With the emergence of music NFT streaming platforms, such as Ooh La La and Spinamp, musicians and collectors were finally able to arrange their favorite tracks into playlists to share and spread the hype of Web3 music.  Prior to the launch of these platforms, music discovery in Web3 was clunky (and painful), like most things in the space.  Enabling seamless music discovery in Web3 was a major step forward.  Curation and discovery are often mentioned in the same breath when talking about music. These topics have been a thematic undertone within Web3 for some time now with a few key players pushing the narrative, such as our iconic CoopahTroopah.  As of last month, the narrative shifted when Spinamp announced a new feature that allows you to purchase music NFTs directly from their platform.  All I can say is that discovery and curation just got a whole lot cooler!

Discovering new music is every musicophiles greatest joy, especially if the artist “discovered” goes on to be extremely successful.  Consumers of music often like being early.  It is a huge flex when someone takes over the aux to share the new music they love and they play an artist who you have been listening to for some time, maybe even years.  Before now, consumers of music really couldn’t back up their claims of being early, but with blockchain and NFTs, musicophiles can now pinpoint the exact moment that they found and endorsed new music.  Discovery is a valuable asset to the consumer and we now have a tool (blockchain) that makes it even more valuable…but how do people discover new music? 

Historically, the radio (and other forms of direct marketing) was the most dominant mechanism for new music discovery until the rise of streaming services.  Once streaming took over it was up to the individual platforms to bake in methods for discovery including curated playlists (essentially what radio did in real-time) and algorithmic recommendations.  Currently, there is an extreme lack of influential “organic” discovery that happens on mainstream digital streaming platforms.  If I find a new artist that I enjoy, my consumption of their music likely will not have any effect on that artist's success.  This narrative was shifted for a brief moment when SoundCloud gained traction and a new wave of music discovery took over.  Since anyone and everyone could upload to SoundCloud it was up to the consumers on the platform to “like” and endorse tracks and artists they liked.  Other consumers on the platform were able to see this data and react to it.  This drove organic music discovery and music consumerism.  Music NFTs are awakening the excitement of influential organic discovery once again.  Looking at what other NFTs people have collected drives consumers to discover artists and in turn, increase that artist's collector base+sales.  Right now there is a major emphasis on finding the next breakout Web3 artist, and so our small community of music NFT collectors are sifting through the hundreds of NFT releases and endorsing the artists they enjoy in hopes that one will be the next big thing.  Sound.xyz boosted the discovery process with their real-time activity feed.  Now anyone can go onto the platform and see what music NFTs are being bought.  If an NFT has a lot of activity it means it is probably worth listening to and possibly securing for your bag (if you like it).  By seeing what others are listening to and purchasing, consumers will experience a degree of FoMO and be driven to explore the most active and endorsed music moment by moment.  A similar activity feature is present on the Spinamp platform but it is NFT specific and not a global feed of all activity occurring in the market– but if you find a song on Spinamp that you like, you can quickly check its recent sales activities to see if it is hot!                 

Due to the saturation of music on digital streaming platforms curated playlists have emerged as a major player in the discovery narrative.  Getting onto curated playlists on streaming platforms is not easy but invariably will increase an artist's streams if they make it onto one.  Spotify has a team of editors/experts that design their influential curated playlists.  The issue with this method of discovery is that your consumption of music is being driven by the taste and selections of a small group of individuals who might (likely) be incentivized to highlight specific artists and tracks over others.  That being said, a curated list of songs invariably drives consumers to music and assists in the discovery process.    

Curation had already begun to emerge in Web3 music with trending playlists on NFT streaming platforms and weekly roundups like brokeinvestr’s “Fresh Mints.”  Right now it is every consumer's chance to position themselves as a tastemaker of music NFTs and drive the narrative about what is good music that should be consumed and what is not… Because not all music is good.  From a music fan/consumers perspective, the open oppourtunity to curate on music NFT streaming platforms and gain traction for having “good taste” is great incentive to remain active and present in Web3 music– it is a cool social value to be known for your music taste.

