Do not index
Do not index
Today we are announcing Metaverve Records.
It’s the first (?) web3 jazz record label. The intent is to get more exposure for little-known, amazing artists.
The label is only focused on publishing music that was not published before, ever! Unique pieces, exclusive demos & outtakes!
NFTs value will likely increase as these artists get more and more stage time.
Since I know some musician-friends will read this, here is how you can think of web3 concepts related to the label:
  • Tracks: we don’t have tracks. We have unique 1/1 NFTs (non fungible tokens) that we mint on the main net (we use ETH for this as of now, although gas fees are quite high)
  • CDs: we don’t make CDs, we make collections of NFTs.
As you can imagine, the name of the label, Metaverve Records, is a play on Metaverse, an alternative reality which will be accessible in the future, and Verve Records, one of the iconic jazz record label of all times 🎷
Here are some reasons why I decided to build this:

1 – Because I can

As it is a running experiment, I’m starting with myself: the only music listed so far it’s music that I played and recorded. This project fits me as an artist and maker as I can play, I can code a smart contract, and I can probably get some eyeballs on the project.

2 – The music industry is broken

I wrote about this in more detail in our manifesto. Let’s face it: it doesn’t make sense to record CDs anymore: nobody buys them, and Spotify and the likes have contributed to making music more and more a commodity. It’s hard to make a living recording and selling music. Especially, for emerging artists out there.

3 – Artists are too selfish

Among the label values, the one I’m most excited about is composability, a concept that is natively part of the web3. Without getting into technical details, it lets other people build on top of our existing NFTs. And, I’m looking forward to it.
First of all, I think there’s too much ego in music, and even the concept of copyrights doesn’t seem to make sense for me anymore: ok, maybe you have written 12 notes in a certain way, but that doesn’t mean you have any rights on that particular sound. Notes and sounds are two different things.
Since web3 is decentralized, someone else can own what I made, add to it, and make something that probably I could not, and I still have to option to make a little profit from these future transactions.
Secondly, experimenting with pre-existing material is part of jazz, and actually, it’s the unique force behind it. All of us musicians do that with standards: we take something written by some guy years ago and improvise on it. This gives us more material to play with, and gives us more freedom to take the music in different directions.

4 – It broadens the market

Ok, let me put my marketing hat on. I think web3 is a great opportunity for artists of every kind because it can broaden the market of people who actually buy art.
For jazz in particular, it’s no secret that people who buy jazz are a very small niche, and a lot of them are other musicians who play jazz. It’s inception.
Because it’s early, I don’t think our sales will come from this niche. The only people who will actually buy NFTs from the label will be techy (nerdy) people, who have a wallet and want to collect NFTs.

Status quo

Right now we have minted our first collection called Moon&Sun. People can buy two NFTs from the collection on OpenSea. The floor price is 0.3 ETH
I also shipped wallet connection on the label website. In the near future, if you hold one of our NFTs, you’ll be able to unlock extra content on the website.
Finally, I’m dropping some links here:
  • You can explore our website here.
  • You can explore our first collection on OpenSea here.
  • You can see our NFTs gallery in virtual reality here.
  • You can join our club on Discord here.
Let’s see how it goes!
Thanks for reading,
Mike
Mike Rubini

Written by

Mike Rubini

CEO