release of a digital deluxe album, available in three limited editions, only to the fan club. Fans that own the first two editions can unlock the ultra-exclusive third edition, or two fans can team up to unlock the third.
Only available to fan club members.
Methodology: The chart was compiled using data from primary music NFT sales across 19 different NFT platforms, independent releases and combined with secondary volume data from OpenSea. Data was captured between April 1 – April 30, 2023. Conversion rates from crypto to US dollars were calculated on April 30.
Disclaimer: The author owns NFTs from LNRZ and Snoop Dogg, however, the above list is based purely on sales data.