Prior to the “collect” feature on Spinamp, music consumers would need to navigate off of music NFT streaming platforms to purchase a music NFT.  While the additional step of visiting a marketplace to purchase a music NFT isn’t THAT MUCH leg work, it is still leg work.  In order for Web3 music to be successful it needs to be as painless as possible.  Baking in a collection feature does just that!  Additionally, buying behavior can be impulsive/very spur of the moment.  In the time it takes someone to load their preferred marketplace, connect their wallet, search for the music NFT, and purchase, they can lose interest in following through on the transaction.  With Spinamp’s new collection feature it is now almost as simple as saving the song to your own playlist.  This simple addition likely will have incredible market impact by allowing anyone to casually purchase a music NFT if they find a song they enjoy, in the moment.  This feature shipped at a perfect time as well since music NFTs are being minted and sold for quite reasonable prices– it is really easy to impulse buy an NFT for $20 as opposed to $200.

The Spinamp Collect feature really increases the value of curation within Web3.  As mentioned above, curation on Spinamp is still open to anyone- music consumers and artists alike.  Their trending playlist feature pulls the most listened to playlists into a feed for other music consumers to use for their own music discovery. The addition of a new song to a trending playlist is now a legit marketing pathway for a music NFT.  The creators of these trending playlists now can have a direct hand in boosting music NFT sales (and their bags if they are collectors).  For the average casual music consumer this doesn’t mean much, but for the musicophiles of the space this is a huge opportunity.  If you are able to garner attention and establish yourself as a “taste maker” in Web3 music you have power over the narrative of collectible music.  You can be the person to bring an artist from obscurity to the limelight just by finding their music and adding it to your most popular playlists.  Spinamp Collect plays heavily into this power since listeners of your playlist can now purchase songs you endorse seamlessly and your music taste, your curation, is the access point for people engaging with the market!  With this power comes responsibility though– one of the greatest gripes of traditional streaming is that curated playlist are not always a reflection of the quality of the music but rather the connections that musician has to market their music.  Inevitably this “connections” game will seep its way into curation within Web3, but it is up to early endorsed curators to stand by the belief of MUSIC FIRST and push that narrative as the space grows.  

Spinamp Collect shakes things up for musicians in Web3! One of the biggest nuisances for musicians in Web3 music is the promotional grind pre and post mint.  Unless an artist has built a lot of community interest through engagement and narrative (or entered the space with some clout in music), there is a lot of shilling that has to be done by the artist to get their NFT onto collector radar. Now musicians entering Web3 music can shift their shill efforts to target curators.  Instead of flooding their twitter with self-promotion a musician can DM their music NFT to their favorite curators and ask them to listen to it.  If the curator likes the song they can add it to their curated playlists and the rest of the Web3 music consumer community can be exposed through passive listening.  While a musician will never be free of the shill grind, this is a huge gain in their promotional pocket.  If I were a musician right now I would start releasing my music through one of the NFT platforms that Spinamp supports so that I could reap the benefits of the curation-collect consumer cycle that is establishing itself. 

Discovery and curation are fun for musicians and consumers alike.  Participants in Web3 music get to have a heavy hand in these processes at the moment.  If you love music and think you have good taste, now is the time to take discovery and curation seriously to position yourself as a “taste maker” and valued curator before the space becomes saturated.  Curation just got a whole lot more powerful with the addition of Spinamp Collect.  This feature links listening to music NFTs to purchasing music NFTs in a friction-less pathway right inside of their platform, this will inevitably drive/increase consumer behavior.  Curation can now play a larger role in consumer behavior by highlighting the best music in the space to be collected (on the value of the music quality).

For consumers:  Music NFT prices are reasonable so take a dive into Spinamp’s catalog and purchase the tracks you like with ease using the new Spinamp Collect feature!

For curators: Take your music discovery to the next level and take your curation seriously.  If you have good taste and your playlist trends you have POWER!

For musicians: Pay attention to the leading curators/trending playlists.  Your new goal with discovery should be to get on the radar of these curators and end up on their trending playlists!