I get it, you’ve heard the terms “NFT” and “Crypto” enough times that your eyes glaze over when someone starts discussing them. I’ve seen enough people check out of a conversation when it pivots to technology. They’ve either written off the space entirely or are far too removed to know how to decipher it. So let me do my best to take the technical jargon out of here and explain the significance of what’s happening in and music technology.
In my very tumultuous 26 years, I’ve gone from owning a cassette and a cd player to a Walkman to an iPod nano, to being able to control my music intake from my Apple watch. The way we consume music has changed beyond belief. If I were still trying to rewind cassette tapes instead of purchasing a streaming service, everyone would think I was insane. If I sat around and tried to sell CDs instead of uploading on Spotify, I would have no listeners because no one even has a CD player anymore (except my little brother, so I guess I’d have one listener.)
The way we consume music has changed beyond belief.
All that to say, who are we to then turn a blind eye to where technology is taking us next? And if we do ignore it, how long until we’re left miles behind? If nothing, let this be the seed for why we should care. Let it be the reason you’re 1% more open to the conversations you would’ve ignored otherwise.
Take the opportunity to discover why new technology can be your ally and be patient with yourself when it doesn’t click immediately.
One consistent theme emerged when we went from Radio to CDs to Streaming — giving power to the artists. Web3 music ventures are aligned with that movement. Most are looking to solve the issues artists are facing daily and offer alternatives to the unimpressive options we have today.
You don’t have to care about the algorithms, the transaction speeds or why a company chose that specific blockchain to build on. But you should care enough to see if this helping your artistry move forward.
The IRL collective (that’s us!) stands to bridge the abstract-seeming world of music technology to real life. I know that sometimes it seems out of reach to jump into the web3 space, especially with how quickly things are moving. But it shouldn’t be because you as an artist feel unsupported. Stay tuned for more, and don’t hesitate to ask anything and everything! WAGMI!